We're talking about trying to navigate romance at the workplace this morning on the Takeaway with Kevin and Shelly Shenoy, a couple who met five years ago at an office party and fell in love.  Now married, they share their story:

Kevin: I met Shelly at the Copacabana at the holiday work party. That is about as clichéd as a romantic comedy as you can get, I suppose.

Shelly: We’re lucky we even got introduced. There were over 700 people at that party!

Kevin: Shelly had just started a few days prior and our group was primarily men, who were 40-years-old and up. It was kinda refreshing to get someone young on our team. Even better, she was really good looking.

Shelly: I had actually started there several weeks before… And I’m glad you thought I was cute!

Kevin: She had been seeing someone, and I was casually dating. So we kind of just developed this really close friendship without any pressure. While none of our co-workers knew about our situations, we would hear, “are you guys going out?” “You guys should go out.” I hate to say it, but we were the first Pam and Jim, just cooler and inter-racial.

Shelly: We were totally the first Pam and Jim. I was seeing someone else… and you were crazy about me.

Kevin: We didn’t start our “real” relationship until I left the company. It had nothing to do with getting caught or breaking rules. Our co-heads of our group were having a full-on affair. I think if two single 20-somethings date, it’s less of an offense than two older people with kids - committing adultery.

Shelly: Especially the fact they had kids. Youch.

Kevin: For me, I had casually gone out with a co-worker a year or two prior and that didn’t go well for me. In the back of my mind, I didn’t want to have to deal with another situation where if it didn’t work out, we wouldn’t talk, but still have to see each other every day. Because it was such a scarring incident for me, I figured, “Shelly and I are great friends and I’d hate to lose it. Plus neither of us gave the other any clear signal that the other was on board with the idea.”

Shelly: Except for the part where I eventually figured out you totally liked me.

Kevin: We got to develop a really cool and trusting friendship. I even tell my single friends that I think everyone should be lucky enough to be best friends with someone first and then start dating.

Shelly: If we didn’t start out as such good friends, we never would have actually dated. I really think that. The Pam and Jim friendship sealed the deal.

Kevin: It came down to one night after I had a bad date. I called Shelly immediately. She came to my aid like Batman. We ended up having a better date than either of us had had in a while. And it ended with a kiss. I told her at that moment, “everyone gets to experience something perfect in this world. I just had mine.”

Shelly: To be clear, you didn’t call me to date me. You called me to have me come help get you out of that date. You wanted to go home, but since you got me out, I wanted to go dancing. We had so much fun dancing that night.

Kevin: We’ve been married for almost 2 years. And while we will probably always hate the company that we worked for, we appreciate that it got us started.

Shelly: We’ve been together for almost 5 years. We met at a dance party through work. We hooked up at a dance party after work. We danced the hell out of our wedding, and a lot of our friends were there… from work.

Listen to their story: