In dating app era, why Indian professionals continue to fall for the charm of a workplace romance

“My wife and I worked as professors and we met everyday, so it was easier to develop a connection and understand each other better, as our shared job roles meant that we had similar ideals and goals for the future,” says Ram. Both partners now teach at different private universities in the national capital.

It was as smooth a love story as could be…the odd tiff or tear adding to the romance.

While it’s obvious that Ram and Maya were not the first, or last, Indian couple to have a meet-cute — that first enchanting moment of meeting or awareness of each other, leading to love — at the workplace, the scale of romances originating at our office might come as a surprise to many.

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A 2025 survey by Ashley Madison, an online platform for discreet dating and relationships, conducted in association with YouGuv, a market research and data analytics firm, has ranked India second among 11 countries with the highest number of office romances. The other countries where the survey, which had a sample size of 13,581 adults, was carried out include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and US. In India, 40 per cent of those surveyed admitted to having dated or currently dating a colleague. The number was just behind Mexico, which topped the survey with 43 per cent.

Interestingly, the report followed another, one by the International Labour Organization last year, which showed India to be among the most overworked countries globally, with 51 per cent of Indians putting in more than 49 hours at work per week.

Are the long hours at work leaving little time for Indians to pursue a relationship outside of the office, encouraging them to reinterpret the romance of ‘love at first sight’ as ‘love at work site’?

“From what I have seen, attraction, friendship, and bonding over the company and policies brings people closer,” agrees Akshaya Gnanashree, a Chennai-based clinical psychologist and founder of The Mind Aid, a mental health service provider. “As colleagues spend time as team members, go out for drinks after work…some end up dating. Sometimes, the attraction is formed through bonding over the company's internal politics. I've seen many couples who have started dating while working together.”

It’s a scene most of us have witnessed unfolding around us at one or the other of our workplaces. That slight holding of gaze a heartbeat longer than necessary while handing a folder, the innocent flirting over lunch or coffee at the office canteen, the cute doodle on a document, or a less-than-stricty official email…

The journey from liking to loving and building a relationship, never an easy one, can become even more difficult, however, when it comes with the added pressure of navigating the office’s HR policy on relationships and being mindful that your crush doesn't clash with the guidelines of The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition And Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH), messy extra-marital affairs and the awkwardness between colleagues after a break-up.

Ram and Maya were lucky. “There was not much opposition from the workplace, as long as the colleagues who were in a relationship were doing their work well,” says the professor.

But Meena* and Raj*, a Mumbai-based couple working in the media and broadcasting industry, had to be more circumvent about their affair, which started at a company which did have a policy against partners working in the same team.

“However, the policy was for married couples. We weren’t married then, or even now, so it didn’t really affect us. But still, we did not tell anyone in our team that we were dating,” says Raj. “We just thought we will let the relationship mature before we make it public. Now, we are in different offices, so those policies don’t matter anymore,” adds Raj, who had been Meena’s senior in the team when they fell in love.

At times, offices too take an indulgent view of the relationship. “As long as a relationship between colleagues is not affecting their productivity, others in the organisation, or the reputation of the company, I see no problem in two people at a workplace being in a relationship, irrespective of gender or sexual orientation,” says Ramya (identified by first name only), who works in the human resources (HR) department of a media company.

But she cautions about “pilferage of information and the [possible damage to] professional boundaries, while giving unfair advantages to certain people [read one’s romantic partner] in the workplace”.

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The dynamics also change, when either of the two people find their colleague’s attention unwanted; where interest turns to alleged harassment, POSH kicks in.

Gita*, a 30-year-old cyber-security expert who had been a part of a POSH investigation committee in her previous workplace, remembers the case of a young woman, a junior colleague, who was allegedly harassed by a male senior at an office party. “She had been in a relationship with another colleague, who was married, and was confiding to the senior about the stress of it, when the senior allegedly made a move on her without consent,” says Gita.

She adds: “The man was much older, someone the young woman claimed to have looked upon as a father figure. When she complained to the POSH committee, varying accounts by those present and the moral policing by the HR, made matters worse. The senior male colleague denied everything.”

