My friend Mari has a dilemma -- she just split up with her boyfriend of three years. They work in the same company, on the same floor, and Mari had hoped it was leading to a church wedding in Tuscany. Instead, it ended after a screaming, 10-hour argument, and with the boyfriend owing Mari a total of 1.5 million yen.
Her real problem started last week when they were both assigned to the same project, meaning they will have to rub shoulders with each other for the next six months while colleagues snicker and gossip behind their backs. "Oh boy," says Mari. "Now I know why a lot of companies ban interoffice relationships."
Now, Hollywood has no such compunctions. They discovered long ago that interoffice relationships (so to speak) give a great boost to the box office, if not the relationship. Like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut," Cameron Diaz and Matt Dillon in "There's Something About Mary," Jim Carrey and Rene Zelwigger in "Me, Myself & Irene," to name but a few. Not one of these couples is still together.