One story my husband shared with me was when he and my dad stopped into a local bar after working hard on home renovations all day. They planned to get some dinner and have some beer after a hard day’s work but needed to wash their very dirty hands first. So they went back into the bathroom and washed their hands. Well apparently that was too “gay” for the owner of the bar and they went over to the bathroom and started saying things like “I don’t know what you think you’re doing in there” and “I just need to make sure you’re not doing anything funny”. So they ended up just leaving while the guy yelled at them saying they had to buy something.

A slightly different version of this concept also happened to my husband. At one point, 2 of our lady friends were talking about fashion and my husband, who is MUCH more fashionable than I am, chimed in. They proceeded to tell him that he’s “not allowed to have an opinion because he’s a man” which is the most double standard bullshit I’ve ever heard come out of any of my friends mouths. It’s stuck with me for a long time now because I think it keeps me honest with myself about standards and reminds me to think about how opinions change when you flip genders.