Chronic Blogger

How would you react

if someone at work asked whether you and a certain other person were *shudder* an item?

Most people can easily answer when they are not asked at work, or when said person is someone that they do not work with. It's easier to brush someone off when you know that you won't have to deal with them in any capacity later.

But if it happened at work, or it involved a work colleague, how differently do people react? It's harder to gauge this reaction. Most would say it depends on who the certain other colleague is and the context of the inquirer. It would direct your reaction to one of three possibilities:

• the I'm-shocked-yet-oh-so-flattered-you-thought-we-were reaction. This has been known to appear when the target colleague is the desirable type.
  
• the huh?? response. This is the middle of the road, stitting on the fence reaction where you just need to sound out a confused grunt and it saves you from further embarrassment.
  
• finally my personal favorite: the what-have-you-been-smoking?!-I-have-great-taste response. It's worked well on some people and deflects any embarrassment thru humour.
  

Any one of the above are useful in deflecting this question. I personally tend to go for #3, using #2 only for those times where I'm a little too shocked (read: horrified).

posted by chronicblogger @ 11:34 PM