Academia/small world dating
March 9, 2016 10:45 AM   Subscribe

Dating across professor/student or supervisor/supervisee lines is clearly out of bounds. However, dating colleagues can also present opportunities for things to blow up in messy and dramatic and hard-to-fix ways, given the small world of many academic disciplines. If you're interested in a colleague in your department, what are some rules (or rules of thumb) to keep in mind when approaching them, beginning to date, and - if necessary - ending a relationship?
posted by clawsoon to Human Relations (34 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Don't.
posted by flabdablet at 10:51 AM on March 9, 2016 [13 favorites]


I believe the traditional wisdom is, "Don't poop where you eat"
posted by Dressed to Kill at 10:52 AM on March 9, 2016 [6 favorites]


Response by poster: I'll add one clarification: I'm sure that most of the good answers will boil down to "respect the other person". However, I was taught that respecting a potential dating partner means to never, ever, ever talk about or hint at anything to do with sex - never ever - and don't try to initiate a relationship unless you're prepared to spend the rest of your life with them. I'm looking for concrete pictures of what respect actually looks like, rather than the '80s just-say-no Christianity I grew up on.

I'm also aware of the easy answer, which is "don't do it at all, ever". However, enough academic weirdos find their matching weirdo this way that it seems better to know what a good academic relationship looks like rather than pretending they don't exist.

Thanks!

posted by clawsoon at 11:01 AM on March 9, 2016


If you are male, do not approach her. Do not assume that a smile or "friendly" behavior is an expression of romantic interest. Assume she is there to do her job. Period.

Unless she unequivocally throws herself at you with completely unambiguous language, err on the side of assuming that she is not interested.

Also, if you have to ask this question, you do not have the savvy needed to navigate the situation at all. So "Don't" works as an answer.

Upon preview: Putting your job and her job at risk is not the place to work out your baggage over an uptight upbringing. There are enough landmines involved in trying to sort that out without risking an accusation of harassment and getting fired.

This is not the right way to pursue this.
posted by Michele in California at 11:08 AM on March 9, 2016 [21 favorites]


I can't give you concrete guidelines, but I wanted to push back a little against the flat out "don't do it" answers you're getting.

I've known several couples within my department that have successfully dated and subsequently married successfully or subsequently broken up with no terrible repercussions, so I don't know that a flat no is necessary. But these were grad students, so there was a clear and (in some cases) looming endpoint after which they could part ways if things went badly.

I get the sense that you're faculty rather than in a grad program, and there I would be more cautious. If one of you is or might in the next couple of years be chair, or sitting on a tenure review committee, I would probably put the brakes on until that supervisory or evaluative role was over. Although having said that, I know a couple where one half was a professor and one was their dean; once things became romantic they immediately shifted the professor to be supervised by another dean at the university and all was well, apparently. (People don't always handle this properly, of course.)
posted by col_pogo at 11:10 AM on March 9, 2016 [9 favorites]


I work in a medium-sized department at a major university. We have about forty faculty, and four married couples are among them. About a third of the rest of them are married to professors in other departments on campus. It happens in academia and it happens a lot. Advice about how to proceed is going to be more practical than advice saying "just don't do it".
posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:11 AM on March 9, 2016 [12 favorites]


I'm sure that most of the good answers will boil down to "respect the other person".

And most of the wise ones based on experience will boil down to "never date a co-worker". It's like crossing the streams.

A good academic-on-academic relationship involves academics working for different employers.
posted by flabdablet at 11:13 AM on March 9, 2016


As a woman who has looked at a lot of couples that started with two grad students dating, or couples that started as two academics on equal footing... and watched a lot of promising women wind up in lower-status lecturer jobs, or otherwise taking a disproportionate amount of career hits to make things work, or dealing with weird vitriol for being the "spousal hire" if they do manage to find a university that will hire them both.

