Perks of same-sex relationships

Maybe it’s me on the phone. Maybe it isn’t. You’ll never know.

Here at VillageQ, we don’t recruit. We don’t need to: we figure that our collective awesomeness is enough to pull those of you who might have been hovering over to the Q side without us having to do any real work.

That said, I do want to point out one important perk of being in the same-sex union, one that might just tip the scales for those of you who haven’t quite been convinced of the benefits of just how great it is. And that benefit is this: you can pretend to be your spouse.

I don’t just mean for fun at parties. Anyone can do that. I mean, you can impersonate your spouse — and vice versa — in situations where it is mutually convenient for you. Polly Pagenhart — a.k.a. Lesbian Dad — has gone so far as to name this phenomenon: the Lesbian Double Cross, or LDC. Quoth Lesbian dad: “[It’s] the scam pulled when the more numerically, logistically, or bureaucratically adept of the two of you calls the phone company, or the credit union, or the insurance company, ostensibly ‘on behalf of’ the less adept of the two of you. Okay, ‘on behalf of’ may be a little delicate. ‘Brazenly impersonating you’ is a more accurate way to put it.”

Whatever you call it, you know you’ve done it. In our house, it’s usually me impersonating Rachel, who breaks out in hives if she has to talk to the bank to deal with anything remotely financial. So, I call up the bank and say I’m her. Security questions? No problem. Of course I know her date and year of birth. Her mother’s maiden name? Check. Social Insurance Number (that’s the Canadian equivalent for Social Security number for you Yanks)? Memorized. Employee number? I’ve got it in my files. Every so often, I like to tell her that I could easily move all of our assets to some kind of offshore account and she’d be left with nothing and she just laughs, because, well, half of almost nothing isn’t very much anyway.

But I digress.

It’s not just me, dealing with finances and picking up sensitive medical information on the phone. A quick survey of VillageQ contributors reveals the LDC (or GDC/TDC for our daddy/trans bloggers; heck, let’s just call it the VQDC) is a well-entrenched practice.

“Luisa impersonates me all the time and then I don’t have to deal with business things,” says Vikki Reich. “It is a perk.”

“We both impersonate each other to field marketing calls or following up with banks or utility companies,” says Deborah Goldstein. “Gabriella loves to negotiate, so she’s our ‘We’re thinking of switching internet providers. What can you do for me?’ go-to gal regardless of whose name is not the account.” Handy, no?

“Also,” continues Deborah. “I impersonate her when we’re having a tense discussion, and I want her to hear what she should say.”

(I admit I have tried that one, but it’s never worked very well.)

Says Cheryl Dumesnil: “I have memorized the last four digits of Tracie’s Social Security number for just this reason — so I can be her when I call about the bills in her name. Once I was actually both of us. I reserved a flight with my frequent flyer miles, then I handed the phone to ‘my partner’ so she/I could reserve hers.”

But Cheryl has gone even further. One time, in a brazen act of VQDC, she actually pretended to be her wife in person at an AT&T store. I’ve never done that — not even at an AT&T store — unless you count when someone calls me “Rachel” instead of “Susan” and I don’t bother to correct them. But now the gauntlet is down and I may have to rise to the challenge.

Ian Chesir-Teran has done the double cross, too, for phone banking. “Sounds a bit creepy now that I think about it,” he says. “Almost like when the Bachelor sends in his identical twin to test the women and see if they know it’s not him.”

Not creepy at all, Ian. Not creepy at all. Just picking up some perks where we can.

where to buy disulfiram (antabuse) Have YOU tried the queer doublecross? Tell me your best story below.

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