Love at work in the corona pandemic: And Zoom did it

Enlarge image

André Brüggemann and Pamela Renz fell in love at the beginning of the pandemic

Photo: KARIN MERTENS

They were drunk, hugging each other and trying to dance together, rather it was a staggering.

In the background, Wolfgang Petry sang "Wir sind das Ruhrgebiet".

Then they smooched.

This is how Frank Baumann * and Katja Winter * remember their first kiss today.

In the middle of a year in which everyone kept their distance, the two found each other - at a farewell drink between two work colleagues in late summer 2020, when meetings with several people were allowed and the pandemic felt almost over.

The colleagues standing around filmed the moment, they were happy: "Finally something is happening again, finally Gossip again," they told the two of them later.

"Finally something is happening again, finally Gossip again."

The colleagues

It was a crazy evening, many lay in each other's arms without permission, drank a lot of alcohol, says Baumann.

"We were all starved for social closeness." In retrospect, they are uncomfortable that the distance and hygiene rules were ignored - this is one of the reasons why they want to remain anonymous in this text.

But it was the only party they were at in 2020.

And so the employer suddenly turned into Cupid.

The workplace as a place to find a partner

What Baumann and Winter didn't know at the time: It shouldn't stop at just one kiss.

Today, seven months after the party, the two are living together and are expecting a child.

If neither of them had expected something in the past year, it was great love.

After all, it was the year of loneliness.

Where should you please get to know someone?

Bars, discos, gyms - everything was closed most of the time.

Falling in love while walking on the Tinder date?

Difficult.

Getting jostled in the supermarket?

Doesn't happen anymore.

So what remains as a (digital) place to fall in love?

Work - currently often the only loophole from social isolation.

In an online survey by the dating platform ElitePartner, 24 percent of almost 3800 respondents said that they had already met a partner on the job.

And in an online survey of more than 1,400 married couples surveyed, eleven percent said they fell in love at work.

Last year there might have been a few more.

"When looking for a partner, the focus is again more on the workplace, because other encounters are just becoming fewer," says Sibylle Lachmann, who, as a relationship coach, looks after singles looking for love.

But the workplace does not have the best reputation as a place to find a partner.

Winter and Baumann are familiar with the proverbs: “Don't ever start something with a colleague, then it gets complicated.” Or: “Then you only talk about work privately.

How boring. «Can a love work relationship work - especially now when there are hardly any other experiences besides work and relationship?

"Rocket launch" for love

It was sometime after midnight, Baumann, Winter and their dog had squeezed into the back seat of a taxi to drive to her together.

She kept trying to slide the mask down to kiss him.

Both giggle as they tell their story in the video interview.

“I remember how she said to me: How old are you again?

That wasn't very flattering, of course, ”says Baumann.

“Before, I had always said to a colleague: 'This is a man to fall in love with - but unfortunately too old,'” says Winter and laughs.

There are 16 years between the two.

"Emotionally it was a shitty time."

Katja Winter

Three quarters of a year earlier, Baumann had started as a freelancer in the communications agency, which Winter also worked for.

She gave him orders, signed his bills.

Both had been single for a long time, he'd had a date or two on Tinder since the first shutdown, Winter not a single one.

"Emotionally it was a shitty time to just sit in your one-room apartment, work there and at most go for a walk with friends," she says.

But that night she was not alone, Baumann was there even when she vomited because of the alcohol.

"From that night on, everything was incredibly familiar, we talked about all kinds of things, there wasn't one unpleasant moment," he says.

What followed was what both refer to as "rocket launch."

And that, although they went on long-planned vacations one after the other: They wrote each other on WhatsApp every day, made one phone call, said that they wanted to see each other again - then he asked her if he could spend his week-long quarantine with her after the vacation.

"It was only at the second moment that I realized that if the test had been positive, he might have had to stay two weeks or I could have been infected," says Winter.

From that week on, they shared their apartments, their lives.

They are expecting a child in summer.

They do exist after all, the beautiful stories of the pandemic that are good for you and carefree.

"We are sometimes embarrassed when we stop in the middle of the sidewalk and kiss," says Baumann.

And what do the colleagues say?

