Domestic

[liv]

Various circumstances combined to give me a whole week in the same city as jack last week, but both of us were working rather than on holiday. So we had a week of living something like the stereotypical married couple lifestyle. Waking up together and grabbing a hurried half hour of interaction while getting ready and having breakfast, then off to work 'have a good day, dear'. Spending some evenings together doing chores or hanging out with regular local groups in a low effort way (the Carlton on Thursday was particularly good fun, with good company and lots of it). Being circumspect about sex so that other people in the house wouldn't be disturbed. Spending the weekend driving out to a nearby town for dinner with friends of ours, a couple who are trying to squeeze a social life around two more than fulltime jobs and three kids, partly by means of staying up until the small hours Saturday night.

We even went to jack's work do as a couple. There was good food, and a manful attempt at a ceilidh, and jack introduced me as his wife with impressive naturalness. Plus I got to meet evilsusan in person and she is just as charmingly cynical in person as online. It struck me as slightly odd that every single employee in jack's department is male and every single person brought a female partner. These days I'm rarely in an environment quite that binary gendered; not only no same sex couples, but not even any opposite sex couples where the woman is present in her own right and the man is her guest.

If you'd told me ten years ago that I would be living like this, I would have been pretty horrified. I've mellowed somewhat since then, enough to find this married couple week reasonably pleasant and relaxing, but I still struggle to see this as the pinnacle of the ultimate romantic dream that everybody should strive for. I enjoyed being around my husband while we just got on with our lives, but it's not enough more wonderful than our normal situation of seeing eachother every few weeks for intense date weekends to be worth compromising my career for.

And now I'm back to my more usual married-bachelor lifestyle. I'm looking forward to a relatively quiet remainder of the summer, because I've got plenty of projects that need to be completed by September...

Comments

[evilsusan]

Hey, it's not my fault I married a geek-man I was born fancying geek men.

I think there is a shortage of geek-women, which is something that needs to change. I thought it would have by now, but these things take longer than they ought to.

[liv]

I am totally not blaming you for the gender imbalance, that would be completely illogical. Especially since I'm in exactly the same position of having married a geek because I always fancy geeks, and therefore attending the work party as a wife! The weird thing is that the geek social circles I belong to certainly skew male, but it's by no means exclusively male geeks and their female partners. There are always at least some female geeks and some geeks who hack their genders in various ways; obviously at the party there might well have been genderqueer and non-binary people around whom I might have erroneously assumed to be male, but I'm used to geek gatherings where there's a bigger visible range.

[evilsusan]

Sorry, I was being a little silly. I think the company in question might not be big enough to attract much diversity. I hope that's all it is, and not a result of unfair hiring or a work climate where employees don't feel they can be open about same sex/non-binary partners.

And yes, that icon DOES look like you. :-)

[emma]

I'm the very rare woman in my company and do feel a bit the odd one out sometimes. It feels relatively natural now since I've been with the company for nearly 4 years and I'm just used to there being no other women in IT at all (none in my department, or on my entire floor, with the exception of the new project manager, who's sort of partially technical... there were two downstairs but one's on maternity leave and one's now a manager rather than being properly technical). I go out drinking with the boys, share my opinions just as loud as they do, and receive some odd looks when I join in to the degree of appreciating hot women! And have brought my male partner along to events, but for various reasons no one really had any fun so I'm not doing that again. I shall boldly go and be female by myself. How daring of me. Why is there not more gender diversity again?!

It's somewhat delightfully odd that spending the week living together whilst married is the exception rather than the norm for you, but if you've found a way of being that works, then do carry on! I received all manner of judgement this week when my relationship somehow came up at work; people are horrified that a) we're not engaged and b) we're not living together, and that neither of these situations is going to change, which pleases both of us. Not everyone has to conform to the norm, damnit!

[liv]

I didn't realize you were the only technical woman in your department. I guess because I only ever hear you talking about it, I assumed it was a reasonably feminine sort of environment. Obviously you're not obliged to drag your partner to work events he doesn't find fun just to make a point about gender politics!

How weird of your work colleagues to be so judgy about your relationship choices. Boo to them. I definitely plan to carry on enjoying my slightly non-conforming marriage.