During this pandemic, I decided to complete a project I've put on hold for ages. I have thousands of personal photographs and greeting cards that I've saved and I want to scan them and post them either to Facebook or to my blog at www.rondynmusings.com.
The card shown in this post was sent to me by my Japanese boss when I was working for NCR Corporation in their world headquarters in Dayton Ohio. Being a single employee in my late twenties, there were more than a few older men and women in the organization who took me under their wing treating me as a son.
In that environment, it is probably no surprise that my Japanese boss, as a surrogate Japanese father, approached the subject of my finding "a nice lady" to start a family. These are words that many Japanese young men, both straight and gay, have heard from their family members. I ignored the card. In that era, confronting older, well-intentioned persons was just not done.
While there were occasional comments, jokes, nudges, etc. they did not affect my career trajectory or my resolve to march to my own drummer at my own pace. I coped with the situations in a way that created the less stress and I am happy with the way things turned out.
I'm not suggesting that this is the way that this should be dealt with today. The world has changed and a boss intruding into someone's personal life is unacceptable.