She’s your boss. If she’s fine with how you treat her now, there’s no reason to change just because she’s getting married, whether to a man or a woman. If she wants you to change, she’ll let you know. Seems pretty simple to me.
Not in my nightmares would I behave that way towards any co-worker, male, female, straight, gay, married, single, boss, colleague or subordinate. It crosses so many lines that are simply unacceptable…
I profess mystification. She’s a lesbian, and therefore you should act differently towards her? Unless you were trying to become her boyfriend before, why?
Keep going the way you’ve been. If it’s worked until now, I see no reason why it would stop working suddenly just because you found out a new piece of information that doesn’t influence your relationship one little bit.
I know that what flies down in the South is vastly different than what flies around up here. I also know that if a coworker - not a customer - were to repeatedly call me “hon” or “sweetie” I’d soon enough turn around and say “I do have a name”. I do find it irritating more than offensive. If your name is Dave I call you Dave and not “sugarlips”.
Regardless of that, I’m with the rest of the posters. Gay/straight/married/what-have-you she’s still a person.
If your boss has told you that she is getting married, and if she has not told you (either directly, or by dropping subtle hints) that she finds your current behaviour inappropriate, then you shouldn’t change. In fact, if you did, she might feel that you disapprove in some way of her or of her marriage.
She knows you know that she’s gay, and she knows that you (as you say) love her. So, while other bosses, in other situations, might feel uncomfortable with your behaviour, it does sound to me as if she’s uncomfortable at all. And she may indeed welcome it, partly because she likes you as a person, and partly because a lot of other people around her are less acceptiing of her “alternative life style”.
I read this OP differently. (Damn that Dunkin’ Doughnuts coffee!) I thought the OP was trying to imply "My boss, who I’ve done some low-key flirty stuff with for years, has just gotten married. She just happens to be gay. Can I still do the low-key flirty stuff that I’ve done for years, or do I knock it off, because it is mundo-disrespectful to her spouse and she’s now a ‘married woman’?
That and the cube walls are dripping…
If she didn’t have a problem with the “hon”, “sweetie”, and the hugs before she got married, then she shouldn’t have a problem now. I don’t see why coming out to you as a lesbian would have any impact on that. Seems like she’d be more offended if you suddenly started treating her differently or more formally.
It might be nice to offer her congratulations and a nice wedding present if you would do the same for any other coworker who had gotten married.
Buy her a wedding present. And, for heaven’s sake, stop calling her “hon.”
Then why are you even worried about it. Did you need our validation? Carry on as before, if you start to act uncomfortable, she will be uncomfortable.
This is the most confusing fucking OP I’ve ever seen on here; it’s like a Borges short story or something, just completely self-recursive and bizarre and theoretical. It’s like an M.C. Escher painting in text form.
I couldn’t figure out, from reading the O.P.:
- If the boss was a lesbian.
- If the big secret/surprise from the boss was a) that she’s a lesbian, b) that she got married and wanted to be the first to tell, or c) both.
- If he meant that he was actively flirting with the boss before, or if he just meant that he was being affectionate towards her.
- If he was now questioning whether he should stop because a) she’s married, and it was innocuous before but could now be offensive because she’s “taken,” b) if he didn’t know that she was a lesbian before, but now that he knows she’s a lesbian he should stop because he relates to her “as a man to a woman” and now she’s in some way “not a woman” because she’s a lesbian, c) both.
My god, it’s full of stars!
But all of that aside, Quasi, don’t worry about these yanks freaking out over the sweetie and hon. I’m from the south originally, and it’s totally acceptable down there and it’s understood. Unfortunately, these exotic yanks can never really understand it because they live in more uptight and “p.c.” areas, but anyone that’s from or who has spent a significant amount of time in the south understands that those names are completely innocuous and charming.
Not so fast! I’ve spent all of my 63 years in the South. I would not be charmed by a subordinate who called me “hon” or “sweetie.” I would be very offended. Only my friends and family can call me by such intimate terms. But I would be professional enough to let the person know right off the bat how I felt about it.
Quasi, if you are on friendly enough terms to call her “Sweetie,” then you should know her well enough to take her aside and ask her how she feels abut it. Some of the other women in the room may find it diminishing – similar to how some Blacks felt when other Blacks were affectionately called “boy” in the 1950’s.
It would greatly surprise me if HR doesn’t have regulations already in place about hugs, terms of endearment, and gender discrimination.
Bingo!