I recently appeared on the BBC World Service to discuss intimate relationships in the workplace. My research has found that 60% of workers during their lifetimes have an intimate relationship in the workplace. By ‘intimate’ I mean something beyond friendship but not necessarily up to physical contact — the Greeks had a word for it: agape, meaning “divine, unconditional,
self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love”.
You can listen to the clip on the BBC site here . Nada and I discussed this topic in further detail in our book Intimacy .

Is the global financial crisis motivating people to seek extramarital affairs? Anecdotal evidence from FT columnist Lucy Kellaway suggests this is the case . In the process of doing research for a novel, she found that the adultery-enabling website Illicit Encounters has seen a 300% increase in registrations from London-based men in the financial sector since September. [...]

In our book Intimacy , Andrew and I found that advances in IT can facilitate greater intimacy of relationships among colleagues. However, this does not necessarily seem to be the case for non-colleague spouses and partners. This week I came across this recent survey from Sheraton hotels which found that 35% of respondents would pick their Blackberry over their partner.
Now, I know that sometimes a Blackberry may compete with a spouse for attention, but I think that 35% of people choosing the device over the person is endemic of the BlackBerry addiction and technology addiction more generally I’ve found in my research. If someone chooses his BlackBerry over his spouse, and brings it into the bedroom (87% of respondents), and admits he ‘loves’ it (62%) (findings that echo my own research), then clearly this person needs to reexamine his priorities.