Hospital Romance: How Much Is Too Much?

Let’s be honest. No one ever plans to fall in love with a coworker. It just happens. Your head may advise you not to get involved with someone at work, but your heart is screaming the opposite. The next thing you know, you have given each other cute nicknames and you’re sharing a Netflix account.

“Office romances” are already hard as they are, but if you’re a nurse, there’s an extra set of challenges that you have to overcome. It can distract you from taking care of your patients properly, especially if you and McDreamy meet frequently. Or it can make your coworkers feel a bit uncomfortable or annoyed by your cheesiness.

With that in mind, one can’t help but wonder, is a romantic nurse relationship too much?

Let’s explore.

The Love Triangle

Office romance is always shaped like a triangle. There’s you, him or her, and your coworkers. The inevitable thing about nurse relationships is that it’s almost impossible to keep the feelings just between two persons. The rumor mill gets started, and now your personal life is everybody’s business. More than that, studies show that office love often fosters negative feeling among colleagues, and these emotions tend to be aimed extremely at women.

Relationships need time to grow before they can be exposed out in the open for people to judge. That’s hard, if not impossible, when your every move is under constant scrutiny.

The Drama

Another potentially ugly consequence of nurse relationship is that if things don’t work out, you still have to see your ex and work with him or her every day. If one of the persons didn’t want the relationship to end, things could get especially bad. This type of situation can affect your performance, increase workplace drama and create a hostile work environment. And, those are the last things you need to have in the already highly stressful environment that you work in.

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