Our story never failed to charm at cocktail parties. We were college sweethearts addicted to one another’s company, pen pals while abroad, intellectual soul mates who moved together from Montana to Manhattan, goofy newlyweds who never stopped rooting for each other.

This is the story I love to tell, and this story is true.

But these days, a few drinks in, people learn that my partner’s pronouns have changed since the wedding — to she/her instead of he/him — and I watch their eyes fill with concern.

“So how old did you say you were when you got married?” they ask. “Right, 24, yeah, that’s young.” After which they never mention my marriage again.

Others react in vaguely supportive ways at first, only to pounce weeks later.

“How’s your home life?” they might ask if I casually mention stress or fatigue.

Everywhere I turn, people want to mother or therapize me. They corner me in bars, after dinner, in a quiet hallway at a party. They need me to know that they only desire my happiness. They just can’t imagine, they say, what they would do if this happened to them. They tell me I’m beautiful, intelligent and so kind. They want to know if I’m truly happy.

I have spent the last two years, since Kaci started coming out to ever-widening circles, trying to figure out how to respond to these interventions. I have come to expect them once I’m alone in a room with someone.