No, I don’t mean I’m mad at myself for almost outing him, or at him for being closeted because he’s not. He is out to his family and friends- heck he lives with his boyfriend - but not at work as far as I know.
See, he’s out of work, and my employer is hiring for a job he’d be good at so naturally I was telling my boss about him.
My friend would have to relocate to take the job so we got to talking about moving, finding apartments etc. I don’t remember the details but it seemed like every other time I mentioned my friend in that context I WANTED to say “they” rather than “he”. I WANTED to just speak normally - if my buddy were straight, I certainly wouldn’t have hesitated to mention that his girlfriend was going to move with him or whatever.
I have enough gay friends that I find it entirely normal to speak of a guy’s boyfriend… and to know when to hold my tongue. There wasn’t really much chance that I would slip. And since I have no clue at all what my boss thinks of gays, I have no particular reason to think he wouldn’t be hired anyway. But it really annoys me that I should even have to care.
It’s not a big deal and I’m surprised how annoyed I am - obviously this is not annoying in the way that, say, CONSTANTLY having to ‘cover’ for someone who is totally closeted might be, its just that IT SHOULDN’T MATTER.
I know. That’s one of the things that bothers me about other people’s attitudes towards homosexuality. A friend of mine was once accused of “flaunting” his homosexuality at work because he mentioned his partner (one of my oldest and dearest friends) in the same context a heterosexual would mention a spouse.
Damn it, as someone who’s spent way too much time lonely, why do some people insist others spend their lives alone because of a condition which they can’t help!!!
Wish your friend luck with the job hunt for me,
CJ
I hope this isn’t too far off the subject, but my wife and I were on a cruise a while back where we were the only het couple in a group of about eight couples. Several days out, one of the guys mentioned that his partner and he had kissed in public the night before for the first time since they met eight years before.
It’s their business, not mine, but that’s what I remember most from the cruise, that there were transvestites going in dress full time, car parts salesmen drinking like it was their new religion and a happy couple who kissed for the first time in eight years, and all of these people had to be hundreds of miles from land before they could do what they wanted to do all along.
I was with the kids at the Chicago Blues Fest this year, and I saw two guys holding hands in line for a turkey leg. I though to myself “Good for them.”
Then I was pissed off that I even noticed it, and that I had to think good for them.
I want all my friends to be able to celebrate their lives, SOs and joys in public with all their friends around them, and not have to worry about what’ll happen if they do.
Kalashnikov, you sound like a good friend to have.
And yeah, it does suck. But with the help of a lot of people like you, it’s going to get better.
Personally, I just put a picture of my boyfriend on my desk last week. We’ve been going out for over nine months, and living together for five. And for some strange reason, putting up a picture of him where I can see it has to be handled with the delicacy of a hostage negotiation.
I reached the point where I just don’t care anymore long ago. I’m out at work. I work in an environment comprised mainly of straight male engineers, and they treat me like they’d treat anyone else.
My former boss was a closetcase who was convinced no one knew he was gay because he was a bear. Umm… it was the worst-kept secret at work.
Oh - and at New Year’s at Place Jacques-Carter, I kissed the guy I was seeing at the time. With tongue. For a long time.
My boyf and I were holding hands at the movies last Monday. Guy on my left looked nervous.
sigh
I make it a point to come out at work now. Find a way to slip mention of my boyfriend or one of my ex-boyfriends into the conversation. If I’m working with homophobes, I prefer to know in advance. Where I’m at now, only one of my coworkers seems nervous. Everyone else is fine with it.
Of course, it’s different here. We have non-discrimination rules that protect me.
The US, however… well, we’ve got a long way to go. Thanks for setting a good example, though.
I don’t know whether to consider myself out at work or not, really. Most people I deal with day-to-day know, and will ask about my boyfriend. But I deal with hundreds of people here, for maybe minutes a week; some of them, I’m sure, are in the dark about my sexuality.
Which is as it should be, IMHO, because I really don’t have a pressing need to share the details of my love life with total strangers. Anyone I can consider a friend knows; it saves a lot of effort on non-gender-specific personal pronouns. But it just doesn’t tend to come up in the course of most small talk.
A co-worker friend of mine finally came out to the office. Shortly thereafter, he had a constant army of well-meaning other cow-orkers trying to set him up with their other gay friends, based solely on that fact, b/c as we all know nothing works more smoothly than “you’d like my friend Paul - he’s gay too!!”
His solution was to tell them all he has a serious boyfriend. He doesn’t. Now he gets “how are you and Paul doing?” questions all day. They basically treat him like some kind of quirky mascot.
I wish they’d just treat him like they did before they all knew. :mad:
Being as this is work what’s wrong with just saying he instead of they? Straight or gay it doesn’t matter one bit whether or not anyone is moving with him. Since all they’re interested in is him as a potential employee just mention him.
I had a very similar thing a couple of weeks ago, editing myself to “protect” my ignorant co-workers from the fact that I have gay friends.
In the few minutes before the staff meeting started, we were discussing movies we’d seen recently. I had just seen Reign of Fire, and the guy I saw it with thought both Christian Bale and Matt McConaughey were the bee’s knees. So, my description of seeing the film went like this: “Yeah, the movie’s okay, if you go to it with the right attitude, dragons and explosions and not much else. But” (complete train of thought in a hundredth of a second: I was about to say the guy, but half the people in this room are close-minded Christians, they’ll think I’m “flaunting” the fact that I have gay friends, okay, change it to “person,” fuck I’m pissed that I have to edit myself, shit, think about it later) “person I saw it with thought the two lead actors were really hot.”
Then I nodded and looked around to indicate I wasn’t going to say anything else, and somebody else should pick up the conversational thread. In reality, I couldn’t keep talking, because I was angry inside that I couldn’t just talk about my friends without worrying about these dumbass bigots reacting as though I were a barbarian pounding at the closed gate of their ignorance.
