Coming Out At Work

Recently I have found myself in a number of different work places through education, training and volunteering. The one thing these places all have in common is the fact that they all come with a certain amount of small talk. This small talk revolves around family life, nights out and general interests. You know, the usual stuff. My problem is that I’m struggling to decide either I should come out in these work environments to be honest. It’s not necessary for them to know but even a simple question like “What did you do at the weekend?” has the potential to make you squirm when there’s something you don’t want to reveal.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally out usually and would never lie about my sexuality. I’ve even appeared in a local newspaper in relation to my sexuality! Being out and proud is not the question here – being accepted is. I’m afraid that if I come out in these work places that I may not be granted the same opportunities as others. Is that silly or justified? In Ireland religion still rules a lot of work places attitudes however with the marriage equality referendum in full swing it’s becoming apparent that a lot of people are completely for the equal treatment of same sex couples. It’s easy to come out in a work place which has policies in place that protect LGBT people against discrimination and prejudice. These work places automatically promote equality for all of their staff.

When the people in these workplaces are casually mentioning their families and husbands or wives I’m unsure either I should too. If I met the same people outside of these environments I would absolutely come out to them without hesitation but it feels like I’ve more to lose here. I think that I’m worried partially about being treated unfairly but also about being stuck volunteering in close proximity with someone who may develop ill feelings towards me because of my sexuality. I guess that’s their problem, not mine, but I just want to avoid any hassle.

I would love to tell them all about my wonderful relationship and about the happiness it brings to my life. My other half means the world to me and it upsets me that it isn’t easy for me to share every part of my life with everyone. If the marriage referendum passes with a yes vote then I would love to shout my joy from the rooftops and tell everyone how happy I am to now be able to marry the person I love and have the same rights as a heterosexual couple. I know that a workplace is a professional environment and revelations sbout my personal life shouldn’t be a concern at all but others can freely do it. Can I? What are your experiences with coming out at work?

My wedding day disasters

My wedding day was filled with a lot of mini disasters. Nothing major, nothing that could have ruined the day but definitely little hiccups. Many people turn wedding planning into a top priority in the months or weeks before their big day but honestly no amount of planning can totally guarantee you the perfect day. To prove to you all that a perfect wedding day is not necessarily required for an amazing marriage I’m going to tell you about some of the disasters we faced along the way…

A week before our wedding I realised that my ring was big enough to fit on my thumb all of a sudden. Uh oh, who would have guessed that weight loss equaled to smaller fingers? I dropped a few clothes sizes since we had bought our rings and clearly ring sizes too! So, a mission began to get me a new ring. After arguing with the man in the jewellers I was actually lucky enough to exchange my ring for a smaller one. Success!

On our wedding day, about an hour before we were due to start our journey to our venue, my better half started crying. A lot. We were at my Mom’s house so, of course, Mom overheard the crying and presumed it was a case of cold feet. Honestly, I kind of thought so too. After a painful few minutes I finally got to the root of the problem – she was worried about our dog. Yes, that was it. I had been eating a chocolate bar before we left our house and I left some of it on our kitchen table. She was terrified. I think she had visions of our dog eating the chocolate and becoming really ill with no one there to help her. We quickly went back to our house, checked on doggy, she was totally fine and I threw the culprit in the bin.

We had to stop at the venue we had chosen to have our wedding afters in before going to the ceremony venue. We dropped off some last minute items required for our after party then happily left to get married. They say that brides are meant to be late so as two brides arriving together we were double late. Hey, it’s tradition so that was okay! Unfortunately we realised we had another problem… our CD that had the songs we wanted to walk up and down the aisle to was accidentally left at the party venue. Aagh, stress! My patient Mother and confused Uncle drove back and got the precious cd for us. Wahoo, we now had music!

There was actually other problems along the way but I’ll save those for a future post! Don’t let planning and obsessing over perfections distract you from what you are really aiming to do: make a commitment to your love in front of the ones you have chosen to be there.