I know people spend a lot of time working, and that relationships in the office often become stronger and more meaningful than many relationships in our personal lives. Still, I was surprised to see this survey touted in The Miami Herald that found that “as women and men have become peers in the workplace, many now share a marriage-like relationship on the job with a co-worker of the opposite sex.”

The story, headlined “Office spouses on the rise, survey says,” points to a survey by Vault.com that found that “32 percent of employees acknowledge having an office husband or wife—a platonic opposite-sex friendship at work. The number jumped from 23 percent just a year ago.”

And just how does an “office spouse” relationship manifest itself? The Herald story asked financial commentator Lucy Kellaway, who says she has been through six work spouses during her two-and-a-half decades in the workplace. “They are your default position for a sandwich at lunch, your colleague of choice for gossip, for confidences and for laughing at the corporate video,” she said. “They are someone to ask for advice and give it to in return.”

These aren’t office affairs we’re talking about—the overhyped workforce “trend” that generates a flood of press releases around Valentine’s Day—but, the Herald reports, “similar to having a best friend at work, although the dynamic is different because you have to watch out for perception, says workplace expert Tina Louise Chadwick. She says that you can manage the perception by making sure you shoot down any jokes, avoid the appearance of a two-person clique, stay professional, and be comfortable hanging out with your office spouse in front of your real one.”

I’m not surprised that the notion of an “office spouse” is growing, given all the time people spend at work. Add in the huge stresses of the modern workplace and you can see why people are fostering platonic, semi-intimate professional workplace relationships that mirror some of the aspects of their real-life personal situations.

I’ve joked about this to one of my editors here at Workforce Management—I referred to her once as my “office wife”—but little did I know that I was on to a larger workplace trend. It sounds like a good idea, but as the male member of one office “couple” told The Herald, there are some downsides with an office spouse that you don’t have with a real spouse. “If you argue with your spouse you can walk out of the room,” says Miami TV anchor Jorge Estevez. “We still have to sit next to each other and work together for eight hours a day.”

There’s also the very real issue of an “office spouse” relationship turning into something much more threatening to a person’s real relationships. And that’s the irony in this survey by Vault.com: The question about platonic office spouses came at the end of long list of questions focused on romance, affairs and unwanted sexual advances in the workplace. Clearly even in the Vault.com survey, the discussion of an above-board platonic office relationship pales in comparison to the titillating chatter about inappropriate office romances that I’m so tired of hearing about.