I never hid my sexuality at work, nor did I actively shout out about it, but as a gay man in my forties, I guess you could say that I’d learnt to be naturally cautious and private, especially in the workplace.

When this new guy joined the department (let’s call him Buddy) we ended up sharing the same work booth. It wasn’t long before someone in the department told Buddy I was gay. That in itself wasn’t a problem except that I didn’t know this.

Buddy never asked if I had a partner (not that it was any of his business), and I guess at the time, because I thought he didn’t know about my sexuality, that it might be natural for Buddy, a straight male, to assume that I had a girlfriend.

Buddy was a very chatty guy and certainly didn’t hold back telling me about his private life; the problems he was having with the ex-wife, the new girlfriend he was shagging and such like. I was disinterested in his personal gossip, but for the sake of a harmonious working relationship I listened and smiled in all the right places. Every now and then there was a hint that Buddy might be homophobic, and at the time there was quite a bit in the press about Civil Partnerships – Buddy’s view was that ‘this was a step too far’, so my reaction was to be extra cautious.

So when totally out of the blue Buddy asked if I was seeing my ‘girlfriend’ at the weekend, I felt uncomfortable. I had just put my coat on and was about to leave the office and was caught off guard by his sudden prying. I could kick myself now but I stumbled and just said: ‘yeah sure…’ After that there was no stopping him. At every opportunity he would bring my ‘girlfriend’ into the conversation, asking what we did at the weekend, were we planning a vacation together, or telling me about problems he was having with his girlfriend and asking if I was having the same difficulties with mine (on the assumption that ‘all women are the same’ type of attitude).

Finally, after few months I’d had enough and ‘admitted’ – if that’s the right word – that I didn’t have a girlfriend but in fact had a male partner. On hearing this Buddy couldn’t disguise his smug expression. I think he somehow felt superior that he’d got me to ‘admit’ this to him as if it were something that was slightly sordid, his ‘game playing’ had got the result he wanted. He responded by saying: ‘I knew you were gay for ages, so and so told me but I have no problem with it’, he said this as if it were some great concession on his part and that I should be grateful. My immediate reaction was to think ‘too bad if you did have a problem’ but I didn’t tell him that – maybe I should have.

A while later a new member of staff joined the office; a rather bubbly personality in her twenties (let’s call her Bubbles). Every day she wore black, with black eyeliner, long fake eye-lashes and grey lipstick. She hobbled around the office on high-heel shoes giving the appearance of a hunched back. In my opinion she wasn’t a great beauty but what do I know! Bubbles joined our booth, much to Buddy’s delight and he soon got into the habit of frequently wheeling his chair over to her desk for a cosy chat and a quick ogle at her breasts. Bubbles loved the attention judging by how much her eye-lashes flapped.

So now the dynamics had changed and Buddy’s focus of attention was no longer on me, or so I thought. I had no doubt in my mind that he would spill the juicy gossip to Bubbles about my sexuality, but hey – what do you expect in the workplace!

The dreaded Christmas office party was looming and it was someone’s bright idea to have a Secret Santa – where you draw a ticket or piece of paper with a colleagues name on it – you then have to buy them a gift but they mustn’t know who it’s from. I knew something was up – something in the air told me that some form of humiliation was coming my way. By now Bubbles and Buddy were close, real close! My personal life, and the fact I had a male partner was a constant source of fascination to them. Both would often ask how the weekend went with my partner, Alan. That I didn’t mind, only there was always a sort of undertone to their questioning. Often I’d put this down to me being paranoid. But then sometimes, if I made a remark about something in the course of normal conversation, Buddy would mimic my voice but in a camp or effeminate way – sometimes flapping his hands, often glancing over to Bubbles as he did so – as if looking for approval. Once when this happened I turned round quickly to look at her, and the amused look on her face quickly straightened – but I had long ago worked out that she was two-faced.

When we each had to open our Secret Santa, I could sense the expectation in both Bubbles and Buddy, the looks they were giving each other, the giggle. I opened mine: it was a pair of joke handcuffs with pink fluffy trim – Bubbles squealed ‘Well you and Alan are going to have a lot of fun’, quickly she came over to me urging me to put them on. It has a key, she said, trying to reassure me that the further humiliation of actually wearing them in front of everyone in the office would be something that I would wish for. I felt embarrassed. Then another work colleague stepped in and said ‘leave him alone’. The moment passed and it was Buddies turn to open his Secret Santa. Someone (not me!) had thoughtfully got him a set of cheap wooden spoons. Buddy was not popular and most people in the office thought that he was a stirrer.              

It may sound cruel, but Bubbles wasn’t the brightest light bulb in the office, nor for that matter was Buddy, and their combined dimness conspired against them. For a while it had become quite obvious that they were sending emails to each other in the office. Tap tap-tap-tap, a giggle, tap-tap-tap back, another giggle, back and forth, sometime for thirty minutes or so. They would often disappear for fifteen, twenty minutes, I assumed for a coffee brake; sometimes they returned looking rather flushed as if they had been running, but the staff room was only one floor up.

There is always a certain buzz in the office, then suddenly one day – silence. Bubbles expressed an expletive. And there it was in my inbox and in everyone else’s too, an email from Bubbles. She had hit the wrong button, and hey-presto, everyone could read the private emails between her and Buddy. Next thing I know, Buddy tries to switch off my computer, but I grab hold of his wrist and stopped him. You see, I already read the first line of the email. I stood up; my legs felt like jelly, not through fear but anger. ‘Do you think this is a joke?’ I said loudly so that everyone in the office could hear. The content of the email, much of it about me was disgusting – calling me ‘that little queer’ and much worse. Unfortunately for them, all the other emails between them on the subject of me were there, a historical record of their last few months twittering, and now everyone was reading it. But there was more, they had mused about which desk in the office they would like to have sex on (including the managers) and Buddy invited Bubbles into the rest room for a quick one – so that’s why they sometimes looked a bit red in the face. Yes it was all there, and to my great delight – I knew that our manager was reading it too. The following day I had the booth all to myself and there were two vacant posts to fill.