Ask Amy: Dinner party reveals problem without a name
Dear Amy: A couple of years ago, an acquaintance of ours hosted a dinner party. I was only acquainted with half the people there. The hostess didn’t make introductions.
One person present was someone I had met a few times. (I’ll call her “Jane.”)
I knew that Jane had a partner, “Joan,” whom I had only met once years before.
At the dinner, Jane was sitting next to a man.
At one point I stared across the table because I was trying to determine if this was Jane’s brother, or if Joan was transitioning to male.
I admit that I feel bad for staring, but I was trying to figure out if we had met.
We spoke briefly afterward, and they made no attempt to reintroduce themselves to me.
After they left, the hostess explained that Joan was now “John” and how they hate to have to explain themselves or their pronoun, which is “they.”
I tried to joke: “I didn’t get the memo.” To which the hostess replied, “It wasn’t my memo to send.”
I think the hostess could have spared some social awkwardness with one quick sentence privately, like “Joan is John now, deal with it,” which would have been fine with me.
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