Pride In My Work

Every table of people is different. Some want to be left alone and treat you like some sort of lower class hired help, some need constant attention and still treat you like lower class hired help, sometimes you're just invisible, and others want entertainment and human interaction. They'll joke with you, flirt, tell you about their lives, or, in most cases, ask about your life. You learn to form a standard story to feed to people, and interesting things happen when, due to human nature, the barrage of questions deviate from what you're used to answering.

They always start off the same, asking for your name, where you're from, what you're doing with your life. And since this one particular group of people were nice right at the beginning, I had no problem in being open with them. We talked every time I went to the table, so slowly my life story started to come out.

I told them where I'm from, what I went to school for, what I'm doing waiting tables instead of working a 'real job'. And then they got to the age-old question of "how'd you get here?"

Before I could answer, one of the men suggested: Boyfriend?

In my innocence and with a stunning lack of foresight, I quickly corrected without a second thought. Girlfriend. Meaning, of course, my female roommate that I've been friends with since college.

Suddenly the conversation changed.

"Oh, and this is such a good supportive place for you to be."

"Good for you."

"You know, we have a friend in Asheville who lives there with her partner, that's a pretty accepting community too."

And it didn't help when I mentioned that my girlfriend roommate and I are staying with her parents. They were even more excited about that, look at their waitress and her girlfriend living their lives like regular people! If they had been nice before, they were even nicer after the talk about my imaginary girlfriend, so excited about having a gay waitress, even going so far to leave a very generous tip and making sure to tell me goodbye as they left.

And that, my friends, is how I accidentally made four senior citizens think I'm gay.