I recently attended a conference in which the topic was how progressive my company/industry is.
I had to give a short talk about "Partner Benefits" i.e. health insurance benefits that are extended to your life partner, i.e. if you were gay and you wanted your partner to count as your spouse they will cover your spouse and any children your spouse/you have.
I got up and talked about how this is very important to me because I currently utilize these benefits, and since I cannot get married anytime soon, will continue to do so. Then everyone clapped. A lot. Way more than they should.
I sat down and realized that I made some mistakes in my presentation. Not actual mistakes, but mistakes about ME:
1. I never mentioned my "partner" was a man, and I never mentioned his name.
2. I mentioned that I couldn't get married any time soon. I never mentioned it was because WEDDINGS ARE EXPENSIVE not because it is illegal for gays to get married in Illinois.
3. These people clearly think I am gay and have a female life partner. They were clapping because they thought I was coming out.
Not that there would be anything wrong with that, it's just NOT TRUE.
I have spent the better part of last week saying things like "Me? I like sewing. Eric-my-life-partner likes football. He's a total guy's guy." and "My goodness I do not like the taste of this fish [double entente totally intended]"
I have the complete list of attendees, and I will slowly make my way around to all of them. When I told Eric about this, he just laughed and laughed and laughed, which is good I suppose. He could have totally been offended that I just turned him into a woman in the minds of almost my entire company.
He's such an understanding life partner!
So, if you help your company meet its "gay" quota, maybe you've put a lock on job security? Given the rest of your life's adventures, that wouldn't be too far a stretch.
ReplyDeleteWhy bother 'Fixing' it? It ain't broke and no one should care one way or the other AND it is still all true. You only may have to fend off the ladies, but hey, your used to that already aren't ya?
ReplyDeleteWhatevs lady. I think you illustrated the point very well especially as people find out you meant a male. It will have to make them *gasp* THINK! OMG you are gonna make people THINK???? They'll have to re-think their assumptions and possibly learn to open their mind a little more. Way to go, kid!
-I- don't care what other people think. I only care what my friends know. If it was me, I would keep the mystery and snigger as people leapt to wild conclusions.
Oh look! I can haz gud scentans struckchur an speinlg.
ReplyDeleteWait...you're NOT gay? I've been reading your blog for about a year and this whole time I thought you were a lesbian.
ReplyDeleteBless you for seeing the humor and having a sense of humor...
ReplyDeleteI can see where you had the best of intentions but it's still hilarious! You were always an entertainer.
ReplyDeleteHa, that sounds like quite the situation to be in. But I get where you are coming from with how expensive weddings can be. I told my boyfriend we should probably get rich if we ever plan on getting married. Not that THAT will be coming up anytime soon- I still have an insane amount of living to do ... or, ya know, that "finding a job" thing, too.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I've been lingering around this website for like a year and have yet to comment...but you are the most entertaining person I read on the Internet by far.
ReplyDeleteI also think this is a funny situation and hate The Neverending Story too.
Thanks! And welcome! And the childlike princess sucks!
ReplyDeleteGOOD GOD we are exactly the same. My fiance keeps getting jobs and then they almost instantly say something like "but we need you only on these days" and it's the days he has school.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of when I joined a protest for gay marriage in freshman year. (I may have told this story in some form or another.) This was a few months into dating Aaron. I'd signed up to "marry" a random other protester, one of the Hillel rabbis was going to fake-marry us and sermonize about how equal rights are awesome. I ended up paired with a female protester, and I was wearing a fake One Ring (as in "to rule them all") on a chain around my neck so on a whim I took it off and put it on her finger as the rabbi's going on about how God celebrates all love, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteThe Stanford Daily chose this moment to snap a picture and put it in the paper with a caption that didn't make it clear at all that this was a protest and NOT AT ALL REAL. Since everything is online, it hit the press, as it were, some time in the wee hours of the morning in California and just in time for breakfast in Illinois. All my high school classmates, being two or three hours ahead of me in Illinois/the East Coast, found out about this while I was still asleep and emailed me to say congratulations on my lovely wedding and they hoped Paula (the other protester) were very happy together. Imagine my confusion when I opened up my email to find a half dozen emails congratulating me on my wedding.
Aaron, to his credit, didn't care/found the whole thing mildly amusing. Which is good because I only bothered to correct one person.
HAHA! NICE! I hadn't heard that story. Yeah, the only reason I bothered to correct anyone was because I know Eric will show up to a holiday party, and this will cause two things:
ReplyDelete1. People will ask me what happened to my lesbian partner
2. It will re-enforce the belief that homosexuals can "change" whenever they want.
Hence all the sudden incredibly sexist PR I am doing...