Just Laugh

  “I felt like an imposter, a fraud, and now more than ever, a freak.”

–Max Beck, a noted Intersex Transman

I feel you Max Beck. Lord knows I know what that feels like. It is never nice to know that your mind does not match your body, what you should be capable of in your one lifetime, or how you should be perceived, and that there is nothing you can really do about it accept for medically transition. It’s an alien experience, to look down at your hands as if they are someone else’s, and to speak with a voice pitched entirely different to the one in your head. It feels like you are drowning in yourself, or being locked into your body. It’s as if you are trapped in a coma, and everybody thinks you’re one thing; asleep, but in reality you are wide awake and silently screaming...

 ...Which is why humour is such a beautiful and majestic masterpiece of human language and psychology.

“How many transgender people does it take to change a light bulb? “"- only one, but they have to live for a year in the dark to be really, definitely sure it needs changing."

Ohhhh, queer humour truly is a marvellous thing. If you don’t laugh you cry, and it is always important to stay light hearted and think of other things that are related to something entirely else. That is easier said than done though, o the more i think of it the more sarcastic i tend to become. It is better that i am like this than i am morbidly depressive. I have progressively been learning how to be softer and more honest with myself. I always tell myself that I should become some one that i would want to meet. And i enjoy meeting people with an open mind, lots of ideas and a wicked tongue of a sense of humor.

Not only does it draw people to me, it also helps to enlighten other people in a less serious method. The other day a friend posted on facebook a feminist rant about how there aren’t enough female protagonists in games. I wrote back,

“Speaking as an angry lesbian feminist myself, I can understand what they mean. There aren't many women in main stream media that are portrayed as anything but sex symbols.

However, when I'm playing a third person game I choose to play as a female character, just to watch them run from behind. So its swings and roundabouts I suppose... “

It is also good to diffuse otherwise incredibly deliberating situations. A partner nearly outed me as trans* to work colleagues before she had even told me that she thought I was trans. I hadn’t even come out to her yet. Luckily enough though, what with it being me, the entire entourage thought it was another one of my elaborate jokes about my more masculine features. I speak aloud a lot, a little too often in fact, so when I said I shouldn’t be wearing such a low cut top because I haven’t shaved my chest everyone just laughed. When a partner told me that I looked a hell of a lot like my male friend we both laughed. When a friend of a friend invited me to like a page on facebook for men who have sex with men and everyone told him I was a girl, we all laughed. It makes things all alright to talk about when a situation would otherwise be very awkward and talked about when I am not there, rather than openly with me.  Its like when someone asked me what my blog was about, and when i said LGBT issues they said is it like, “Day 47 of being trapped in my body”...my comeback was to agree wholeheartedly. The beautiful thing was that we paused and both knew that it was entirely true. And it was fine. 

Transition

Salvador Dali once said, “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs”. Well I don’t need drugs either my darlings, as I am forever high on life. While I tend to think I will try most things once, I do not find them worth the money or the after effects. I love my mind; it is all that I have that is my own, and taking something which alters it other than alcohol chills me to the bone. Imagining myself on drugs is something horrific. 

So why is it that imagining myself on male hormones seems so appealing in my mind’s eye? Granted, the affects could prove absolutely horrific but still; what would I look like on them? How would I feel? Better or worse? Regret? Mourning for the last shred of femininity that I have left? None or all of the above? 

All I know is that I am somewhat drugs already. Maybe I shouldn’t ask the question what would happen if I took hormone replacement therapy, and more like what would happen if I stopped taking the daily cocktail of drugs that try to preserve my few feminine features and habits. I cannot speak as every transgender or inter-sex person, and hell, maybe it is my imagination, or maybe it is dangerous for me to say it, but I definitely think that when I accidentally miss a few or they stop and start whatever cycle of drugs I happen to be on, I feel a lot more stereo-typically masculine, as I seem to fail to be open with my emotions. I hear a lot about trans-men on HRT whose personalities have altered since taking T and it does make me wonder.

