SpaceManAndy’s Advice for Trapped in a Likeless Fake Marriage

Dear SpaceManAndy,

How do you ‘break-up’ with your work spouse?? It’s time to move on, yet you can’t totally blow them off like a normal break up because you see them everyday and be professional. How do you stay cordial but create a distance from someone you used to go to lunch with everyday? Thanks for the advice. Feel free to make up a cool name for me, I got nothin. 🙂

Dear Trapped In A Likeless Fake Marriage (how’s that?),

I’d like to start by defining “work-spouse” for my readers who are unfamiliar. Surviving in the workplace is tough. A lot of people cope by finding one person in the office/restaurant/garage/buttplug assembly line/whatever that you get along with well and (very importantly) can trust. This person is your sanity rock, your co-conspirator, confidant, and bitch-buddy. Now, how to break off this kind of close relationship without making things uncomfortable in a place that is uncomfortable by nature.

This is a really tricky maneuver. Personally I have always thought when a friendship has run its course, you should just let it die. I realize not everyone feels the same way as I do. Many people want a Friend Break-Up to be told why it is that they are no longer welcome in the inner circle. I feel like the Friend Break Up is unnecessary drama, especially if they aren’t a terrible person. If someone wrongs me, we can have words about it, but if for whatever reason, I’m just over someone as a friend, I would rather have them walk away thinking “well, we drifted apart” than wondering what they did wrong.

Now, in your situation, drifting apart is much much more difficult. There is no way to just let them fade away without having to see them every day. I think with this, the best approach is to use logic.

The economy is rough right now. I don’t think your work spouse would be offended if you told them that you can’t afford to go out to lunch every day. Or maybe compromise for now. Propose lunch once a week, or once every 2 weeks. Maybe you agree to go to lunch on paydays to make sure you have money. This is totally grounded in logic, and is hard to argue. Over time you can start cancelling on your biweekly lunches if you find even that is too much.

UNLESS your work spouse wants you to both bring your lunches and eat together. Never fear, I have a solution for that too! I don’t know about your work place, but we don’t get paid for our time if we go out to lunch. We have to work an 8 hour day, not including lunch. That’s why I almost always work through lunch. You can tell your work spouse that you want to leave earlier so you can avoid traffic, so you’re going to start working through lunch. Totally logical without having to say “I don’t like spending time with you.”

Now is the part where it gets real tricky. You’ve managed to get out of lunches, how do you get away from the water cooler talk?

This leaves you with 2 approaches. The honest approach and the dishonest approach. The honest approach is self explanatory and boring. Just tell them how you feel and blah blah blah.

The dishonest approach isn’t even that bad. Just white lies to spare feelings.

The easiest thing to do is pretend to be busy. Remember the George Costanza approach: If you look angry, people will think you’re busy. That can be an issue, though, if you work closely together because they probably know what your workload is like. You’re kind of screwed if they know it’s slow. The bathroom is usually a good excuse, it’s usually how I get my mother off the phone. Make it sound urgent and how can they argue. But you can’t do that too often or they’ll want to talk about your health. Is there anything more invasive than someone you’re not close with wanting to talk about your internal workings?

Another option is to use office politics to your advantage. You could tell your work spouse that there’s been some talk around the office about the two of you slacking and you don’t want to give anyone the impression that you aren’t working. Tell them you need to cool it with the chit-chat for a while. This of course means that you can’t be chit chatting with your other colleagues. Wow, did I just say chit-chat…twice? I must be getting old. Anyway, enough lollygagging. On to my point:

Start distancing yourself, but please please please, have a back-up explanation in mind. If they catch on and come to you with “what’s going on, why don’t we hang out anymore?” Will you be able to look into their puppy dog eyes and tell the truth?

You need to be able to say something. You can’t just stammer. And pleading ignorance might just place you deeper into work-spousery. I can’t tell you what to say if this situation arises, but you need to have something prepared. Good luck.

I don’t know, I guess this could work. Maybe?
SpaceManAndy

If you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired of something, shoot me an email at advice@citythatbreeds.com