Picnics, Small Towns, and the DD “Situation”

I am not ashamed of my relationship with the Professor. But I do keep my private life as separate from my professional life as much as I can. I work in a heavily Christian atmosphere, where virtually everyone I work alongside is approximately my age, married, with kids and a house. They go to church (mostly Mennonite) every Sunday, and they read the Bible on breaks. My company prides itself on having founded itself on and dedicated itself to the principals of Jesus Christ.

An atheist such as myself is definitely in the minority here. Divorce is uncommon. I know of no one in the company in a mangement position (such as I am) who is “living in sin”. And if they found out the Professor was fifteen years my junior, they’d have apoplectic fits. Which leads me to my current dilemma. The annual company picnic.

Attendence is encouraged, to the point of being borderline mandatory for management. I would prefer not to go. If I have to go, I would prefer not to take the Professor. My co-workers would give themselves whiplash from swivelling their heads to get a good look if the Professor and I showed up as a couple. I don’t need the grief, and I don’t want to subject the Professor to it. But this could be easily misinterpreted as me being ashamed of my relationship with him. And I certainly don’t want to hurt his feelings.

I know word is going to get out eventually aboute two of us. This town is too small for it not to; I’m a little surprised that no one has seen us out together yet. (At least, not that I’ve heard about – heaven knows they could already be talking about me behind my back.) My current decision is to try and duck the situation by ducking the picnic. If somebody notices I have failed to return my sign-up form for the picnic though, I could end up with my back against the wall on this.

The Professor was deep into his writing last night, so we didn’t spend much time together. I spent most of the evening on the Board talking with our virtual friends, and poking around here at DD trying to get a handle on the Buggy/Rosie situation. After having read their diaries and the diaries of a few people who seem to be involved in the periphery of the situation, I have drawn my own conclusions. The most intelligent thing for me to do seems to be to just stay away from making comments in their diaries or my own about it though. I’ve been around DD for longer than this diary would suggest, but I haven’t found my own niche in this community yet. I hope when I do, I will be able to continue to avoid situations such as has developed here.

There are people whose lives I do enjoy reading about, and whose installments I look forward to. I’ve started to leave comments occasionally in their diaries. I’ll have to wait and see what comes of it. I can always use new friends, but even if friendship doesn’t come of it, my life is still richer because they’ve shared their insights here.