"Everyone was curious and really happy," she says.

And the bosses?

"They congratulated me directly," he says.

But isn't it annoying to share your private life and work?

“No, thank God we don't have the same customers anymore.

I no longer sign his bills, ”she says.

Is it really not too close?

»I have the feeling that, especially during Corona, work and private life mix much more with each other.

The little children in the back are always running through the picture, ”he says.

It gets very honest quickly

Relationship coach Sibylle Lachmann is currently making similar observations.

There used to be a tendency to strictly separate work and private life - the corona situation intensifies that borders are becoming more fluid.

The stories did not always end with a happy ending as with Winter and Baumann. The search out of solitude harbors many opportunities, but also risks. “This feeling of› I definitely don't want to be alone ‹can also ensure that you suddenly find colleague XY great and project your dream ideas onto him - even though he would not have been shortlisted beforehand,” says Lachmann .

On the other hand, in a pandemic you would quickly find out if it didn't work out: "It becomes very honest very quickly when you spend so much time together." Conflicts are much more likely to come to the fore. “When couples are forced to spend a lot of time at home, they are more likely to get upset about the socks lying around than maybe before.” It is important to always communicate needs openly and to use the intensive time at the beginning to find a good one To build the base.

Pamela Renz and André Brüggemann also work on the common ground. Their first date, they say, was completely corona-compliant via FaceTime. "My heart beat so hard when I read his name on the screen," says Renz. In addition to his friendly laugh, she immediately noticed the self-made pictures in his apartment. "The date was much more intimate than it could have been in a restaurant, after all, you share your own four walls with the other," says Renz.

Renz and Brüggemann are colleagues too, and the quick test for love came out positive for them too.

Brüggemann didn't discover Renz at the office party, but on Tinder.

He looked for her on LinkedIn and discovered the first thing they had in common: Like Brüggemann, Renz works at Bosch in Stuttgart, only in a different department.

He wrote to her - with success.

“If I hadn't seen that he also worked at Bosch, I would probably have clicked Delete.

But then he immediately had a leap of faith in me and I wrote back, «says Renz.

The company is like a big family, whoever works there supports common values ​​such as openness, transparency, trust - that connects.

"If there had already been quick tests, we would certainly have done one before the first kiss."

André Brüggemann

After several, sometimes four-hour video dates, they decide to have a real meeting.

They drove out into the vineyards in separate cars, walking at a distance.

"If there had already been quick tests, we would certainly have done one before the first kiss," says Brüggemann.

They also kissed without.

»The phase of getting to know each other was much more intense than in previous relationships.

There weren't any leisure activities, and you couldn't visit family either, ”says Renz.

She used to make potential partners fidget - "but now there was no excuse that you had an appointment with someone else."

What if the pandemic ends?

For Renz and Brüggemann, the interplay between the pandemic and a common employer was a "relationship booster", as they call it. "Others split up during this Corona period because they are so attached to each other, it welds us together," says Brüggemann. After two weeks the two were a couple, after three months they moved in together, and now they are founding their joint start-up for digital workshops. And they are now also working on the same topics at Bosch. Even after work, they attend online content marketing meet-ups together.

Of course there are also quarrels, for example about food - Renz likes to eat healthy and varied, Brüggemann is enough when it goes quickly.

The solution: on Sundays, what is available during the week is planned on the whiteboard, and orders are always placed at lunchtime.

Even work colleagues who have just fallen in love are not immune to normal shutdown disputes.

more on the subject

Coaching for the home office: Work relaxed, even in stressful timesBy Anne Otto

The real challenges for corona couples would come with the end of the pandemic, says relationship coach Sibylle Lachmann: "When men's evenings, girls' trips and business trips suddenly come back, the fear of distance and jealousy also come back." Then you have to get to know each other again and be careful deal with the respective need for freedom.

"Then you will definitely be happy to spend your lunch break with a colleague instead of your partner."

Baumann and Winter are already envisioning the end of the pandemic - they are not thinking about freedom.

"We still have many first times ahead of us: the first time to the cinema, getting to know families for the first time, the first time to really dance."

*

Note: The names have been changed, their real names are known to the editors.