Also, can I mention how much more annoying it is to come out when you DON"T have a partner/girlfriend? Because then it's harder to slip a whole "blah blah my girlfriend" into conversation.

You have to be all awkward "blah blah my exgirlfriend" which...why are you talking about an ex? Or you have to be like super passionate about a gay subject, and hope people pick up on it? "Gee, the new girl really likes the Indigo Girls, and rainbows, and was happy about the recent California ruling on gay marriage. Think she's one of...them?" Or like, "Yeah this weekend I went to the GAY BAR" which...not always cool, at work, to talk about going to a BAR...

LAME.

I think your worry in Seattle is more that there are so many birki-wearing Subaru-driving Indigo Girls fans that nobody would notice...

But at that same time, you don't want to just avoid talking about it, because really that's not cool either....and yet...

I don't know, I don't really share many personal details with people at work. And I have a tendency to say my -ex, which is vague. In fact, a colleague at my last school thought I was a lesbian because I never used the term boyfriend and he knew that marriage equality was an important political issue for me--so he had just assumed I was a lesbian.

Okay, I kind of love the Gorey sash idea.

Divorced; Bisexual; Gay Dad/Divorced Parents; I'm Infertile, Stop Asking Me When I'm Going to Have Kids; Yes, I Live in Sin; Short & Blonde Does Not Equal Young and Stupid; I Can Teach Circles Around You, You Pompous Git.

People used to assume I was gay all the time. Not sure about now - I just don't meet that many new people these days....

People used to assume I was gay all the time. Not sure about now - I just don't meet that many new people these days...

I didn't really care, but it's not something I get often. It was particularly funny at the time because I was actually sleeping with someone in our circle of friends, but, since he was a dean and I was a faculty member, we weren't really telling people.

ETA: Personally, I didn’t think it was hard to hide our relationship, although I certainly wouldn’t want to have do that all the time. It was odd who could figure it out and who couldn’t based on the subtlest of clues.

Married, Have Preschooler, Military History Buff (Napoleonic Wars Subspecies), Liberal/Progressive AND Christian, Mariners Fan (disappointed but committed), Alabama Born and Bred (so don't diss my people as hillbillies or make "should've just let them secede" remarks in my hearing), Writer, Reader (stop trying to talk to me when my nose is in a book!), Dead Father/Mother Has Cancer (and if I want to talk about either, I'll tell you)

Well, yeah, I'm not necessarily big on telling people at work (and now that I'm working from home, it's not a thing--since we don't have "how was your weekend, what did you do?" chats, it's not a problem). But at the same time, when other people are chatting about what they did on the weekend, and you're making friends at work, and they're trying ot be nice because they know you just moved to town, and they talk about THEIR dates and partners and children...well, it's creepy and weird to be SILENT about it, and it's not cool to LIE about it...

I would rather be a little private. I would rather not give people ammunition. But I do not want to lie, and I do not think I should have to hide. It's a dilemma, what can I say? :)

People used to assume I was gay all the time. Not sure about now - I just don't meet that many new people these days...

Yeah, for those of us who are chronically single (feh), it sometimes feels like people are thinking "there must be a reason she never talks about who she's dating." Which, whatever, except I guess that that's probably compounding the chronically single.

and they talk about THEIR dates and partners and children

God I'm glad I work at a place where people don't really move beyond the "How was your weekend?" part of the question, because I hate even that.