Your partner's/family's relationship to this board; what do they know?

[via vicaria]

I feel some pressure, after Sporting's thread, to come up with a creative name for him, but 'my partner' still feels like the go-to. Anyway he knows of certain interesting OTF posts, mostly tennis-related as that's his main love in life, but other than that isn't so interested in 'that football board'. Although he did find out about BDG's Guardian strips from me, via here, and ended up buying me one of the books as a present once. We've got a mix of friends from IRL and the internet, so he doesn't see internet socialising as unusual or weird.

In any case I'm a bit peripheral on here so my participation wouldn't be seen as obsessive or anything, even by a hypothetical internet-phobic partner. I tend to drift in and out over the years (I think I joined in 2011(?) and have been through several periods of inactivity), but always pop in for a read here and there. There's genuinely times on here where I'm reading posts (particularly relating to matters legal, by Ursus Arctos) and it feels like I'm getting a free education, so I wouldn't want to give that up y'know.

[Fussbudget]

Must be a northern thing, 'cos it's very much in use down here. My wife uses it. And she kept her surname.

I use Ms and I've never had any problem, but I can't vouch for what happens 30 miles further north. I still have no idea how it's pronounced though.

[EIM]

Not much, really.

The secret to a lasting relationship.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Hehe.

We talked, over lunch, about London architecture. This afternoon we discussed pollarding.

[Sporting]

Su Pollarding?

[laverte]

i also use Ms, although i'll tolerate Mrs. i'd prefer an ungendered title, but am never certain whether Mx is the sole propriety of non-binary folks, rather than a way for the likes of me to stamp my feet.

i've always made and heard the sound between the m and the z as a schwa, but in the tv series Mrs America it's pronounced to rhyme with whizz, leaving me confused too. There isn't really an equivalent to Ms in French, is there? The government finally got around to binning Mademoiselle from official documents, so now you mostly select a gender rather than a title. It would have felt weird to be Madame when i was, like, 18.

i've gone back and forth on how to refer, on this forum, to the person i share my life with. Half of the options on Sporting's list are unavailable to me for reasons of hetero-exclusivity, and i'm a bit fussy about possessives, my this, my that. That said, i usually call her "my friend" in public, which is vague enough to avoid That Look Of Are They, and also the highest compliment i can think to pay her. Over recent years i've noticed that when i talk to, say, hairdressers or shopkeepers about "my partner", they generally take care not to reply with "he" right away, which is either a measure of social progress or a sign that i'm giving off fiercer sapphic vibes than i used to. On this forum, i decided to refer to her as Nou, an abbreviation of a nickname she goes by, and to trust the readership to work out who i'm talking about. i tell her when i have written something on here, and i keep most of my posts in a file that she has access to, but i think she likes me to have this outlet for myself, or perhaps she simply can't face ploughing through it all.

Most of my straight friends have taken their husbands' (or is it husband's? They each have one, but it's not the same dude, as far as i know) surname. i decided to take Nou's when we got married, having cycled through a couple of previous names when crossing a frontier or taking it in turns to fall out with one or other of my parents. Having been born with an unpronounceable surname and gifted an unspellable first name to go with it, i now have just about the most boring, anonymous, transcultural combination possible. And i like it.

i do find it strange to see the expression "maiden name" in 2020. i've long referred to it as my birth surname, or my begotten surname if i'm being annoying.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I have no idea why I should have a title of any kind and I don't want one. I filled in a form the other day that let me not have one if I didn't want to, and that was nice.

[MsD]

I've been Ms since I was a teenager, and never a Mrs, never took my husband's name. Wouldn't mind using Mx.

[delicatemoth]

When I worked in the bookshop and I had to call customers to tell them their book had come in, I pronounced it to rhyme with 'does'. Bzzz mzzz!

This thread has revived my longstanding bafflement that so many people have 'partners', whatever they call them, that they actually live with. I'd have thought childhood would be enough to put folk off cohabiting for life.

[lambers]

I have little other online presence even now, so OTF is 99% of my social media existence, if such that it is. I imagine that my family (and maybe friends) would be taken aback at how 'open' we are here, although I don't share that much of my personal life beyond memories, preferences and reminiscences. I certainly haven't told anyone I've been camming with you guys every second weekend lately, which I'm sure they'd find very suspect.
Personally, before the first V-'Thon I was lairy about making myself known, but it's been a bit of a revelation – it's been lovely to turn a bunch of you abstract concepts into sort-of-real people. It's added a pleasingly 'humanising' quality to the whole OTF experience.

I've not taken the OTF 'thon leap yet, but did so on another message board about 15 years ago. Like you, that board was 99% of my internet presence at the time and I hadn't told any family or friends about it, until a few days before the first (real-life) meet-up when my mum asked me if I was free at the weekend and I decided to come 'clean' and tell her I was meeting a bunch of internet people in London.