Just. Ugh. There are so many career costs you take on when trying to make dual academia-career households work, and in my experience women seem to bear the brunt of them. I know people who make it work, but the pressure is so bad, bad enough that almost all the public discussion of problems women face in STEM that I've seen in my field boils down to "....I need a wife to survive in academia, but also I have to be a wife to my husband. Also I would like to have kids one day, help, this seems impossible." That seems to be much harder for women in dual-academia careers because both careers are so demanding, and, well, the pressure is so frequently on a woman to cut her career back and be just a bit more flexible.
posted by sciatrix at 11:26 AM on March 9, 2016 [44 favorites]


Best answer: I think that it's very constraining to say "just don't" to something like this. Realistically, living in academia means that you will spend so much time working that as a result, you will probably be closer to the people that you work with than you would in most other careers. Background: I have a PhD in Astrophysics and work at a national laboratory, so my advice may or may not apply. I have dated academic colleagues three times over the years, and here is what I would recommend:

1) You really need to be sure that you don't ask each other out while at work. Christmas party? Maybe. Conference dinner? Maybe. Just not in the department.

2) You should try be very sure that the other person is also interested in you before you ask that person on a date. If you happen to be wrong, you will need to instantly go back to being friendly-professional and never mention the incident ever again.

3) Know thyself: what kind of person are you? Do you sear in pain and anguish after a breakup? Would you never be okay with watching your ex date other people? Unless you have yourself well pulled together, and are a take-the-higher-road type of person, you really shouldn't do this.

4) How about your partner? Will they be able to act professionally and without resentment if you two part ways? You should really try to assess the other person's disappointment management skills as much as you reasonably can.

5) Will you two be separate enough in the department that you wouldn't have to go head-to-head in an academic discussion? You really don't ever want to look like you're taking your partner's "side" or having a "couple's argument" at work. Even if that isn't what you're doing, and the discussion is completely work related, it would be foolish to think that the perceptions of your colleagues don't matter, or that you won't get punished for misinterpretations.

6) The two-body problem: what will you do if one of you has to move to do research? (see sciatrix's comment).

7) The most important: can you and your colleague go about your work without ever bringing your relationship into the department? I'm not suggesting that you entirely hide your relationship, but it helps to aspire to a state where if a new person were to come, they would have no idea that you were dating unless told.
posted by Shouraku at 11:30 AM on March 9, 2016 [16 favorites]


Basically, be really wary of those costs and the demands you make on another academic's career. Really wary. And for god's sake, be careful about assigning credit for work and authorship if you're in the same field.

All being the same, though, I would view another academic's career as a net negative when looking for a partner. A huge net negative. The closer to my discipline they worked, the more negatively I'd view it. The more difference in hierarchical status the more negatively I'd view it, and anything involving more than two steps of career status (PI with grad student, postdoc with undergrad, etc.) would be right out even if you aren't under the direct supervision/chain of command of the person you're contemplating dating.
posted by sciatrix at 11:30 AM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


Best answer: The academic couples I know that have healthy relationships seem to have the following in common:
- respect and admiration even for their partner's intellect and work
- a similar outlook of fairness (in terms of splitting childcare and moving)
- security in their own intellect (or not needing to put down their partner's ambitions)
- if they're in a similar field, the departments/areas of focus are slightly different
- they both commit to cultivating common interests outside of their work.

This is all however dependant on there being a couple in the first place. In terms of approaching, then approach glacially (if at all).
posted by A hidden well at 11:32 AM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'm married to an academic, my in-laws are academics in the same field and have co-authored together, a ton of my friends are academics, some married to or dating other academics, so I get it. Long hours, limited opportunities, close quarters: it happens. That said, there's a lot that can go wrong here, and it's honestly much simpler, safer, and smarter to just date outside of your job. Best-case scenario, you both fall madly in love, then find yourself having to navigate the notoriously difficult two-body problem as you progress through your relationship and careers. Worse-case scenario, you ruin your reputations, tank your careers, and end up dealing with the fallout for years later.

