Oh! Here. I received notification from Outlook this morning, that I was the recipient of an email that was marked for Junk Mail. I saw this message earlier in the week too. I almost disregarded the message but thought, "Self, that's two this week. I'm popular with the spammers it seems" and decided to see what spam I was getting at work. To my surprise, it was a note from Jeremy with a link to YouTube and the video was of a prominent figure demonstrating a poor attitude. I glanced to see what email I received earlier in the week and again I had an unexpected email from an old friend. Rebecca a.k.a. Becky, my former supervisor during my internship in Student Activities & Leadership Programs at Western was going to be stopping in San Marcos with students on the way to a Leadership Retreat.
Becky is the Director for Student Involvement at a university here in Texas. She's also a kind hearted, warm, and intelligent human being. She was thoughtful enough to make an attempt to contact me so that we might hang out while she was in the area, which we did end up doing tonight. However, Becky needed to get a hold of me and utilized an online social network to do so. She took time to read up on me, and see how I was doing. This seems like a reasonable expectation. I know I do the same for friends I haven't been able to keep in touch with. It helps spark conversation when opportunities to chat present themselves.
Tonight during dinner at Bennigan's, Becky was bringing up standard "catch up" conversations. She got around to bringing up relationships. She made reference to my Complicated Relationship status on Facebook. I explained how I know Alex, who is my best friend's brother and how funny it was that we were in a "Complicated Relationship" but that it wasn't real. She asked if I had been looking? I told her that I was, but not actively. She asked if my campus was a "welcoming, community friendly campus"...
?
Looks I had to explain that I was straight (not narrow). I laughed to myself and continued on with the catching up. Now... looking back at that conversation, I also brought up how previous to Alex I was in a Complicated Relationship with Kristian. (Kris, I'm sorry if I led Becky to think that you are gay). I've shared in plenty of conversations about sexual orientation. In my opinion, people are who they are, and if they are happy, I'm happy for them. I did for a moment however, reevaluate whether or not my relationship status on Facebook was appropriate or not. My conclusion was that people can think what they wish to think. I don't believe my relationship status is inappropriate, nor offensive. If a person thinks less of me because of it, or because they think that orientation/lifestyle is wrong... then so be it. People are entitled to their opinions, and their opinions won't change what I am or am not. (For clarification, Becky doesn't fall into the category of unfavored opinions. As a worldly, intelligent, supportive person who would still respect me if I were gay, Canadian, or communist.)
If there is a lesson here, which I'm sure there are tons!, I will address this: Sometime people will come across information about you that may lead them to make assumptions about you. That's not wrong. That's human nature. The question is, if you are the person putting that information out there, is it being perceived the way you intended it to. If not, what is your response?
Will I change my relationship status after this incident (possibly multiple incidences that I am unaware of)?
Hell no!
I'm not ashamed. It's not something I, nor anyone else should feel wrong about being thought of. I grew up in San Francisco. You know what they say about people from San Francisco? "They're smug and love the smell of their own farts." Besides that. All I'm saying is you can assume what you want, or want what you amuse. Whatever that means.
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