Comfortably Introverted Part 2: Finding comfort in difference

Author’s note: this is what my previous post, “Comfortably Introverted,” should have been, or rather it may be seen as an amendment. If it’s redundant in places, please forgive me.

It was getting on towards midnight and my constant intake of coffee over the course of the day was still keeping me wide awake. Slipping on my boots and a thin hoody, I stepped out into the cold Adelaide air and on towards the Village reception, where I found Eddie. He was sitting behind the desk (as usual) drinking a thick, black cup of coffee; he always looked too tired to be someone working night-shift security details. “Hey, Tats!” he called to me, once he saw me pass through the adjacent sliding glass doors, “How ya goin’?” I stop. I sigh. These questions are always more complex than they need to be. “What’s wrong?” he asks, not missing a beat. So I tell him. I open up about how I don’t feel like a girl—how I feel like I’m a boy, still. I tell him how I feel as though people can see through me, and how it feels like people are giving me dirty looks—how they see the boy and the masculinity and glance away. I tell him I hate how people look at me, that it makes me feel like a freak and only heightens my feelings of gender dysphoria. Eddie nods at me, and then he brings up a very obvious point: I’m tattooed. He tells me that he’s seen people looking at me, only to abruptly look away again, somewhat startled; however, he also said the a lot of people asked questions about the “cool girl with the tattoos.”

I’ve been questioning a lot of things lately: my gender expression, my comfort in my body, my sexual orientation, etc. Just the other day a good friend wrote me an email in which she used the word “heteroromantic.” Having never heard this term before, I quickly googled it, and I found out it comes from the asexual community—they have divided sexual orientation from romantic; you may or may not want to have sex vs. you may or may not want to build an intimate, non-sexual relationship with someone (akin to a sexless marriage, although minus the negative connotations—as you’d be perfectly content with the absence of sex).This has me thinking about what my sexual and romantic identities are. And along came Lisa.

Lisa was attracted to me—something she made abundantly clear over the weeks. I have to admit, the concept of the relationship was tempting: here was a girl who said I was pretty and feminine; she wanted to help me realize my own feminine gender expression (essentially “teach me to be a girl”). Given all the self-doubt I’ve recently experienced around my own gender, the offer (as I said) was tempting. This was an offer of validation. Foolishly, I accepted, but the more time she spent with me, the more I started to hear “Scar” by Missy Higgins playing in the back of my head. Being in this romantic relationship I found myself feeling increasingly uncomfortable and stressed until, shortly after the relationship began, we ended it. Instantly, I felt free again...only now, new self-doubt was born. What did my discomfort in the relationship mean? Was that more indicative of trying to force feelings I didn’t have? Was this an indication that I am not only largely asexual, but aromantic as well?

But the Lisa situation wouldn’t die. Now in the “just friends” territory of doom, I find that even a friendship with her is too stressful. Just under the surface of everything I perceive the pretext of the old romantic feelings and the drive to change me. I find myself pushing her away...and damn, isn’t poetic justice just perfectly brutal? Back in college I knew a girl named Nikki; she and I used to be close friends—she even taught me how to play violin—but after a year of knowing her I noticed that I had developed romantic feelings for her. I disclosed my emotions to Nikki, and we decided to remain “just friends.” Obviously, things are never so cut and dry. She stopped taking my calls. She avoided me and lied to me—she excluded me from her life entirely. I have to admit, that hurt...but I can see now that my behaviour in relation to the situation was stressing her out. Now the tables have turned, and I know all too well what must be done.

This is the kind of situation I never wanted to blog about. It’s a tawdry, vulgar scenario that has a better place in high school poetry than it does in a PhD trans girl’s blog about gender. All the same, this trope bears some recognition for what it is: this entire situation has been a giant set-up for questions concerning my own sexual orientation, romantic orientation, gender expression, gender identity, and social identity (optimist vs pessimist, extrovert vs introvert). Moreover, it’s been a lesson in integrity. I have to be honest with myself.

And part of me realizes that what I’m feeling right now isn’t necessarily the pangs of asexuality or aromanticism or even introversion. Part of me is assuming that my orientations are a lot more contingent on other factors—that they do not exist as one universality in a vacuum, but instead are a function of where I am in life and the person or persons to whom these orientations may be directed (if that makes any sense). And maybe that’s the fairest way of assessing the situation: case by case, never limited, and always open for review. And maybe that fluidity is common to the other aspects as well. Before writing this I had a brief chat with Dr. Chin (Not a real doctor, but a motorbike-riding, piano-playing uni student). He said to me, “You’re not normative; you have tattoos, etc. People have a hard time accepting what’s not status quo. So, you’re a tomboy and maybe you’re a little more masculine. But that’s you. If some days you want to wear a dress, just do it. Don’t worry. You have to be who you are.” Fucking wise man that Dr. Chin.