There are seven billion people out there, so if you really think that the only person you could possibly pursue a relationship with must be in your insular academic field, you're not making an honest effort. If you really find yourself drawn to academics, at least look outside your field for less fraught options.
posted by Diagonalize at 11:50 AM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


Best answer: In the context of your follow-up, I think the real way through this is to gain some knowledge about respectful dating practices in comparatively secular, liberal environments by dating WELL outside of your department until you can see the size of the potential pitfalls. Grad students or postdocs have more leeway than professors. This kind of thing is why people are saying "just don't".

I also agree with the "glacially slow" comments above. In the context of academia, "glacially slow" would mean: start by asking the person about something non-work related, to see if they have any willingness to discuss their non-work life with colleagues (I know a LOT of people who don't, and these people would not be receptive to anything which mixes the two.) So, like, that slow.
posted by tchemgrrl at 11:53 AM on March 9, 2016 [11 favorites]


I'm in a department of 18, which has three married couples (at times as high as 5 if you count spouses who worked as adjuncts). Of those, my husband and I met in graduate school and successfully solved the two-body problem (we were hired into our two jobs here as a known couple); a second couple met when they were both professors at different institutions elsewhere, got married, and then were hired as a known couple into my department, and the third couple met while they were both employed in this department and subsequently got married (before I was hired, though). It helps that my department is fairly isolated and views hiring a couple as increasing the likelihood that they will retain the faculty.

And of these couples, one member has been department chair several times already, and I'm going to be chair next semester. It helps that being chair is not actually a supervisory position.

So far, it hasn't been a problem for us: everyone knows that each person is their own individual in the department, despite being married to someone else in the department. There is never any touching or anything in the department.

When I was an undergrad, there were stories about how there had been a couple among the faculty and then there was a bad breakup and messy divorce, and one of the couple left. So there's that potential problem. I've heard stories like that other places too---I have a relative who's an academic who said his department would never hire a couple for fear the relationship would disintegrate.
posted by leahwrenn at 11:54 AM on March 9, 2016 [7 favorites]


Are you willing to risk your career on it? Because that's what you're doing.
posted by instamatic at 12:16 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


So, I was once like you! I had a huge crush on a co-author and I decided to pursue it. We dated for three years.

They were the three worst years of my life. Don't do this. Especially if you're interested in women: this is really unfair to the woman. Like really, really unfair.

The real question to ask yourself is: "Why are you thinking about putting your own career and the career of your colleague at risk like this?" Really, what's your motivation? You might want to explore what's going on underneath the surface here. Sure, you might want to date someone who is smart - I get that. There are tons of people who are smart who aren't also in your department. If you want to date another academic, at least do it outside of your field. Doing it inside your own department is a huge disaster just waiting to happen. Why are you flirting with disaster?
posted by sockermom at 12:23 PM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


Best answer: There is a difference between "this will never happen" and "don't pursue this".

With the gender and power imbalance, you should never cross the line from friendly to flirtatious. You should never be the one to ask someone out. You should be kind to everyone, and consider dating someone only after they have asked you out.

After that, listen.

I understand you might want to move faster, or be more public, but you should really just listen to her needs, and either agree they work for you, or move on. She will inherently be risking more in this relationship than you, and small petty throwaway comments you make can have lasting harm on her reputation and economic well-being. So while she might ask for boundaries that AskMe might balk at, the answer is never that she's wrong, but that the relationship should end. You cannot tell her what she should be comfortable with in this situation. And you definitely can't tell other people how unreasonable she's being. You are always a public relations asset for her, both while you are dating and after you are dating. Even if she sleeps with your brother and takes the dog.

It's asking you to give up a lot of agency in a relationship. But you're asking her to give up quite a bit as well.
posted by politikitty at 12:43 PM on March 9, 2016 [6 favorites]


Like col_pogo, I've known several couples who've met and dated as coworkers; but unlike col_pogo, I'm very, very firmly in the Never Date A Coworker camp..... Never done it myself, but I've been around too many other people who have, and let me tell you: it can go south in so many ways it's ridiculous.

