When it comes to work, or even meeting new people in typical contexts, I’m usually at least okay thinking and responding on my feet and coming off as competent. But a few weeks ago, I was on a trip with a co-worker for a few days. We’d spent hours on end working together in small groups, we’d eaten at more Chili’s by the highway than you knew existed in Ohio (not recommended), and even discussed how much we loved our families driving through what felt like the end of the world in a blizzard in central Michigan.

We were well past the going over our career histories, our what-do-you-like/ not-like about the job rants. I felt pretty friendly, and way comfortable for being relatively new to the group — until the question came up: “So, have you been able to keep a relationship going through all the moving and travelling the last two years?”

“Uhh, what. I mean I know what. Maybe. I mean, not maybe. Not that I mean no. But no. But not like .. I mean, it’s possible for sure. But it doesn’t matter– what time is it… umm”

So since Day 1 at work, I’ve had this compulsion to keep my work-life very separate from my personal life. When I started, I was SUPER careful about sharing only the absolute minimum with my co-workers. It was never a question of lying, nor that I had anything that I had to be hiding — more a question of just wanting to keep my life cleanly compartmentalised.

This all really broke down when I moved to a new city for my second role. Not having prior friends or family in the new city really changed the equation here. I found myself initially trying to keep clean lines between my social and work life, but found them really blurring through my second and third rotations, as I really relied on my work network to make friends as well.

Terrifying at first — but I went out to dinner with the same people on weekends, worried about growing old unfulfilled after watching Up! with them, and went to insane Halloween parties at Madison with them as well. And now having moved again, while I know I won’t keep up with some of them past looking them up when I’m back in the same city again, I know that a select few of them I will keep in touch with for a long time coming, and have come to really value as friends.

But above all, even though I know now that letting people from work in on closer part of my life — on where my family is, what I do for fun, how I run away to Chicago so often to stay sane, and yes, how old I am — has worked out just fine, and perhaps even to my benefit in the past, come time for my fourth rotation, now in Los Angeles, I still find my guard back up, ready to snap back with an “old enough to know I don’t have to answer that” the second someone tries to find out about how old I am, or get closer in any way.

And I know from talking to my friends that I’m not entirely alone in this. Ann’s got her shoe story, and I reckon that the same feeling of holding up a pretense, of playing the part that people expect us to while keeping the fact that you wear heels and went to that Britney concert last night a secret – is all too familiar for quite a few of us. My thoughts starting out was that it’s already challenging enough to establish credibility being new, short-term, young and female. I want to let no more than that slip about me, if I can help it.

Over the (limited number of) years, I’ve come to understand that to an extent, I do have to share parts of my life with my co-workers, and create some level of a real relationship — I mean, these are the people I spend easily 50 hours a week around! I’d go insane if I didn’t!

And here’s the real kicker in my mind: that’s not it! Being aloof and a loner is only making the Old Boys Network stronger with every Happy Hour you skip!

Bottom line, my mother continues her streak of being right about everything, and it’s all about having a balance. Now I’m no expert claiming to dole out sound advice –and my mother’s not quite ready to blog yet — but, here are a few of the ways I’m learning to balance this.

• If I’m not ready to look my manager in the eye and talk about it, I don’t tweet it. True, with each co-worker that finds me on Facebook and Twitter these lines get blurrier and blurrier – the thing to keep in mind here, especially given recent trends, once you put something on the internet, you have no control over it anymore.
• Go to Happy Hour. Do what you need to -alternate soda-and-limes for vodka tonics, set a two (or four?) drink maximum and stick to it. Talk, laugh, socialise. Learn to smile and nod at home-repair stories, but don’t feel the need to play along with That’s What She Said jokes — unless of course, you know your co-workers well enough to out-sass them with a That’s What He Said!
• Leave Happy Hour: keep a social circle separate from work. Easier said than done, especially for those of us that move, but put yourself out there — meetup.com, your local gym, hobby sport leagues, take a class — there’s tons of options for that first friend date. Make other friends — so that day when you just want to bitch about work, you’ll have someone to down a beer (or four) with you over it.
• Be comfortable. This took me a really long time, and I still go back and forth — but at the end of the day, yeah, man, I’m wearing heels and a skirt — but I know how to do my job and do it at least decently well. If you’ve got a problem, let me know. Until then, I’m leaving my steel-toed boots in my trunk unless I’m on a manufacturing floor.

Peace.

Maelin, Ann, Kaylee and I have been talking about getting this show on the road for a couple months now. I was psyched about it back then, and after a period of deliberation and questioning, I’m psyched again. The issue I found myself grappling with, was just the idea of writing for a gendered audience. Is our target audience decidedly gendered? Clearly, it kind of is — is that ok? And what does that mean — what does it mean to write for a gendered audience?

There’s just something about the idea of thoughts, of commentary — anything intended for intellectual consumption — being gendered just fundamentally does not sit well with me.

Part of this comes from the centuries of associations that society has cemented in our heads when it comes to gendered adjectives. The idea of writing something that will be labeled girly really upset me, just as the idea of a MANLY blog makes me want to roll my eyes. “Feminine” and “masculine” have less of a cringe-factor associated with them, but I was apprehensive that there is still this hint at frivolity, at the likelihood of something superficial that is inherent to a blog that isolates a gendered target audience.

Yet, I love reading pieces written for women, by women. I don’t love all of it, and that’s not all I love to read. I really wish there was more representation of a female voice in writing about my non-traditionally “feminine” interests — about science, technology and gadgets. I really wish there wasn’t still writing in these arenas that is gender polarised to be unwelcoming to me.

Fact of matter is, though, that people enjoy reading writing by people they relate to. It’s just human to want to find something that clicks and resonates with you in the entertainment you seek out. And after some long conversations with myself, I finally think that’s OK.

Not everyone has the same experiences, and some experiences are just inherently set apart to specific cultures, races, and yes, genders. All the men out there probably aren’t quite enthralled by how the mechanics of a diva-cup go down, but you’re in the clear — as long as you don’t run screaming on encountering one — in which case, please, keep running.

So, yeah, I care about blogs that talk about what OPI mattes are the hottest right now. But I also wish someone wrote about what material is in the “longstay coat” that makes it stick around — and whether that’s going to eventually give me some wacky cancer, while you’re at it.

At the end of the day, there is plenty of media out there telling women how to be pretty and decorous, and men how to be manly and even geeky and intelligent. It’s a whole other can of worms that I’m sure we’ll open and reopen again over time when you get down to how this sort of messaging reinforces itself over time, just propagating The Way Things Are.

There is plenty out there telling me how to pair the right leggings with the right skirt for the effortless shabby chic look, whatever that is. But it was only through trial-and-error and venting with a rare female co-worker that I found out how to get ESD straps to play nice with my shoes. Come on. More than the both of us have tested creative ways to pair ESD straps and heels on days involving surprise plant walk-throughs. Let’s talk about it!

I hope that here we can provide a space and context for thoughts and opinions that are geeky, nerdy, in-yo’-face, and whatever else they want whenever they want — but also just as feminine as they want all the time.