Referring to my boyfriend to people who do not know I am gay

[CountDeMoney]

Here's an easy enough safety tip:  don't talk about shit at work that isn't about fucking work.

Wow you must have been a hoot to work with.

Sports, movies, music, pop culture, that's all fine to chat about.  But co-workers' personal lives, really don't give a fuck.  I got my own problems.

[Martinus]

Well, I am not really even talking about personal life details. It's more along the lines of someone at work saying that they know X, and it happens to be someone that my boyfriend also knows, and things like that.

[Barrister]

Fuck y'all, I'm going to continue talking about my kids at work.   

[Tamas]

Here's an easy enough safety tip:  don't talk about shit at work that isn't about fucking work.

Wow you must have been a hoot to work with.

newsflash: non-friends aren't interested in what you are saying. They are just waiting for their turn to speak. It's like a ritual. An annoying one.

[Tamas]

Well, I am not really even talking about personal life details. It's more along the lines of someone at work saying that they know X, and it happens to be someone that my boyfriend also knows, and things like that.

"well I heard from a friend"

[Martinus]

Well, I am not really even talking about personal life details. It's more along the lines of someone at work saying that they know X, and it happens to be someone that my boyfriend also knows, and things like that.

"well I heard from a friend"

But I don't want to do so, as per my original post - referring to him as a friend makes me feel like a fraud.

Plus, Polish is again a bit different from English in this respect, in that we have two words that can be translated as a "friend" - one that means something along the lines of an "aquitance"/"colleague" (which is how I don't want to refer to my boyfriend) and the other which means "very close friend" and pretty much when used by a guy almost always refers to his same sex partner.

[Faeelin]

If you think not calling him your boyfriend is being fraudulent, then man the fuck up and call him your boyfriend.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Seems to me that Polish has a word for it then 

[dps]

Refer to him as your brother, that way people who know you're in a sexual relationship with him but don't know that you're an only child can be really squicked.

[frunk]

It sounds like you want to basically say that he's your boyfriend, while being subtle and cool about it so that if someone isn't paying attention they won't realize it.  Unfortunately Polish doesn't support this option.

[11B4V]

Assuming I would not want to come out to them there and then, how should I refer to him? Calling him a "friend" makes me feel like I'm a deceitful person (not to mention, calling him a "girlfriend"), but as Polish language is very gender-specific, there is really no option to call him a gender-neutral "significant other", the way you can in English.

Refer to as "Your other half". Why are you scared to come out?

[Martinus]

English is much easier in this regard, as only some of your nouns (and none of your non-nouns) have masculine and feminine forms.

In Polish the sentence "my partner was" would use a different form of the word "my" "partner" and "was", depending on the gender of the partner.

[garbon]

Except that it is pretty much accepted here that if someone says their partner, they are talking about a same-sex one.  That's actually why my mother doesn't use the term in reference to her boyfriend of 12 years.

[Martinus]

Assuming I would not want to come out to them there and then, how should I refer to him? Calling him a "friend" makes me feel like I'm a deceitful person (not to mention, calling him a "girlfriend"), but as Polish language is very gender-specific, there is really no option to call him a gender-neutral "significant other", the way you can in English.

Refer to as "Your other half". Why are you scared to come out?

Well, it's not really about being scared to come out as it is about not wanting to sour some of my office relationships, especially with certain guys, by making them uncomfortable - I have rather good relations with several guys at my work, but I am afraid they would become more reserved if they knew I admitted expressly to them that I was gay (for example, my office mate who is younger than me and, admittedly, quite hot). It is also not that they are necessarily homophobic but noone is out to everyone at my work so I don't want to be the odd one out.

And obviously, it's not the case of "if they are uncomfortable with you being gay, you shouldn't be friends in the first place", as work relationships do not really work like that, as they are not entirely voluntary.

Edit: Fixed one line in my post to be more precise what I mean.

[Martinus]

Except that it is pretty much accepted here that if someone says their partner, they are talking about a same-sex one.  That's actually why my mother doesn't use the term in reference to her boyfriend of 12 years.

Pretty much, but you can at least keep it formally neutral - in Polish this is impossible without being a word contortionist.