She immediately took alarm and was convinced that they would be a bunch of serial killers and she would never see her youngest child again (standard paranoia for my mum). I assured her that they were no more weird than any of my Uni friends and in fact we had shared pictures so we knew what we all look like. Mum insisted upon seeing the pictures, which I decided was fair enough and got to hear her opinions on everyone – "Normal", "Normal", "Ugly", "Normal", "Serial Killer", "Normal", "Ooh, they're pretty", "Kidnapper".

Luckily, I neither got killed or kidnapped, and after that first time she never really had a problem with the multiple other times I met up with that group, or went to stay at their houses across Europe and my mum barely freaked out again, not even when I stayed in one person's Swedish flat an extra week due to Eyjafjallayokull. The moral of the story is that people may find it weird at first, but it won't actually take that much for them to get used to it and for you to just have a bunch of friends you met on a message board, in addition to the friends you met at school/work/club.

[Amor de Cosmos]

My first wife (Canadian) reverted to her family name when we married (which got some curious looks.) My second wife (British) chose my family name without discussion or explanation.

[WOM]

I have no idea why I should have a title of any kind and I don't want one. I filled in a form the other day that let me not have one if I didn't want to, and that was nice.

Our old agency owner told a story once about how, one day, he just started ticking the 'Dr' box on all those forms, and how his life got suddenly so much more 'gracious' everywhere he went.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Our old agency owner told a story once about how, one day, he just started ticking the 'Dr' box on all those forms, and how his life got suddenly so much more 'gracious' everywhere he went.

I do that — it's about the only opportunity I get to flaunt the title — can't say it's ever made a scrap of difference to how I was treated though.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Our old agency owner told a story once about how, one day, he just started ticking the 'Dr' box on all those forms, and how his life got suddenly so much more 'gracious' everywhere he went.

That sounds as though it could be fun. Someone's bound to ask what sort of doctor you are and you could say, "A proctologist, actually - would you like to hear some of my favourite stories?"

[ursus arctos]

i've always made and heard the sound between the m and the z as a schwa, but in the tv series Mrs America it's pronounced to rhyme with whizz, leaving me confused too.

It has always been pronounced to rhyme with whizz here, from the time it was first popularised by the Steinem/Pitman Hughes magazine.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Our old agency owner told a story once about how, one day, he just started ticking the 'Dr' box on all those forms, and how his life got suddenly so much more 'gracious' everywhere he went.

I've thought of doing something like that. I dunno. I don't get why it has still to be a thing.

[MsD]

Yeh, was one of the main motivators for my beginning a PhD, but not enough (obviously). A friend bought his doctorate and has been enjoying upgrade privileges ever since.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I've thought of doing something like that. I dunno. I don't get why it has still to be a thing.

Because the world is a shit place, populated by shits?

[San Bernardhinault]

Yeh, was one of the main motivators for my beginning a PhD, but not enough (obviously). A friend bought his doctorate and has been enjoying upgrade privileges ever since.

But why not claim it without doing a PhD. Nobody's going to ask to see your thesis when you're booking a flight, say.

[MsD]

Oh yeh, I've thought about it. Might do it. Wouldn't be quite the same, though. I don't like it when people question my genuine creds so I can't pretend I don't care about these things.

[WOM]

I've thought of doing something like that. I dunno. I don't get why it has still to be a thing.

Eh...dunno. Cuz some stuff is just fun for a laff and not worth a moan.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Oh I don't mind people putting whatever in the "title" box, and that can be fun / funny. I just don't get why it's there.

[treibeis]

I do that — it's about the only opportunity I get to flaunt the title — can't say it's ever made a scrap of difference to how I was treated though.

When I was filing away the contract-tracing forms today - i.e.stapling them together and putting them into a paper bag - , I noticed that one person had written "Frau Dr. Ulrike Schroeder".

I only glance at them (the forms, not the people; I don't do eye contact), but in the last few weeks, there's been Peter Petersen, Hanno Hansen and Jan-Peter Jansen. Sturdy northern German names. Claus Claussen will turn up, I know he will.

[WOM]

Oh I don't mind people putting whatever in the "title" box, and that can be fun / funny. I just don't get why it's there.

Because titles/salutations/honorifics are older than dirt, and there's really been no popular campaign to get rid of them.....because, all things considered, they're relatively benign?

[WOM]

When I was filing away the contract-tracing forms today - i.e.stapling them together and putting them into a paper bag - , I noticed that one person had written "Frau Dr. Ulrike Schroeder".

I only glance at them (the forms, not the people; I don't do eye contact), but in the last few weeks, there's been Peter Petersen, Hanno Hansen and Jan-Peter Jansen. Sturdy northern German names. Claus Claussen will turn up, I know he will.

I take it that Germans aren't the sort to put a fake name on a form just for a laugh?