This past weekend, my cousin called and invited me over for dinner. She knows I’m gay & has met The Girl. Since coming back from Canada this was going to be the first time I was going to meet her & I kept looking for hints in the conversation we had, where she was inviting me over, to figure out whether she was also inviting The Girl. Sadly, she kept saying, ‘Are YOU free?’ or ‘What time can YOU come over?’ (The emphasis is mine.)

A couple of my uncles & aunts and another cousin was going to be there as well. After we agreed on a time & I hung up, I told The Girl that I had been invited & she asked if she was invited too. I said ‘I don’t think so.’

For the next hour I tortured both of us over why my cousin hadn’t invited her. She had been very accepting of me when I had come out & had been very supportive too. Finally, I blurted out to The Girl – ‘I wish I wasn’t gay.’

‘Are you kidding?!’, she asked. ‘It’s fabulous to be gay!’

‘I don’t think so. I have to tiptoe around my family, we have to spend thousands of pounds to have a baby, we have so many immigration problems. It’s tiring.’

This round of self pity did not go down well with The Girl. She told me that what I was saying was hurtful and insulting to her and that I should stop.

Later that evening, as soon as I walked into my cousin’s place, her first question was – ‘You came alone?’.

‘Well, you didn’t invite The Girl.’

‘I wanted to leave it up to you.’

‘To be honest, I felt bad that you didn’t invite her.’

‘There were so many other relatives that I thought you should decide.’

Now I know that’s a perfectly valid explanation, but if my partner were a man the invitation would not have been explicit.  I’m probably being oversensitive, but I wish she hadn’t left it up to me or that she had at least said to me that I should bring The Girl if we were comfortable being around other relatives.

Maybe the next time, I should stop trying to search for clues & just ask if the invitation is for both of us.