Okay, so say you start with A and B who are coworkers: neither supervises the other, neither reports to the other. So far, so good, right? Well actually, no.... All too often they're so busy being lovebirds that other people get crapped on: either A and B insist on working the same schedule, so other people get stuck with the odd shifts or late nights; or maybe they even want to work on a project together, so other people get their leavings. Or if they don't work in the same department, they'll be spending so much time on the phone or over at each other's desks or having three-hour-lunches that everyone else has to do the lovers' work for them, just to get things done. And that's assuming things go well for our lovebirds.

Breakups bring even more fun & games for the rest of the office: I've been stuck in situations where the exes are not even talking to each other, and they dragged people into "tell Steve I said x" and "tell Suzy the file is y", even when they were standing five feet away from each other! Or maybe they're not only talking, they're yelling: yelling and screaming and doing it all in the middle of the office where the rest of us are trying to just get our damn jobs done.....

Then there's the after-breakup to consider: what happens when one of them gets promoted? Maybe they weren't supervisor/supervisee before, but now....! Before, when they were together, there was the probablility of the higher-status one favoring the lower; now there's a probability of dis-favor, if not actual retaliation.

So all in all, coworkers dating is a massive pain in the butt for everyone around them: no-one wants to be caught in their crossfire --- and there will be crossfire, I've seen it too many times.
posted by easily confused at 1:08 PM on March 9, 2016


Best answer: So I dated in the military, which is a place that, far more than academia, it can be dangerous and damaging to date colleagues. However, because the military understands this shit happens, there are some clear and simple rules that can help you, adjusted to an academic environment.

1. Don't date anyone within your small unit department. If you're attracted to someone in your department, ask yourself if they are attractive enough that they are worth switching larger unit colleges for. Ask yourself if they are attractive enough that the mere chance of being with them is worth switching colleges for. If so, then start applying to other colleges. When you get a job elsewhere and have given notice at your old one, ask her out!

2. Don't date anyone either junior or senior to you. If you're tenured, don't date adjuncts. If you're in a department, don't date your department chair. Don't even think of dating grad students under any circumstances. If you become senior to your partner, consider ending the relationship or disclosing it to your supervisor such that you are never, ever, even if you break up, going to be in a position over them.

3. Don't talk about your relationship at work. Don't engage in PDAs at work, even if everyone you work with knows you are involved. Keep that shit entirely out of the workplace.
posted by corb at 1:14 PM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


Um, so this? "don't try to initiate a relationship unless you're prepared to spend the rest of your life with them." Actually not bad advice.

If you're gonna marry her? Sure, worth it. If you just want a hawt fling (your focus on bringing up sex makes me kind of think this is where your motivations lie) GO ELSEWHERE.

I get it, intelligence is sexy. But seriously, a romp in the sheets does not require much talking. Unless you're thinking marriage and babies and soul mates ALREADY, check yourself before you wreck yourself.
posted by quincunx at 1:14 PM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


You would not believe the soap operas in my old department. Affairs, married people leaving each other for close colleagues in the department, relationships between scorned lovers and new post-docs, flings, terrible break ups.
No one's career has been ruined, no one has been shamed or punished. Everyone behaved civilly (well, as well as in any other department) at faculty meetings and conferences. Yes, one of these dramatic couples left -- but that's because they were publishing so much that they got stolen away by a better gig. Must have been all that adrenaline.
This is a major field in a major state university. It was an extreme case, but the gossip was kind of fun.
Limerance is crazy, academics fall in love with each other because they care about the same things, and people do dumb things, from their 20s to their 60s in this case. Heartache happens; but no one is made of glass and most people who could potentially shun you just care about their own stories, really.
posted by flourpot at 1:24 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Best answer: If you're interested in a colleague in your department

Some people make that work. I will suggest that most of them have a lot more savvy than you have.

If possible, keep it to people in other departments.

If you think someone is charming, pull out whatever rule book you have at work and read up on what is acceptable and what is not before you get flirty or go on a date. Make sure it will be in the clear according to the guidelines well before you take any action at all. Don't go on a date and then wonder if, huh, maybe that is Verboten because of her job title and yours.

