Ah, yes the title thingy. Mr. Grumpy and I lived together for a while, and mostly I just referred to him as 'Phil'. If it looked as if it would be an issue, or if I cared what people thought I explained further. Once at a formal company dinner, we were going through the receiving line and everyone was being introduced. "This is John Smith, and this is his wife Donna, this is Phil Kowalski and this is ... err, um, this is Linda'. So after that we called each other the 'err, um'. Most of the time is didn't matter. It is amazing to me how important this sort of thing is to people. I have even had people ask 'Are you married?' Apparently it is difficult to come to grips with a married couple having different last names. My answer to that is "Why? Does it matter?".
I think in the long run, the kids liked it when we got married - much easier to explain to people, teenagers can be very conservative.
As for the 'girl' thing - I agree it's crappy. I still get it and I am obviously not a girl. Sometimes I point out that if I called a man 'boy' there would be an uproar. All I can say is pick your battles, sometimes it is better in the long run just to ignore it, sometimes you need to make a stink. You can probably judge if it is just a thoughtless slip, or evidence of a deeper problem.
posted by lindathemum at 1:05 PM link/comments
