BambinoRex saidmy question is: for those who manage to maintain durable relationships. how do you best navigate being social in a world that doesn't necessarily acknowledge or support you? within other gay friends, how do you manage the way people confuse candor with license?
I find that if I treat my partner as I would a straight spouse in conversation - i.e., he's just there, nothing remarkable about it - straight people tend to respond in kind. In other words, they generally do acknowledge if you treat it matter-of-factly.
And with other gay folk, well, things have changed a bit. 15-20 years ago visible long-term couples were so rare I helped to found a local gay couples group. The first time we marched in Pride there were a few stupid young jerks who made a point of making the rounds of the couples, saying things like "You're hot, don't you want me, I could make you leave your boyfriend." Now we're pretty much everywhere. I don't find that gay guys tend to get in my business more because I'm half of a couple. Frankly, single guys especially tend to put the relationship up on a pedestal, assume that if you've made it that far things MUST be perfect, you wouldn't have anything to complain about. They're much more likely to annoy (or alternatively, titillate) me complaining about the drama of their own love lives. But that may be because I made that transition from single to half of a couple so long ago, that it's just no longer very interesting.