I had a dream ...

Oh no ... Is there a double standard at the modern bar when it comes to s*xual relationships? ... Junior Junior discovers the boundaries between business and pleasure 

SO often I have been warned about mixing business and pleasure.

Unfortunately, my failure to pay attention has come back to bite me.

You see ... I had a dream.

Not a Martin Luther King-style dream. A good old-fashioned s*x dream ... about a male colleague. 

A married male colleague.

This is a colleague I got along with very well, as mates.

The next morning, in a light-hearted moment, I told my male colleague about this dream.

I included a few G-rated details that I could remember and we had a laugh.

Later, I started receiving emails from him. Nothing too exciting. Just having a chat.

Soon the chat turned to our dreams in life and having the drive to make them a reality.

Well, I said, I think I can achieve all of my dreams. After all, I managed to pass the bar exams and survived my readers year and that takes a hefty amount of guts and determination.

He said he did not doubt for a second that I could make any dream I had into a reality with very little effort.

Actually, it has required quite a lot of effort. 

I'm sure you can see where this is going, but I have to admit that my naiveté knows no bounds and the obvious did not occur to me. 

Not until I was staring at a picture of a holiday resort, not unlike the one I had described in my dream, with a caption: "So do you want to make your dream a reality?"

Oh dear. 

I felt flattered, but terribly conscious of what career–killing consequences might follow.

Cross-pollination isn't unusual in the legal profession, and more common the higher up you go.

Considering my junior junior status I don't want to start my career at the bar with a "reputation". 

Word would get around and next thing I'd be on the menu for every old married male barrister within a three block radius.

OK, I'm exaggerating. Perhaps not every married barrister. Just the unhappily married ones, which seems to be most of them.

Needless to say, I smoothed my colleague's ego (and hopefully his pants) by saying how touched I was, but perhaps another time.

I learned my lesson: don't get too friendly, don't mix business and pleasure, don't share your dreams. 

Mind you, I wonder how the situation would be if I was the male.

I mean, imagine a male junior junior telling his older married female colleague that he dreamt about her and she let him know it was open season. 

Firstly, he would fully go there and, secondly, it wouldn't hurt his reputation a bit.

I can only imagine the blokey backslaps and winks from his impressed chums - probably half of them having also desired the only woman barrister on the floor. 

No matter how modern we all get and how diverse the bar, the double-standards that attach to female behaviour are not losing their lustre at all.

But as I sip a fortifying G & T in chambers, I realise that not all business and pleasure should be oil and water.  After all, I'm at my place of business and this G & T is heaven. 

Comments

[D]

"I mean, imagine a male junior junior telling his older married female colleague that he dreamt about her..."

I imagine sexual harrassment accusations would be thrown around ... another double standard?