Last week, my friend Nicole was recognized by her company as a “top performer.” This is a semi-annual dinner and award ceremony hosted by this major corporation that does business world wide.

Nicole invited me to be her guest to the event. Being the very considerate person that she is, she knows I am job hunting and she thought it might be a good place for me to make some contacts.

We mingled and Nicole introduced me to some folks, and we both made sure everybody knew I’m “in transition.” (This is a term I have had to get used to saying in professional settings, since it has a different meaning in the queer world.)

As the eating part of the event was wrapping up, one of the vice presidents went up to the podium. I paraphrase her words: “Before we begin our recognition of our top performing employees, let me first take a moment to recognize the significant others of our top performing employees. Thank you for standing behind your loved ones. We know that you make their success possible.”

While her co-workers craned their necks around to give a nod of acknowledgment to the “supportive significant others” and give “us” a round of applause, Nicole and I looked at each other and started to laugh. Was there an assumption throughout the event that everyone’s “plus one” was a “significant other”? Did that mean that people at our table and everyone who Nicole introduced me to thought I was her partner?

My comfortable way of interacting with Nicole probably reinforced that assumption. Take for example, our sharing of desserts. We were served different dishes, and I asked her “Wanna go halfsies?” She nodded and when we were halfway finished, we wordlessly signaled to each other to trade plates. This is a ritual I picked up from my gay dads, and Nicole has been around for years to think nothing of it.

I joked later with her co-workers at the table by saying, “I hope Nicole considers me both supportive and significant, but just so you know, we are not significant others to each other.” But why say anything at all? I am often presumed to be lesbian, so why is this different? Or more to the point: was I being homophobic?

I have determined I wasn’t, by giving the situation my tried-and-true gender test. Would I have been just as interested in correcting the assumption if I were the “plus one” at a corporate event with a male friend and was mistaken as “the girlfriend” or “the wife”? Yes! That has happened several times before, and each time I did clarify. My discomfort in both situations was about being perceived as an intimate partner to a platonic friend. It feels inauthentic, regardless of the gender of my friend.

The promising part to this story is that Nicole works in an office where having a “significant other” of the same gender is even a possibility — and an accepted possibility at that. There are plenty of workplaces where Nicole and I could go share desserts — or where a real life same-sex couple could show up — and it would not even occur to anyone that the relationships was anything other than “friends.”

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