From straight to lesbian

[Lifestyle66]

If you say this is your experience, I believe you, but your experience is quite different from mine. I've worked in a variety of office environments, and the custom always has been that both men and women wear their wedding rings. When I was married, I almost never took it off. In fact, if you took your wedding ring off at the office, people sometimes looked askance at you, because it made you look like a player. I had a friend like that, who didn't wear a wedding ring when he was away from his wife because he thought not wearing a ring fit his image better as being a guy who was available. I thought it was a dick move. They ended up getting divorced, of course.

My experience is that people in the office commonly talk about their spouses and kids and family plans. I mean, what are you going to talk about?

I don't like an excess of showiness, but it seems right to me that gay people should be free in the office to talk about their relationships to the exact same extent as straight people typically do.

Oh, I agree with you everyone SHOULD be able to talk about their lives. Just as people here on an author's forum SHOULD be able to intelligently discuss subject and express opinions without being personally attacked or called to "prove it!"

But B was pressing me when asking about something I related as a personal experience. I replied with MY standards of office conduct. I don't discuss my personal life at work or wear a ring.

 

[CTR69]

Bend the rules, if her boyfriend transitions into a woman, that should make her a lesbian.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Bend the rules, if her boyfriend transitions into a woman, that should make her a lesbian.

Mentioned that one back on page 1:

One that I've seen more often in real life than in fiction: Jane marries Tom, Tom becomes Teresa, Jane finds that her attachment to her spouse is stronger than her attachment to being straight. (Though at that point Jane is more likely to call herself "bi" or "it's complicated" than simply "lesbian".)

 

[XerXesXu]

Fascinating. When I was young, Englishmen didn't wear wedding rings, or signet rings, or any jewelry, or any scent, or routinely shake hands. If you did, people would think you were Hercule Poirot - a Belgian. In my profession women didn't, and I assume still don't, assume their husband's name on marriage. Different communities have different customs. I wear a wedding ring now; my wife has little cultural sensitivity, she reacted violently when I told her I was English and wouldn't be wearing a wedding ring. On the bright side, whatever a wedding ring signifies here, it doesn't seem to be exclusivity, though it says something about the status (as in rank) of a woman.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Fascinating. When I was young, Englishmen didn't wear wedding rings, or signet rings, or any jewelry, or any scent, or routinely shake hands. If you did, people would think you were Hercule Poirot - a Belgian. In my profession women didn't, and I assume still don't, assume their husband's name on marriage. Different communities have different customs. I wear a wedding ring now; my wife has little cultural sensitivity, she reacted violently when I told her I was English and wouldn't be wearing a wedding ring. On the bright side, whatever a wedding ring signifies here, it doesn't seem to be exclusivity, though it says something about the status (as in rank) of a woman.

There's certainly a lot of variation in such things. (I think Englishwomen would still have worn wedding rings?) I still have an old family signet ring but I don't know if it was ever worn regularly.

My intended point was just that there are a lot of socially acceptable ways in which straight people's sexuality comes up in everyday conversation without anybody even registering that they're disclosing something about their orientation. We notice it more when non-straight sexualities come up in the same kind of way, because it's something we're less used to, but that doesn't mean the non-straight folk are actually being more noisy about it or doing it for attention/advancement/etc.

 

[XerXesXu]

(I think Englishwomen would still have worn wedding rings?)

Yes, even those who retained their maiden name. It wasn't unknown for women who lived with a married, but separated man, to assume his surname and wear a wedding ring. So long as these things are not deceptions to an unlawful end they're not legally regulated.