Make sure you do not stop treating her like a serious professional. This is the single biggest, most consistent issue I have run into with men over and over and over until it makes me want to just slap someone. Most men seem to immediately think of a woman as nothing but a piece of ass the second they decide she is attractive. The entire rest of her whole existence ceases to exist in their minds. And when that happens, it essentially guarantees that he will make incredibly stupid assumptions that are akin to saying "Oh, you don't need your left arm, do you? It is inconveniently in my way. I would like you to remove it without drama for my convenience and I expect you to politely go along with that plan."

Do not push. Whatever boundaries she sets, respect them. It does not matter how inane it may seem to you. Just assume she would actually like to keep her damn left arm, too bad, so sad that you don't see how your request or expectation is likely to cost her.

But, given your personal history, I really think you need to go get some polish elsewhere first. First, get experience under circumstances that are less likely to lead to Drama at work. Pulling this off at work is very much a "Dating 202" kind of thing. It is a terrible place to try to stop being wet behind the ears, dating wise.

You also might try metaphorically "taking notes" for a time. If you know any academics couples who are together, keep your ears pricked for clues as to how they made that work. You may find that there are a bunch of patterns, such as:

They work in different fields.
They met as students and were an item before they became professors.
They work at a college that is larger than X size OR smaller than X size.

I have done a lot of that sort of "note taking" and I concur with sciatrix: In far too many cases, when a woman gets with a man whose career is too similar to hers, it is career suicide for her. This is part of why I have managed to remain alone for more than a decade since leaving my husband. I don't want to do that. I want a real life. I don't want to be a second class citizen for the rest of my goddamn life for the crime of being born female. And I am sick and tired of the degree to which men make default assumptions that protect their career plans at the expense of mine. This is the default norm for most of the world and if I can't find a man who isn't like that, I will simply remain alone. So far, I don't seem to be in any danger of getting a boyfriend any time soon. Because at the first whiff of "Oh, honey, you don't need a career because I make enough money to take care of you." I basically nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
posted by Michele in California at 1:35 PM on March 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


For what its worth, unlike flourpot, I do know of plenty of people whose careers were significantly derailed or even ruined by unfortunate romantic decisions. It doesn't always turn out badly, even if the relationship ends, but even relatively minor gossip can run rampant for years, and it's hard to build a successful relationship under a microscope.
posted by Diagonalize at 1:55 PM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Best answer: 1) Don't.
2) Unless you can understand and heed subtle hints to fuck off.
3) Unless you can understand that women are people and academics first, and possible romantic interests for you a distant last.
4) Unless you can understand that a woman who wants to work with you, talk with you, be your mentor or mentee, or even be your friend, wants only those things and not in your pants.
5) Unless you are willing to give up your career for her, because that's what you're asking her to do.
6) Unless you are younger than her, because that's one way to mitigate the normal "woman loses" in two body situations.
7) Unless you have a way to start the romance entirely separate from work, and present your idea of a relationship clearly (no "is this a date?" bullshit) and with amazing and explicit openness to immediately accepting a no.
8) Unless you can take no for an answer immediately and everyone knows this about you.
9) Unless you want to be known as that skeevy ass who hits on every woman in your field (you can get this reputation even by just having a few relationships, but you'll definitely get it if you actively try to date/hit on women in your field).


Mostly, don't do this unless the woman in question tells you, in no uncertain terms, that she'd like in your pants. If you don't have the skills to know, or aren't sure, then she doesn't want in your pants unless she is at this moment taking off said pants.

Really, dude, date outside your department. Date outside academia. There are more smart women outside academia than inside. It'll make your own life easier, and the life of your future partner easier too. (Shall we talk about the two body problem? Many of us are experts on this problem.)