Anyway, should I ever stop my medication altogether or further still start to take testosterone and transition, I genuinely wonder if I would look the way that I see myself in my minds eye, or instead of curing all of my problems, would it simply generate more and change me to the point where I am barely recognizable to myself? Because to transition and feel dysphoria about having a male body, or to miss my more emotional personality traits would be absolutely heart breaking to me, and I would truly miss myself. When it comes to relationships as well i am not sure how I would feel, but the one thing that both equally worries me and comforts me is this poem.

"When you peel layers of clothing from his skin

Do not act as though you are changing dressings on a trauma patient

Even though it’s highly likely that you are.

Do not ask if she’s “had the surgery.”

Do not tell him that the needlepoint bruises on his thighs look like they hurt

If you are being offered a body

That has already been laid upon an altar of surgical steel

A sacrifice to whatever gods govern bodies

That come with some assembly required

Whatever you do,

Do not say that the carefully sculpted landscape

Bordered by rocky ridges of scar tissue

Looks almost natural."

-How to Make Love to a Trans Person' by Gabe Moses.

I find it beautiful, and it highlights genuine problems and solutions on how my transitioned body would look to another and how positively or negatively I might be received. I have after all only partially dipped my toes in the ocean of dating while being out and openly trans*. At the same time though, I have not yet ruled anything out, and maybe one day I will wake up everyday, instead of the occasional week or month, believing that transitioning will make me feel much more comfortable, confident when I am with a partner and ultimately, it will actually get me closer to be me. 

Uniform

You turn to your wardrobe and don’t know what to make of it. You just stare for the longest time. You stretch out weak, yet hairy arms and slip on a dress that’s too tight in the shoulders, too loose around your misshapen breasts, but they are breasts all the same, and the dress is tight around a beer belly and birthing hips for a child that you can never carry. It flows over where your seedless male genitals should be, covers legs that begin curvy and then become muscular, and you just stand there for a moment in the ill fitting garment wondering if you can handle walking with a swish and having people treat you like you’re delicate all day.

So then you tear it off, feeling all of the curves and muscle of your oddly shaped form and you don a light polo shirt and chinos that sit tight on your hips, which gives them a shrunken affect. You think for a moment this might be good, but there is no bulge in them, and while the shirt fits you in the shoulders and stomach your chest is all too apparent, and they feel unnatural jutting out against the straight cut clothing. For that, you will still be read as female, but no one will give you sympathy today, and you wonder if you can handle being mocked by your peers or forced to wrestle words apologetically with the boys.

The only other option is a blend of both. You start completely neutral from top to bottom: sports bra and girl boxer briefs. Jeans, t-shirt and converses. Lip balm and side fringe. But what will people call you today? If you hear ‘she’ will you feel incredibly weak and pathetic? Will your friends not include you as they usually do, worse yet come on to you? And what if you are called ‘he’? Will you be able to cope with the responsibility of yourself today, when you are suffering so silently? Can you handle the banter? And will you take the male pronouns as an insult to your femininity?

All you can do is begin to paint your short clipped nails on your oversized hands and empty your handbag into a rucksack, hoping that someone will call you pretty or handsome, because you really aren’t sure which you would prefer to be called and which would crush you. Then you sit, trying not to analyse yourself too much, trying not to ask awful questions like ‘why me?’ or ‘who could ever love this?’ And you struggle to breathe; you shake, your palms are sweaty and your heart races. You try to ignore that you are completely stuck, with no way out and nowhere to go. You try not to panic and flee or claw at your prison so you just cling to the edge of the bed in your too tight and too baggy clothes, hiding from mirrors, hiding from people, trying to ignore your own mind and your own body.

