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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Maybe this is a result of working in a heavily gender-imbalanced field but I have never once seen a romantic relationship between coworkers. An asexual workplace would be great. In fact I would guess this is the norm actually. I doubt many kindergarden teachers or oil field workers even have many people of the right sex to pick from.

I've worked at a large tech company, with SWEs being roughly 80:20. Every woman on my team and partner teams ended up dating a coworker. One of them, a 24 year old new grad, ended up dating her 30-something TL. They got married last year.

I'm sure they would be frowned upon by the powers that be, but all of them were happy relationships, and the world would be worse off if those weren't allowed to happen.

Amen, brother. Workplace romances are cancer, though it doesn’t surprise me they would be so common in “tech.” The people who flock to that industry aren’t exactly known for their adaptability to adult social spaces, and the workplace gives them a captive audience with at least a shared interest in profession. It’s “easy mode” for nerds, to an extent.

I also innately detest the kinds of people who try to shit where they eat. It’s an annoyance for those of us just trying to do a job when Boy and Girl are going through a rough patch and can’t work together properly (though they love to insist they can keep it professional, that’s always a lie).

Is tech special? If anything I've seen much more workplace cheating and stuff outside of tech in the business world.

Romantic relationships happen in any human social setting, assuming it's because tech people are weird is unfounded.

Tech isn’t “special,” just contemptible. I observed it all too much in high school and college: the desperate, one-sided infatuation of a large group of nerdy, undersexed men toward their handful of female peers. I have no reason to believe this becomes less contemptible as these young nerds became old, working nerds, though the inflated salaries likely does a number to their egos and baseline confidence.

As I said, these men are typically very bad at cold socializing outside of work, so they become desperate and obnoxious to those around them who are just trying to do a job, since their priority is finding a willing fuck monkey while they’re young.

If this isn't pure trolling, it's an impressively antagonistic simulacrum. Don't post like this, please.

I worked in gender imbalanced tech industry when I met my wife. Ratio was probably 70:30 :: Male:Female.

My wife was also far more aware of relationships between coworkers than I was. I thought it was uncommon, but with her connection to the social grapevine at work she told me of dozens of couples.

Yeah, no. Workplace relationships are completely normal, and insisting on their impropriety feels absolutely inhumane to me. I'd call it a strictly American obsession, but of course neuroses seem to be one of USA's top exports, so I'm seeing it creep into where I live as well. Well, I'm married so I don't care, have fun on the dating apps, kids.

Americans act like sex is illegal under Federal law.