Years ago I read a reddit thread saying you shouldn’t pursue friendships or relationships at your workplace. Then I again see all over the places over the internet that friendships don’t happen a lot after you become working adult and that they’re struggling make new friends. My question is If you don’t purse friendships, how would those happen?
Want to know about the thoughts of people over here.
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It’s not that I don’t like my coworkers, and I do spend some time with them, but I preemptively block them on Facebook to have some safety. I do have them on Instagram but that’s 99% pictures of my dogs or maybe vacation so that’s harmless, with the odd goofy meme thrown in for good measure. But I do not add them anywhere I might express a political opinion or share something overly personal. (I also use filters on Facebook the odd time I do this). Someone once took a post of mine out of context and took it to my manager who met with me about it and scolded me with threats of discipline even though it actually had nothing to do with work, because this woman was in very deep shit for something else and trying to divert attention to other staff, because she’s like that.
Also a couple of my coworkers are sort of passive antivaxxers (in that they got the two doses mandated for work but spend time telling us about how the vaccine doesn’t work and we shouldn’t be forced, etc), so they are blocked everywhere and I share very little with them at work besides brief remarks. I have also had some bad days in the last year where I have simply said things at home are tough because I’m obviously not myself, but didn’t share what. I just keep a healthy distance but am reasonably friendly.
Yeah. You’re not going to be friends with everyone from work and over sharing with some people can be a significant problem. You’ve definitely got to pick the people you want to be friends with.
Some of my best and closest friends were former colleagues, men and women. Just happened naturally. Other coworkers were very close during the work, but then drifted apart immediately when the work ended for whatever reason.
But, don’t have a candy dish, don’t be too inviting, don’t be known as someone who listens to gossip. That’s an important boundary to set.
Misery loves company. If anyone reading this has a “friendship” with a coworker based solely on bitching about the job or other coworkers, it’s a liability not a friendship.