Then time stops, and your’e still frozen with fear when your loved one comes in and asks you why you didn’t go to school today. You can’t say, you can’t put it into words, and then when the school phones and asks why your attendance is so low you struggle to speak to them with a breaking voice which will never be more one or the other, spoken from lips that aren’t one or the other from a face and body and mind and soul that isn’t ever going to be one or the other. You tell them that you are ill again. You do, after all, feel very very ill. You feel mentally drained and still breathless.

Breathless

While I don’t usually look in the mirror and hate what I see, there are days when I am scared to look down at myself. There are days when I wake up and I just know it’s one of those days. It is apparent for the moment I wake up in bed that it’s one of those days and I feel sick to my stomach. I am under the covers and I daren’t move out from under them. I breathe carefully because I can feel my breasts rubbing against the quilt and I hate it, and at the same time I’m reminded that they exist I’m reminded that my nipples have almost no sensitivity. I roll over and feel my legs rub together. There’s space between them where I think a dick should be, but the feeling of long black hairs all over them make me feel just as queasy.

I reach out to my stomach and there’s even more hair there, there’s hair on my chest, which should be flat, and my hands that feel all of this are far too big to be female but far too soft to be a males. I feel my face with these odd appendages that can’t be my own and there’s this alien stubble and far too supple cheeks, far too strong a jaw and forehead, too small a nose, so I put my arms at my side and just try to keep my breathing steady and stable with my eyes tightly shut.

See, it’s hard to even breathe when you can feel your chest rise and fall, and it’s hard to move at all when you are in a body that just isn’t your own. All I can describe it as is being claustrophobic; stuck in a room with no windows that you can’t get out of, because the cruel reality is that you are in your body and you will never ever get out of it until the day you die. Think about it, if you woke up in the wrong gender, how hard it would be to function on the most fundamental of levels. 

Breathing. Is. Hard.

Puberty

I decided that life was being deliberately cruel the day that all of the designer clothes I had scrimped to afford  failed to fit me, not going past my shoulders or hugging the air where my hips and chest should have been. Buying my heels and jackets from drag queen websites left me feeling crestfallen, and when forgetting my P.E kit I had to wear a boys one, the teacher repeating incredulously “you’re a shoe size 9!?” did nothing for me either. That happened frequently; awkward stares that everyone else knew something was different, it wasn’t so obvious so that I could pinpoint it, it started off as sniggers but grew to something much worse.

When in the changing rooms people were no longer teasing, they were staring at my body silently, coldly, and questioningly because they didn’t know what I was. What hurt the most was that I didn’t know what I was either. I got changed in the toilet cubicles when the body hair started to grow, and stopped participating in sports altogether when I grew scared my rugby tackle would hurt someone. Call it testosterone, or call it the final straw, I got into a lot of fights in that lesson. ‘Dyke’ was thrown around a lot, and I would fight that label tooth and nail, because I was certain that I wasn’t a lesbian, it was just a cruel twist of puberty that was making me look like one.

My teachers did nothing, they would look at me up and down then silently agree with the class, their bleach blonde ponytails bobbing and lip glossed mouth pouting in disapproval. I didn’t want to watch the other girls get changed. Quite the opposite, actually. Everybody was so smooth; nice skin, glossy hair, petite. I looked rugged, with a face pock marked from acne and muscle definition on my arms and thighs. I resembled all of the boys in the other changing room, but if I was 3 years older. I was more masculine than most of them already. As soon as mixed gender lessons started the similarities between me and the boys in the way that I moved around the hall were made more difficult to ignore, and the new teacher would make a sweeping addresses of ‘lads’, ‘boys’, ‘gents’ and ‘guys’, always accidentally including me.

While the girls would laugh at me, the boys laughed with me, and I learned very quickly that beating people to the punch line that is my body, it would soften the blow that I was a freak. Banter was something I took to well though I suppose, whatever that means. That P.E group would chat to me occasionally, they took a shine to me in some way; they thought I was funny, and would mention their girlfriends a lot, and then look at me expectantly. They had obviously figured out something about me which I wouldn’t for at least three more years, but at the time I assumed that I had been friend zoned, and I grew incredibly upset about it. The irony now of course is that I detest it when male friends hit on me...