Re-ask this question as "how do I respect women in dating situations" in general, and you'll actually get responses that are useful to you, because you shouldn't be specifically looking to date women in your field anyhow.
posted by nat at 2:24 PM on March 9, 2016 [8 favorites]


There seems to be a few assumptions about the dating gender preferences of the OP. I am wondering if it would help for the OP to clarify (if they feel comfortable doing so, of course).
posted by Shouraku at 2:49 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Cis hetero male. Not in academia, but thinking of going back in a couple of years. Excessively cautious, except when I'm not.
posted by clawsoon at 3:02 PM on March 9, 2016


I married my coworker! He is great! But ... we worked together for a year and were friends and then I quit and we started dating (... the day I announced my resignation ...). I would not do so if it were academia and hard to quit. No effin way.
posted by dame at 3:23 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Cis hetero male. Not in academia, but thinking of going back in a couple of years. Excessively cautious, except when I'm not.

Are you asking about intra-departmental dating as a grad student, or about as faculty? Most people seem to be answering the second, but it sounds like you are currently considering going back to school, so being a professor might be quite a few years into the future.

Things are way looser for grad students, though it's still better to keep it out of your department if you can. Breakups have been covered, but the other issue that I've seen a lot is when people in a relationship end up competing -- can you handle it if your partner gets offered three fellowships and gets a big award, while you get rejected for everything?

That applies doubly to professor dating -- it seems to bring the egos crashing down the minute one person does well and the other person not so well, and that is hard to navigate, obviously.

But people do this all the time and as long as they are adults about it, it is no big deal. Some of the answers above seem to be general rather than specific to academia, and I'd approach the advice here with a lot of caution. Institutional cultures vary wildly, and so do the personalities of the people you meet.

And dating outside of academia is no slam-dunk solution to the two body problem. You will still need to move for the academic job, and you will still be hoping that there is a job for that person in whatever place you are going, and that their career will be compatible with a pattern that might look like five years of grad school, two as a post doc, one as a visiting professor, and then a tenure track position, all at least in different cities and possibly different continents.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:10 PM on March 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


One of an academic couple once advised me that it was dangerous to fall in love until you both had tenure.

IIrc he was a "trailing body" and then they solved a Hilbert problem, using both their specialties, and then they got offered tenure at a small university near their families. Very quiet, unassuming people.

For the rest of us...
posted by clew at 4:10 PM on March 9, 2016


Best answer: Dating a coworker is safe as long as you've both got the ability to get out of each other's way if you need to — either because you break up, or because you stay together but decide it's awkward to be working together closely. If one of you can quit or transfer to a different role without it being a huge ruinous problem, then go ahead and date and what's the worst that could happen? If you don't have that freedom, then dating is taking a big, big risk.

There are a few things about academia that make it much, much harder to get out of each other's way, compared to most other industries:
  1. There's basically no such thing as transferring to another role within the same organization. Maybe a few interdisciplinary rockstars can do it — but even then it's rare and difficult. Most mortals are qualified to teach in one department and that's it.
  2. Quitting and going to work for a different school is a big deal, and often involves uprooting your whole life and moving across the country. Again, it may be different for rockstars. But most mortals can't count on finding a new academic job in the same city as their old one. Even in cities with multiple colleges and universities, if you want to go work for a different one you can end up spending years and years waiting for a single opening.
  3. For tenure-track faculty, there isn't a fixed organizational structure or a fixed chain of command or whatever. People take turns being department chair, sitting on tenure committees, etc. If two people are in the same department, neither of them leaves or is denied tenure, and neither of them just utterly flakes out on departmental service, sooner or later they will end up in a situation where one is making important decisions that affect the other.
For grad students in non-professional programs, #1 and #2 still apply. #3 doesn't — but it's replaced by the immense difficulty of finding academic jobs for two people in the same city once you graduate.

There are academic couples in the same field who are successful and happy together. But most of them, in my opinion, are people who took a huge stupid risk and got lucky. And I say this as someone who has zero opposition to coworkers in other types of job dating each other. Academia really is different.
posted by nebulawindphone at 4:22 PM on March 9, 2016 [4 favorites]


Just to respond to nebulawindphone's point #3: there are ways to insulate partners from decisions taken by their significant others. My current department chair is married to a colleague (they were hired together, before I arrived in the department). She (the chair) recuses herself from decisions involving her husband and leaves them to the associate chair, personnel committee, or dean, whichever seems most appropriate. I am married to a colleague (we met in college, survived grad school together, then taught at different institutions for a while until we wound up in the same department at the same university), and as the likely next chair of my department, I will also be setting up a firewall between my role as chair and any decisions involving my spouse. Our university has a clear conflict of interest policy that applies.

