I was at a professional association event last night. With my excitement that this was going to be my first Canadian association event, I figured everyone being open and they would not presume my spouse's gender... nor should they care. Well, I was wrong....
This lady had flowing blond hair, she was wearing a tight little number and was quite handsy - this was before she got a martini in her hand (Ed Mirvish was sponsoring the event - how very foo foo). We mingled since she was the first person I met, and then I moved on to meet other people.
After a couple of rounds of chats with people (not drinks which I seldom do), I bump into her and this time she was with a colleague - an equally gorgeous 5'10" red head who was asking pointed questions about "why we moved here" and "how are we finding Toronto compared to NYC".... that was expected and ok by us....
Then the next question... "and what's your wife's name?" I already knew it was about the spouse so I said "it's actually husband and his name is Ed" She said "oh my so sorry" - this was an HR conference so you'd think these people would be more open to these things and not ask these gender specific questions - but she did. An annoying question indeed especially since the point of moving to Toronto is to get away from the presumptiousness of some of our American friends only to find this occurring here as well.... I hoped it was only this one person but then two other ladies in two different occassions asked the same question. Hmm.... was I not gay enough for these people that they continually ask who my wife's name is? I should just respond - her name is Ed - that may shut them up. We've fought high heavens in the States to get the laws change, in this new world we're at where the laws have changed, the people need to catch up...
Guess we'd need another generation for these questions to be wiped off the conversational lexicon...