Image

Just when I thought it was only cis girls that worried about their body image and that I was immune from all of that, I found myself saying ‘does this shirt make me look flat?’ thinking about it, my breast tissue does not seem to make me feel like any less of a man. It does have that effect on everyone else though, as once I am no longer in my pyjamas and entered the outside world the questioning begins; the drift of eyes over the line of my body and ears straining to catch higher or deeper tones in my voice.

It is very hard to explain, but imagine if you will every single breath reminding you of what you should or shouldn’t be, and then your mind not registering it. Think about that constant reminder, the way that your clothes and you brush against yourself when you move. The fact that when you look in the mirror you cannot see yourself at all: not just little things that you like or don’t like, but you can’t see yourself. It looks like someone else is looking back at you, something else entirely. it doesn’t make sense at all, and then you hear someone in the street saying that they couldn’t tell if ‘it’ was a boy or a girl, when in fact they meant you, you want to turn round and tell them what you are, but you just don’t know what you are yourself.

You really do feel like an ‘it’, and its days like that when I truly do question whether I’m human or not. I don’t think I’m a person like everyone else, and I feel physically sick, just like when I’m standing on top of a really tall building. Being scared of your gender is a woozy and threatening feeling; it’s just like being scared of heights. But on a rare day, and thankfully, I mean a very rare day, this is exactly what I feel like, and the more masculine I become the more I’m so scared of this happening more often, or more terrifyingly, for this feeling to never go away.

For the most part though, I love the freedom of gender expression that my body gives me, and I actually like a lot of things about my body, it’s just other people that tend not to appreciate it quiet so much. Passing at first used to mean everything to me, but now that I have learned to deal with my dysphoria and come to terms with my sexuality and gender I know what I am in my heart. At the end of the day, even when passing, people will try to claim a view on those things. I cannot stop this bigotry or the opinions of others on my personal life. I can, however, feel comfortable leaving my house as a man in my head without the need of binding. I see that as a most marvelous breakthrough, even if at first it seemed like a horrific compromise when dealing with society.  

Sugar, spice, and C19H28O2

I can honestly say that I have no idea how I first questioned my gender. If I look back at myself through the years, then lord knows it was always staring me in the face, but the problem was I had no idea that it was even a thing; I didn’t know that you could even question your identity, I wasn’t aware that you could look at yourself in the mirror and see something unrecognizable to most staring back. One day, though, that is exactly what happened. At around the 17 mark I realised that this was it; I was not necessarily a man, and I had definitely not suddenly woken up and found myself like a lost set of keys. On the contrary, it was only the very beginning of my journey of ‘rediscovery’ or whatever dramatic titles you would want to give it.  

 I remember being little relatively well. I was always particularly boisterous, and always encouraged to stop being that way. My first little boyfriend when I was 5 is now gay, and when we slow danced at a party I led. I played conkers, climbed trees and had hot wheels sets. I cried when presented with a pink goody bag stead of blue. The men I took to; the older boys that everyone else was crushing on were more like role models to me. When the age came to wear makeup and like boys I lost all confidence and I became a painfully inverted and nervous child. It was alright being young and not caring for these things, but you stick out like a sore thumb when you don’t enjoy chick flicks or eyeliner at the age of 12.

I had to research how to dress effeminately, what men liked, even what men I should like. I never once thought I was gay, but I knew that I felt absolutely nothing for men, and I hid that well. I don’t think it is at all healthy that I would go home from school, revise, and then proceed to memorise a list of teenage heartthrobs so I would have something to say to my peers the following morning. Men were all that they talked about. Butterflies and lust were things I had no concept of, and it left me distraught, as I genuinely believed I would never have an interest in relationships or know what it is to love.

