So I’ve gone back to school and I’m now working two jobs, this has exposed me to a lot of casual sort of acquaintance type work relationships - people I know by face and first name but not much else about them. You have these very superficial conversations and eventually who you live with or your relationship status comes up.
I always refer to my ‘partner’ and then let people draw their own conclusions (I feel silly saying girlfriend and most people assume I just mean good friend unless I use it in a very specific context), so should I just correct people as soon as they start saying ‘he’? I’m working with many, many people from all sorts of backgrounds and I feel a little confrontational saying that straight off.
I think I’m being silly about this but it’s just coming up so regularly now! I look forward to your insights.
Is this a woman thing, because this “eventually who you live with or your relationship status comes up.” - really doesn’t come up all that often in casual guy work conversations unless someone wants to offer it up of their own volition.
You do what circumstances permit you to do, but I should certainly feel silly not correcting someone who’d made such an assumption. It strikes me as the kind of mistake that in sitcoms snowball to a set of lies of grotesque proportions.
Just casually say “she” right after they say he. If you feel confrontational, smile as you say it, though I can’t imagine why you would. It’s not like you’re beating them about the head and shoulders with a desk stapler shouting, “SHE! My partner is a SHE, you hetrocentric throwback!”. It’s not a big deal.
Perhaps a woman thing, but one of my jobs is working in a call centre that revolves around waves of people making bets on horses before races jump and if you’re not flat out you’re twiddling your thumbs staring at the ceiling (no reading material, no phone, etc.) so maybe the conversation progresses a little quicker than other work environments. I haven’t seen any great difference between men and women in how everyone chats.
Your use of the word “partner” should be a clue, but some people are a little dense or not accustomed to interpreting signals.
In the (offline) society I frequent, there is no such thing other than husband or wife. Anything else is just “friend,” even tho they are most likely “partners.” One neighbor (in his 80’s) even refers to his wife as his “bride.”
I was always partial to XYL or YF, but most of my friends wouldn’t get those, either.
I wouldn’t feel silly about correcting it, if I were you. They didn’t make a huge mistake in assuming your partner is a guy (and maybe it’s different in the US, but in the UK, partner is often used by opposite-sex unmarried couples, too) and you’re not making a huge thing out of it by correcting them, but the longer it goes uncorrected, the more awkward it becomes.
No one sane is going to take offence at you saying “she” when they say “he”, they might feel a bit embarrassed, because people are weird, but they won’t be upset that you corrected them. You’re not being confrontational and weird by letting them know your partner’s gender!
Someone I’ve only interacted with once and might not interact with again I might let it slide.
Anyone I have more then a momentary interaction with I try to correct them immediately. I feel uncomfortable allowing people to make the assumption I’m straight, which is the assumption most make. The longer that goes on the more uncomfortable with it I get.
If possible, I’d correct them more subtly, by dropping my partner’s name - this only work if the name is obviously gendered, of course - or mentioning ‘her’ in a sentence. ‘I never know what to my partner for her birthday’ or something.
If I’m likely to have regular conversations with someone, I correct them by the second mistake at the latest. Otherwise it starts to look like you were lying.
My boss very nervously referred to his “significant other” when I mentioned that my gf hated the mustache I grew for movember. His boyfriend hated his too, I guess!
It never came up before or since, leading me to agree with the earlier poster who says that it’s a chick thing :p.
I worked with a woman who was gay. She referred to her partner, but in conversation just offhandedly would say something like “She’s making dinner tonight” or “She’s picking me up from work today” depending on what the conversation was about.
Thanks for the responses, I think I’ll go with the quick correction in future. I’m still amused though because whenever I have done it in the past I end up with someone who feels embarrassed that they thought I was with a man even though it’s a totally natural thing to assume I’m in heterosexual relationship.
In fact only today I was renewing some address details on my car insurance and thought I’d put my SO on the policy as a nominated driver, the woman on the phone kept saying ‘he’ even though I kept saying ‘she’ and it wasn’t until I had to provide her full name that she realised her mistake, quite funny really as her response was, “Oh! Oh okay! Well that works out well as the excess isn’t so much for women!” :smack:
I once got a call from my daughter’s school asking for some extra next-of-kin info for my daughter, so I gave them my partner’s name. Poor woman was so surprised she forgot to get the rest of the info and had to phone back twice more.
You need to hurry up and say it because the other person is going to feel really embarrassed if they say the wrong thing for months and then find out otherwise, and it’s really hard to correct them after the fact. I’m not gay and I still had this problem - the guy doing my yard mentioned my “husband” once and I didn’t correct him and tell him he’s actually my boyfriend - damned if he didn’t end up using the word “husband” a billion times whenever I’d run into him with the yard and it was really, really awkward.