Eventually, according to Gita, it was the young woman who lost her job; the senior male colleague was retained. Gita too left the organisation afterwards, because she “felt unsafe” there.

Interestingly, the Ashley Madison survey found women to be more cautious about dating a colleague — while 51 per cent of men surveyed admitted to a workplace romance, the figure was 36 per cent for women. Also, while the biggest concern voiced by women about such a relationship was the fear of professional repercussions (a worry shared by 29 per cent of women respondents), for men it was personal fallout (30 per cent). The most cautious age-group when it came to dating a colleague was the 18-24-year-old category, where 34 per cent voiced concern over the possible career impact of such a relationship.

Take for example the case of Shakchi Prasad, a 23-year-old Chennai-based entrepreneur. Five years back, Shakchi fell in love with the lead instrumentalist of a music band she had then been a part of.

“I was always trying not to let the other band members know that we were [in a relationship],” recalls Shakchi “I did not want my identity [in the band] to be that of just his girlfriend; but that did end up happening and caused issues between both of us.” The couple eventually broke up. But all the band members suffered; things became so bad between the two that the band broke up, says Shakchi.

Add an element of extra-marital to the relationship and the equation could become trickier for all parties involved.

The concept of a work-spouse is often presented with a hint of humour — indeed the term expresses dependency more than romance. But what happens when it ends up being more and where does it leave the real spouse?

“Work-wives and work-husbands do exist. In a lot of multi-national companies people work for extended hours and often only go home to sleep,” observes Aarzu Khattar, an advocate at the Delhi High Court. The resultant break-down of communication between spouses and the comfort one enjoys with a colleague could trigger an affair.

Khattar adds: “In recent years, it has become so bad that it is called ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage’, which is where there are no chances of reconciliation at all. In all these cases of extramarital affairs, it is an informed decision to not want to go back to the marriage.”

Another Ashley Madison-YouGov survey this year, the results of which were published in June, found 53 per cent Indian respondents had cheated on their partners. A Moneycontrol analysis last year of data from a Periodic Labour Force Survey meanwhile found that “in urban India, the ratio of divorced men has risen faster, from 0.3 per cent in 2017-18 to 0.5 per cent in 2023-24. Among the women surveyed by PLFS in cities, 0.7 per cent were divorced, compared with 0.6 per cent seven years back”.

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On the other hand, for workplace couples, the very job which had triggered the bond can end up being a challenge, when it becomes the subject of an ego tussle, or when the work leaches into the personal space.

“The most challenging part of working together as a couple was being a senior to Meena because at the workplace there are some things that are decided as a team. When I had to convey such decisions to the juniors, at times I had to be stern with her, which wasn’t easy,” recalls Raj.

For Meena, on the other hand, the tipping point came, when on one of her birthdays, she had a day off, but she couldn’t spend it with her boyfriend because he was working. “He finally came over only around 11:45 pm, with minutes left for my birthday to end. It became a challenge to find time outside work.”

For couples working together, striking a work-life balance is very important, cautions Gnanashree. Talking about one of her cases, she says, “The man was in a senior position. The woman would, at times, feel the urge to rant about her work worries, her manager, to her boyfriend, but as her senior in another department she couldn’t confide in him. When it comes to couples who are colleagues, there are worries about the hierarchy and power dynamics. When one of them is clearly in a higher position than the other, there can be insecurity between partners. More so when one is looking to be promoted and the other feels insecure.”

She adds: “For couples working together, striking a work-life balance is very important. Not taking work once both are at home, being completely honest with each other and being on an equal footing outside work, are important to sustain the relationship.”

As Ram and Maya have shown over the past decade, the job can be a connect. But to share a life, the workplace romance must survive in an out-of-office environment. Or else, the inability to find a work-life-balance, or a build a bond outside of work, could — in an era where one rarely retires at one’s first job — turn one’s relationship history into a series of office flings; each new workplace offering the promise of a fresh romance.

(*Names have been changed to protect identities.)