That may be the logic behind it but, purely anecdotal, of the several people I know who have dated at work and ended it they have been socially fine afterwards. There is a period of a month or so where they feel anxiety about seeing the other person but people are adaptive and the cope with these situations. Eventually they just become colleagues again.

Anecdotal counterpoint: I've worked with three sets of people who dated in the workplace, and when they broke up it was fire and brimstone. In all three instances, one of the two quit.

What about people living in small villages? They date and break up as well and then continue seeing the other person everywhere.

And yet they can cope, even lead a socially healthy life afterwards.

Even in small villages there is more separation than small companies (or small divisions of a company), plus there's an option of one or both moving out of the village - obviously also an option with companies, but one that the company would rather avoid.

Even if only 1% end badly enough that it would impact negatively on the company, there's surely a valid argument that it's worth preventing to avoid those occasional cases.

That's essentially limiting the rights/freedoms of 99% of the population to help that 1% who don't have the emotional ability to act like adults?

I can't say that's something I find very encouraging.

"Limiting the rights/freedoms" makes it sound far bigger than it is. You could say the same for jobs that require you to start work at a certain time, or to work from an office, or to wear a tie, or not to get your penis out in meetings, or...

I think I draw the line at the company trying to control what you do when you aren't on the clock. Unless you're in some kind of job where PR is one of the main aspects (like a political spokesperson), I'm not sure it should be their business what you do on Saturday.

Well I think it's also much bigger to be told I can't fall in love and/or find someone attractive just because I work with them. And we can probably agree that office crushes are just as bad if not worse than office romances.

I don't really know, I've never had a thing for any colleague (one exception, really long story, but short version is I found out he's straight before he was ever a colleague, so irrelevant), and I've also never had a job where it wouldn't be allowed. All I was saying is that plenty of "freedoms" are restricted all the time, we just don't word it like that and they don't feel like a big thing.