Speaking of "outings," here's a funny story from the world of high finance:

Back in October, shortly after I started work at my current employer, I had lunch with the girl from human resources who had processed my application and candidacy. This girl is also...well, let's just say that she went to Smith, and leave it at that.

In any case, we had lunch one afternoon, because she'd mentioned in the elevator that morning that she'd been meaning to ask me to lunch for a while. And as we were walking back from Bryant Park, she said to me: "I just wanted to say that if you ever want to talk, about this company or anything else, I'm always happy to listen." And this really touched me; after all, I'd only been at the firm for a few weeks. But oddly enough, since then, I've never had lunch with her again, despite having e-mailed her several times.

It turns out...wait for it!...that she thought that I was gay. How did she get this impression? Well, like I said, she processed my resume, and saw that I'd worked for the San Francisco Bay Guardian for a summer, which is true. Somehow, because the Bay Guardian is very progressive and based in San Francisco, natch, this meant that I had to be gay. And when she asked me to lunch that one time, she was planning to give me some advice about being gay at our firm...only to pick up my overwhelmingly straight vibe, of course, as soon as we were alone. (I don't actually remember hitting on her, but let's face it, I probably did. Mistakes were made, etc.)

(Actually, I don't know for sure that it was the Bay Guardian that outed me in her eyes, but the other alternative is too depressing: that somehow she confused the Harvard Advocate with, well, The Advocate.)

So the long and short of it is that we haven't had lunch again, and I still don't know the first thing about being gay at a hedge fund. If I learn more, I'll be sure to let all of you know.