Did anyone ever mistakenly think that you were gay because of a comment you made?

Today I was having lunch with two old childhood friends. Let’s call them Maude and Edith. We grew up together and spent our teen years together hanging out, dating boys, talking about boys, having pictures of male rock stars on our walls, all that kind of stuff. When I was in my early 20’s I moved away, then the other two girls moved away from our hometown as well.

About 10 years ago, one of the girls, Edith who was about 40 at the time and I ran into each other in a restaurant. She had moved back to town and I was visiting someone else in our hometown. We talked for about 15 minutes. I was with another female friend, who I’ll call Audrey (who I met as an adult, but by this time, we had known each other for about 10 years). I introduced my “new” friend Audrey to my “old” friend Edith and we all talked for awhile and then we all left. My old friend Edith left with her husband, and I left with my newer friend Audrey.

Fast forward to today. I met up with the two friends I grew up with. We recently got re-acquainted at a birthday party and we’ve been talking via Facebook and text, but I have only visited with Maude. We have lunch together about once a month. Today I got to have lunch with both Maude and Edith. Anyway, we were all talking about stuff we’ve been doing and I happened to mention that I’d recently done something with Audrey. So Edith says to me, “Wow! You two have been together for a long time. Weren’t you with Melanie before her?” So I look at her kind of quizzical, then I look over at Maude, and she’s also looking kind of quizzical. So I asked Edith what she was talking about. I said something like, “Well I’ve known Melanie for ages, but I met Audrey at work.” Then Edith said, “What??? I thought she was your girlfriend!”

Suddenly, it all became clear. 10 years ago, I probably said, “This is my girlfriend Audrey, we work together.” My old childhood friend, who knew perfectly well that I was heterosexual thought I meant girlfriend in the biblical sense.

Just then, my other old childhood friend starts busting up laughing, because she also figured out what just happened, and we both realized that poor Audrey, for some reason, thought for the last 10 years, that I had turned gay.

I finally said to her, “No, I’m not dating her. I’m not gay. She’s my girlfriend just like you and Maude are my girlfriends.” And Maude nodded and laughed in agreement.

I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, because this girlfriend has known me my entire life and has seen me with males that were my boyfriends and until I uttered that phrase, “girlfriend,” 10 years ago, I’m pretty sure she knew/thought I was straight.

So I ask you all this, has anyone ever thought you were gay because of something you uttered?