I assumed this would change. I thought I would grow out of it, or snap out of it in some way; that I would wake up and perhaps walking with my hips and head back would come naturally to me instead of being a constant struggle. Quite the opposite happened, actually. I was gangly and awkward, so while everyone else developed curves on petite frames I quiet literally woke up one day three heads taller than the rest of the girls in the class. If this was any indication that my body was fundamentally different than I chose to ignore it, just as I ignored every other indicator that I wasn’t quiet female. 

I felt as though I was always a positive person, and I believe that I still am to some extents, but I promise you now that everything felt as if it were designed to make me hate myself.  No one thing was a harrowing experience, but I can safely say that the build up of little things slowly whittled away at my confidence. Like most teenage girls my self worth seemed to be born of what men thought of my appearance and nothing more or less. It was the most important thing to every girl I spoke to, and instead of questioning it I lapped it up as gospel.

Dysphoria

I don’t like heights. And I don’t like my body sometimes. There is a general rule of thumb that I’ve discovered the hard way, and that is ‘don’t look down’. I live by this sometimes. When you’re hearts throbbing in your ears and your chest, when you feel you face flush and you armpits and palms suddenly become slick with cold sweat and your very quickly shaking, you’re stomachs churning, you get a fight or flight feeling deep within your core and your brain but you can’t move; you can’t run and you can’t escape because your legs won’t work and you don’t want to fall. That’s what it’s like when you’re on a high ledge, trying not to look down. And that’s what it’s like when your body doesn’t fit your mind. It’s hard to explain, and it’s hard to shake off.

People assume its madness to think your head can be different to your body, most people see gender as something which cannot be moved; it cannot be altered or debated and pondered upon. This is what I imagine it feels like to be transgender; to have you head not match you physically, but my situation, while entirely the same is also entirely different. See, I began as physically female for the most part. I matured early, and once puberty set in I began to notice how incredibly different my body was, or at least, was and is still becoming. It runs deeper than ‘disliking’ your body, like, assuming that you are ugly, not being able to face the mirror etc...This is an entirely different experience altogether.

 I don’t hate mirrors or photographs. On the contrary, I am entirely the opposite of that most of the time. I find mirrors and photographs fascinating. It’s rare, you see, that I am able to see myself entirely. I see certain traits of myself. This is a hard concept for most people to grasp, so I beg you to open your mind right now. All I can do is try to explain this, but when I look in the mirror I see things that are a part of me and things that aren’t, or at least, things that are missing or things that should be there depending on my mood. I can’t control this; when I feel male or female.

All I know is that some days I notice the curve of my hips and chest, the fullness of my lips, the long length of my eyelashes, the softness of my skin and blush in my cheeks. I notice how thick my hair is and how easily I smile, how I swivel my hips when I walk. Other times, though, I notice how broad my shoulders are, how large my hands and feet are. I see how angular my face is and how thin my lips can appear, how square my hairline is and how thick my eyebrows can be, how deep my voice is, and how masculine I walk. It depends on how I’m feeling and what I’m wearing. Other times though, I can look at myself and see a blend of characteristics: I think that my eyes and frame are big and beautiful, but my face shape and walk is typically male for example. I’m fine with that too; I just dress somewhat androgynously on those days. I never really mind if people call me he or she as I don’t know what I am myself, and don’t want to restrict myself to one or the other, so I’m perfectly comfortable with whatever label I am given.

Self Preservation

When it comes to lust I am ruthless. People fall in love with me, and as soon as I discover that I end it. They grow boring to me, and I actually start to harbor resentment towards my partner. I feel as though this is because they are only in love with the half of me they think they know. People think that they know me and they don’t. This upsets me to no end, because if they knew my true gender or history they would run a mile, so I know that I have to end it, because they are in love with a fantasy and I feel guilty for carrying it on. I am a good actor is all. ‘if a girl can act, just must be a thesbian’.

