I, too, dislike it., I’m 24 years old. I’ve been out for nearly a decade. And I just had to have my first “don’t use ‘gay’ to mean ‘bad’ conversation" with a co-worker.

I’m 24 years old. I’ve been out for nearly a decade. And I just had to have my first “don’t use ‘gay’ to mean ‘bad’ conversation” with a co-worker.

This probably speaks to my own privilege more than anything, having generally been surrounded by supportive people in liberal-leaning environments for most of my life, but I’m kind of in disbelief that I had to have this conversation at all. In NYC. In 2011.

In fairness to my co-worker, she was apologetic and said she’d make an effort not to use the term as a derogatory in the future, and I believe all of that absolutely. But there was the grating “I didn’t mean it that way” element to the conversation. Which is like… I’m sure you didn’t. But some people do. And it puts me on edge. And if you think about it for five seconds, you’ll understand why.

I’m relatively sure there won’t be any negative fallout associated with the situation, but it does make me feel like crap. The last thing I want to do at a new job is present myself as the PC police or an oversensitive busybody. It’s also not the way I want to “come out” to anyone, ever.

That’s probably the strangest part of the whole thing. I haven’t had to “come out” to anyone since high school. Within a week or two of existing in a new social environment, the fact that I’m gay will almost inevitably come up in casual conversation, whether I’m mentioning a girlfriend or my LGBT advocacy work or why I love Dolly Parton so much. But the office culture here isn’t the warmest, and it hasn’t come up with more than a few people. Which is fine! Gay is not the defining feature of my personality, life, et al. But if people don’t know I’m gay, they don’t know to be sensitive to it. Which they should be all the time (sensitive), because that’s basic human courtesy since you never know the orientation of the people around you, but I get it that the world isn’t as enlightened as we wish it were and it takes a personal connection for many people to make a change.

Anyway, I feel weird. What whiplash to go from being a professional homosexual arguing for the most radical queer agenda within an advocacy organization… to being a mostly closeted advertising professional. Maybe I’m still breaking this job in, but right now this doesn’t feel like the long-term career path for me.