I had dinner the other night with a 21-year-old and his boss. The kid had worked for the company for two summers and was trying to decide between going back to college in September or taking a year off to get more work experience.
The boss said that one advantage of going back to school was that he was more likely to meet a potential wife in college where people sit around lazily than in the fast-paced working world. He then caught himself and realized that this might be offensive if the kid, with whom he’d worked for 1.5 summers, happened to be gay. He restated and rephrased his advice, saying “more likely to meet the woman or man with whom you’d spend the rest of your life.”
It pointed out that in earlier decades it would not have been considered polite to suggest to a man a roughly equal chance of his being gay or straight. In fact, if not for the employment relationship, a person who suggested that a man might be gay would have feared a response in the form of a punch.
The college kid said “I took it in the spirit of an attempt to be politically correct and wasn’t offended.”
Was he in fact gay? “I don’t even own an iPhone,” was his answer.
I chuckled when I read your story. But the boss wasn’t being polite, just clumsy. He could have easily kept it gender neutral by stating that it would be easier to find the right spouse in college — there was no need to be gender specific especially nowadays where more and more states are allowing gays to get married.
Even if not an attempt to be politically correct, personally I really see no need to be offended by someone suggesting I would be straight or gay or whatever, if no harm was meant.. Unless of course it was used as an insult, but then it wouldn’t be about the content anyway..
So in the USA, the iPhone is famous for being preferred by gays ?? Here in Brazil, you could be suspected of being gay if you use a Macbook.
Suppose the 21-year-old was white and the boss had spoken of “meeting the Caucasian you’ll want to marry”. It’d be unwarrantedly and unnecessarily presumptuous of him to be that specific (even if the specificity is statistically likely); and the same principle applies to the boss’s initial presumption about gender. So I think it’s to his credit that he amended his remark.
I’m gay and still don’t own an iPhone… Sounds like he was avoiding the question. 😉
It’s pretty cool that this neutral politeness is beginning to occur. I can easily see how someone may be offended. But many are pretty relaxed and don’t mind the neutrality…
In conversations like this the boss usually pauses and I will state what sounds PC “Spouse,” “Partner,” or “Other Half” is what I will usually interject.