I'm in a department with more than 30 faculty, though. Smaller departments might have other problems.

None of that addresses the OP's concerns, since the people I mention were coupled *before* winding up in the same department.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:59 PM on March 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Others have elaborated the risks of this very well, but to answer your question on more of a mechanistic level, the people I've known who ended up in long term two-academic couples have tended to meet for the first time outside of work through friends, like most non-Internet-assisted couples I guess. Graduate students in particular tend to form tight-knit communities, especially when the surrounding area is nothing much, so e.g. apartment/house parties tend to have clusters of people from the same or neighboring institutions. After you've met someone a few times and have become friendly with them, I think there's often some amount of back-channeling through mutual friends to establish whether there's mutual interest. I used to think this was maybe a little silly but I now think it serves a useful purpose of not only avoiding potential embarrassment but also showing that you care enough to tread lightly and to be sure you're not misreading any signals.

FWIW, I do know a lot of people who coupled up within academia. I also think it's possible to date responsibly within your department or between adjacent departments if those departments are large. Mine in grad school was 25-30 people per year, average length of program 6 years; so that's a decent size, but some departments only admit 4-5 people a year in which case, danger. (In the interest of full honesty I do know people who dated within a very small sub-field, but the thought of that gives me hives and I'm not sure it was a good idea.) I think for hetero people I'd also add that if your department is not close to 50-50 male:female (mine was, but that's unusual) I think that's a red flag also, because that would be a sign of an additional power dynamic (at least in my male-outsider experience, the more unusual female students are, the more shitty gendered static they seem to get about dating people in the same field). I also would absolutely not date up or down the hierarchy (except in a post-doc/grad-student pairing, since you're both trainees at that stage; even then you would ideally want to be in different departments, or sub-fields that don't interact, or at different institutions in the same area).
posted by en forme de poire at 9:44 PM on March 9, 2016 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I recognise that your situation is a little different from the "generic" scenario of people dating in academia, but since the question as-asked is about the generalities rather than what your specific case might be like...

The usual first piece of advice is "don't do this". But it happens a lot anyway because academics tend to be the kind of people whose identity is wrapped up in their work. So if you are going to do it, my general rules of thumb are:

(1) Don't date outside your level. There's a lot of successful stories of couples who met in grad school (but be warned: even here be dragons...), but those are cases where people are at the same level in the hierarchy. Don't step outside those boundaries. Academia is a lot more hierarchical than it looks. Full profs shouldn't be dating assistant profs, and assistant profs shouldn't be dating grad students or postdocs. And, of course, just like every other profession, never date a superior or subordinate. This is an absolute non-starter.

(2) Don't date inside your department. The potential for conflicts of interest is high, and it's hard to firewall everything the way you ought to. It can be done if you're both honest-to-god proper grown ups (which is rarer than it looks), and it's easier when it's a couple hired together, but it requires a lot of care to be done properly. It is, as Charlie Utter once remarked, a delicate fucking operation.

(3) Don't date inside your subfield. While there are always those cases of the "power couple" who stay together for decades and build each other up, there are also many cases (more than 50% in my experience) where said couple breaks up, badly and publicly. They no longer show up at the same conferences, collaborative teams get broken up mid-project, people gossip about them behind their backs, etc. Scorched earth is a not uncommon outcome in this situation, and it hurts everyone.

In my experience, most academic relationships end up falling afoul of at least one of these, even the successful ones. None of these are exactly "hard and fast" rules (except the "don't date your subordinates" rule: that's inviolable even for twuuueeee loooove - you quit your fucking job if you have to), but your chances of horrible outcomes increase the further you stray from those. So take them seriously... if you do find yourself on the wrong side of one of them, look to find a way around it. My partner and I spent 10 years avoiding a particular topic that would have dragged us into the same subfield, and - because it was the central topic of her position - I dumped a major line of work (one of my most successful ones too, damn it) for a decade in order to preserve the firewall that kept us from having to attend the same meetings.

