So this friend of yours just announced he got a new job and will be moving out of town. What are the first three questions that pop into your head to ask him?
Right, right, where and what, naturally. (You might want to know how much, but you’re not going to up and ask, so that doesn’t count.) What’s the third question?
Yeah. I’m guessing that’s a stumper. Either that, or you can think of ten questions you might ask, but not one that you’re sure you would ask.
Okay, so explain to me, please, why every last colleague I have at work (minus, I will say, the World’s Coolest Boss, who is far too much the gentleman) has asked me some variant on “What’s your husband going to do?” or “Is your husband okay with it?”
Double-yoo. Tee. Effity-eff?
I’m genuinely confused. Do I come across as so horribly self-absorbed that they think I didn’t consult with him? (I didn’t even apply until I’d talked to him, as it happens.) Does he come across as such a patriarchal control-freak that I can’t possibly accept a job without his notarized signature? (Um, no. There might be a less patriarchal man in this country than my husband, but I must say I haven’t met him.) Are gender roles in this country still so effed up that the man in a given heterosexual couple is automatically presumed to have a veto over all major decisions? Not a say, mind you, but a veto?
Ah. Aha. That’s looking a little more plausible. And I’m sorry, but the assumption pisses me right the hell off.
Next time I get this question I’m thinking about answering, “No, he loves Fairfax so much that we’re getting a divorce and he’s staying behind” with a perfectly straight face. Honestly, I half think that’s the answer some people are expecting!
It’s possible that my social deafness is such that I haven’t realized that men get asked this about their wives too. It’s certainly nothing I would ever think to ask; my presumption is that the couple arrives at a mutually-acceptable agreement behind closed doors. Ever so nunuvmybizness.
But honestly, I don’t think men get this question. I just don’t.
