"Work Spouses"

 Reddit has been around for twenty years. It bills itself as the 'front page of the internet', and it's vast beyond imagination: over 138,000 active subreddits discussing everything under the sun. I've been addicted to it since I discovered it; it's basically the next iteration of USENET, the imaginary place I disappeared into when I was supposed to be attending university classes.

Everything under the sun, including the sun itself. As Ecclesiastes has it, there's nothing new under the sun.

Name a subreddit, and odds are it has one or more eternal, internal debates simmering away. At least once a week you'll find a post in r/canada mocking Tim Horton's. In r/stephenking nobody ever shuts up about The Shining (book) vs The Shining (movie), and intolerably often somebody who never read IT barges in claiming an infamous scene towards the end of that novel proves King is a pedophile. People who actually have read the novel explain in wearisome detail how that scene is (a) not pornographic and (b) integral to both the character and the plot, and like as not the visitor doesn't bother to read the response and says "well I guess you're all pedophiles too" and storms away. Until tomorrow when his twin wanders in with the same accusations.

The online world. Ain't it grand?

I don't mind the repetition. My particular flavour of neurodivergence finds it comforting, and I develop a deep understanding as topics are raised, expanded upon and raised again. Maybe there are no new topics to discuss, but there's always more that can be added, different words that can be used. If you think that's pointless, I'll point you to religions. Like Stephen Raskin said, 

"Religions only look different if you get 'em from a retailer. If you go to a wholesaler, you'll find they all get it from the same distributor."

(Did you know Arabic Christians refer to God as Allah? It's simply the Arabic for "God", and they speak Arabic...)

Anyway.

I recently came across something on Reddit I'd somehow never seen before. In r/randomthoughts, user "erisedheroine" posted "The phrases 'work husband' and 'work wife' are such weird terms".

My interest was piqued because I didn't think there was anything at all weird about work spouses. I've only ever had one woman I referred to as my "work wife"; she was and is happily and monogamously  partnered up and I never once  any kind of prurient thought towards her. We both took the job seriously in an environment where nobody else did. That tends to engender a "you and I against the world" mentality that bonds people. When you add in that Haley and I were on the same early morning schedule and got to see each other bleary and cranky in the morning...that we spent more waking hours together than either of us did with our actual partners (thanks, capitalism) and you can perhaps see how I view "work wife". 

Eva once, several jobs ago, had a work husband named Dane. He was Aussie and he had a ringing way of drawling the words "I know". Those words in that inflection joined our collection of spousal catchphrases. Dane was in Eva's orbit long before we opened, and I know nothing ever happened between them.

Innocently, naively, I opened the thread. A sample of the comments:

It absolutely is weird. They're outright admitting they see a co-worker in the same light as their spouse. This is ultimately just the prelude to cheating.

Yeah.. I get work mom or work dad or even work cuz. But work wife or work husband.. I think that’s code for I am emotionally cheating and since it’s a term that makes it normal and acceptable.

I feel like if you're both single, fine, do what you like.  If one or both of you are partnered, knock it off.  It's disrespectful to your actual relationship(s).

There were some people saying "calm down, it's a joke, it's not spouses as in fucking each other, it's spouses as in nag nag nag nag nag." Every one of the people saying the term was okay was downvoted. 

I backed out as if slapped. My flabbers were well and truly gasted. This is so contrary to how I use the term that I couldn't credit it

I thought for a second. This was only one thread. Surely this topic has been raised on the site before. One of the oddities of Reddit: the same things that get upvoted in one thread on one subreddit get downvoted elsewhere. Let's gather some more opinions. 

CTRL-F "work husband"

Yup, as expected, it's a common discussion I'd somehow just missed in all my time on Reddit. So let's dip into the other threads. 

Countless iterations of the same situation. "Yeah, my ex-husband's 'work wife' is now the mother of his children." "I'm falling in love with my work husband".  "My husband is telling me he's staying in the same room as his work wife on the company junket." And so on.

It's probably revealing to admit, but "sex' and "marriage" don't automatically correlate in my mind. Think of  any married couple you know. Is your first, second or even hundredth thought sexual in nature? If you're married, did you promise to make her squirt or suck him dry in your vows? Hell, the standard wedding vows don't even mention children, so it's kind of hard to see what sex has to do with marriage. I betcha it's religious. Specifically Christian.

Yep. Genesis 2:23-24:

23 The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones

    and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

    for she was taken out of man.”

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Okay, hold up a minute here. This is saying married people "become one flesh" because woman "was taken out of man". I shouldn't need to explain basic biology at this late date, but even Neolithic goat herders knew that's exactly backwards. MEN are taken out of WOMEN when they're born.  You'll forgive me if I choose not to take this seriously. 

Oh, look, here's someone identifying as polyamorous and objecting to the term. "We use our words with intent", she says. "And so I have a 'work twin', not a 'work husband'.

My e-friend Justin says he understands why someone might reserve the 'spouse' title for their actual spouse -- so do I, to be fair -- but then adds this:

At the end of the day a phrase is just a phrase.

Each person’s meaning behind that designated title may vary. So if we’re worried about flirtation in the workplace and implied interest I mean, people can flirt at work without calling someone their “work husband” so that part really doesn’t concern me at all!

Words. Intentions. So many topics boil down to words and intentions. I am amazed people are threatened by mere words, without seeing the intentions behind them. It's where most of my confusion in this world comes from. 

I don't see "work husband" and think "one flesh". Instead I think "emotionally close". But that's threatening to a whole other load of people. Emotionally close? Only a matter of time until they're physically close.

And yeah, someone put my libido in my heart, but that doesn't mean I automatically  have humina humina bow-chicka-bow-bow HYOOOOOOOGAH thoughts about the women I'm emotionally close to. They do cross my mind sometimes. I know it's often up for debate, but the fact is I AM human, and male, and straight, with all that implies. 

I also respect people and their relationships.

In an ideal world, which is to say my own little world, nobody's threatened by "work husbands" and "work wives".  I'm going to keep trying to spread my ideal world out into the real world, little by little. It's the only thing I know how to do.