However. If we're talking about a straight couple (I'm not qualified to give advice for gay relationships!) the gender politics need to be considered head on. Academia is a lot more sexist than it should be, and if you're considering a long term relationship you need a clear plan to handle the problems that will ensue. Writing this from the male perspective -- and in this I'm mostly thinking about things that have popped up in my own experience -- my usual questions for other guys are:

(1) Are you willing to be the trailing partner? In academia as elsewhere men tend to date younger women (I don't really get it, having not done it myself, but it seems to be the norm). This matters, especially when coupled with the fact that (because institutional sexism is, like, a thing) women tend to have more difficulties getting established in their career. This creates a systematic bias when the time comes to land positions: institutions will arrange an okay-but-not-great position for her in order to snare him. This damages her reputation, limits her opportunities for collaboration, which lowers her output, which... well you can see the vicious spiral here. The way out is a tough one for ambitious guys to swallow: you follow her. What I find remarkable is how few men in academia are willing to do this - and it is absolutely a red flag that even very progressive guys get squeamish on this point. Women move for their partners very frequently, but the reverse almost never happens. I didn't. Or at least not until many years later, and frankly I don't give myself a lot of credit here. It doesn't take a lot of courage to take a sideways step for your partner's sake once you have tenure, but even that is not the norm.

(2) Are you prepared to give up career opportunities when they conflict with your partner's needs? Using my own circumstances as examples: I haven't been to a top-tier conference in my field in almost three years because they're all on the opposite side of the world, and the conflict with my partner's work (and kids) makes it untenable; I've missed any number of chances to give invited talks at high profile conferences; I have gotten into very pointed discussions with my (former) head of school over my refusal to take visitors to dinner because I will not make "the second shift" my partner's problem; and (because the peculiarities of my partner's career) I have never taken a sabbatical. These sacrifices are still considerably smaller than those most women in academia make, but when push comes to shove it turns out that many male academics consider even these modest concessions intolerable.

(3) Are you planning to have kids? If so, are you going to be primary caregiver? For most men the answer is "hell no" and for many male academics the answer is "I'm going to work on papers during my paternity leave", but this has very severe consequences for her career. If you're going to have kids as an academic couple, you need a clear plan going in, and as the guy you need to be willing to accept that this will almost certainly come back to bite you in the arse. When my partner and I first made some decisions about this several years ago we came to the deeply unpleasant conclusion that the best thing for "us as a family" was for her to take the biggest part of the career hit - where we were at with mortgages, comparative income and job security, etc, anything else would have been a huge financial risk. This situation is grossly typical, and many of us make exactly the same (sexist, though perhaps forgivable) decision. But you can't leave it at that. What's your plan to dig her out of the hole? You'll need one, because academia does not handle the "career recovery" problem well, and an equitable solution is going to hurt your ego when it kicks in. Most men are weirdly ill equipped to handle the switch -- in mid-career too, right when things are starting to go well for you -- from putting their career first to being the supporting cast member.

(4) Have you read the emotional labour thread? Okay, I'm pretty sure you (OP) have, but most men in academia haven't, and it's a pretty brutal experience even if you think you're doing a good job of being a supportive partner. If you think you could survive a surprise audit from Crone Island without ending up too bloodied, then by all means consider dating a woman in academia. Otherwise, consider a different path.
posted by langtonsant at 3:06 AM on March 10, 2016 [16 favorites]


Response by poster: Thanks for all the informative, thoughtful answers. I'm mulling a follow-up question based on the dilemma that sciatrix pointed out for women in the academy: "....I need a wife to survive in academia, but also I have to be a wife to my husband," a question along the lines of how a partnership of equals can happen when both partners need a "wife". But that's for another week - thanks again for all the answers to this question!
posted by clawsoon at 10:08 AM on March 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


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