Cherry husky reds, San marzanos, marketmore cucumbers, yellow squash. Located in North Seattle.
I'm a 29 year old woman who has been with my small org for a few years now. It's been a rollercoaster and many lessons have been learned, but overall I'm grateful for my time here, if not a biiiit ready to move on to another org and keep developing my career more. That's a conversation for another time.
Anyway, we had a celebratory event yesterday for our program participants and there was decent board member turnout. One board member who came by is a man who is, at his core, a very lovely and smart person with good intentions, but who has a tendency to come off as arrogant and a bit rude (other staff have mentioned this independently before I interacted much with this gentleman.)
So board interactions can be really funny. A lot of silly things happen and are said, and most just need to be shrugged off, of course.
At the event, this fellow and I began chatting, and he quickly asked "how's your boyfriend? Or is he your fiancé??" Totally normal, but I have been married to my husband for three years now, and as a recurring volunteer, he has met and interacted with board members many, many times now. This particular board member has made this mistake before (even asking if we are engaged) and I have gently shared that my husband and I are married.
So yesterday, instead of nodding and going along with it, I opted to cheerfully say "my husband actually - for years at this point!" And this man's jaw was basically on the floor. This is where things took a turn for the absurd. He asked "what??? When did this happen?" I shared that we were married in 2023 and he began recalling all these times that he had met my husband, and (incorrectly) insisting that we hadn't been married at those times. Like truly constructing an alternate reality in which my husband and I hadn't been married for three years because he was so distressed about being wrong. Now I opted to change the subject and move on because this was just goofy, and we moved on.
So - the reason this annoyed me was not because I'm clutching my pearls over my husband being called my boyfriend. I'm not some big sanctity of marriage person and it's really no big deal. But it's really the repeated mistake even after being corrected a couple of times before, the infantilization of me as a woman who is nearing my 30s and who owns a home and pays taxes jointly with someone who I have built my life with, the willfully not remembering very simple details of my life, and then, most ridiculous of all, refusing to be wrong and arguing about when exactly I got married.
Ultimately, I'm proud of myself for making the correction. A few years ago I may have said "haha he's great!" But I've done a lot of really good and challenging work at this org, and I would like to be viewed as an adult and a whole individual with a life, commitments, and responsibilities just like everyone else. I feel like in this very small way, I kind of asked for a bit of respect and indicated that I am also an adult in the room. I think I'll continue to do so, even if it leaves people aghast. :) haha.