It is easier to be single that it is to be told that someone doesn’t want you anymore because of something you have no control over, and something that is so core to you and your personality; its my body, my being. Its not as if I fancy some guy/ girl and I wished I was taller/thinner. My hormones dictate the way in which I think and feel. . My brain operates on a level that is a blend of both genders and the fact that I can, for the most part, get away with dressing according to my mood is a freedom that I am very grateful for and if my partner cant handle that then they cannot handle me.

There are however, a lot of adjustments that any partner will have to make or simply try to get used to when dating me. i always joe that any partner i have must be a little bisexual, but more than that i have heard a lot of people’s opinions and ideas about the adjustments they have had to make. A lot of them I had never even thought of, but its all just common sense if you think about it. One which statement always makes me laugh...

 “You've got a mans libido and a womans menstruation. Unlucky.”

There is a lot of truth in what was said to me. I’m up for it most of the time but my body falls short of what I require sometimes.  If I'm not up for it then I don't have the luxury of telling my partner that I'm on my period or that I can't get it up when I am tired. That being said, there are a lot of pros to my body that fellow pansexual’s usually appreciate instead of the one side or the other that most, more rigid sexualities don’t.

For one, I have very soft skin and manicured nails, but my hands are big and my arms are relatively strong. That is to say, I am by no means muscular, but when wearing men’s clothes I have been described as ‘stocky’. That being said, I also have curves too, and while they can make binding difficult there are times when I am a little proud of them after doubting they would ever exist on my wide-shouldered frame. When I am with a gay man or a straighter woman they will choose to see my more masculine side, and when I am with a lesbian or a straighter guy they only want to know my softer side and more womanly curves. It feels like a sort of honesty when I am with the more open minded. I have the freedom of wearing my whole wardrobe throughout the relationship and I don’t have to pick between being with them or having body hair. I don’t know if it makes me a bad person, favouring certain types of people over others, but I bear in mind that I am open minded and positive, while many others are not so much and it is them that pick and choose my traits while I try to re-enforce the fact that you must either accept all of me or none of me, just as I would any of my partners opinions, feelings and ‘quirks’. 

Figuring out my Sexuality

1 new country, 3 new towns, 5 new schools, 2 colleges, and 8 failed relationships with men later I quickly realised-well, okay, so it gradually dawned on me... I think that it was somewhere in-between catching my boyfriend looking at other girls, only because I was looking too, and taking wearing his clothes to the next level. I promptly broke up with him, came out to friends, family, mother, and consequently lost a lot of people. On the other hand though, I gained something much more important; I gained self confidence, self respect, some genuine human emotions for other humans, and a strained sense of belonging in my own skin, clothes and community.  To say I have never been happier would be an incredible overstatement. But to say that implied I was glad not to be on another man’s arm, to be listened to and to dress well, to be popular in my social group and to feel those butterflies when I kiss my partner is very much accurate, and I am oh so glad for it.

With new found attraction and the identity to match I tried to navigate the world as a lesbian. I cut my hair short, and looking back I have no idea how I did it all with such ease; I systematically came out, altered my wardrobe, introduced myself to male friends and put myself out there in clubs, dating women and by no means mastering the art of it straight away. Perhaps it wasn’t all that systematic then. Thinking about it, I was just feeling my way through the dark, placing blinkers up to society and what everyone had ever expected from me.

I did what felt natural to me, ignoring gender norms and snide comments. It made me feel so liberated, when I looked in the mirror I didn’t hate what I saw. Many still ask me “what have I done to myself?”, and family members, even my partners and friends will drag up old photos of me and say “you looked so much better back then”. What they don’t see though, is how lost, afraid and repressed I am in the pictures. They don’t see it, but I can see the sadness in my eyes, and the confusion and guilt that so many other LGBT teens have riddling their thoughts. Now days though, and for the very first time, I see myself in new photos. I see a genuine smile, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I actually recognise the person staring back. 

Virginity

The internet saved me. Or at least, it opened all of the windows and all of the doors. It always had all of the answers, from math homework to make-up right up to chest binding. I needed valuable advice from chat rooms and wiki and yahoo and heaven forbid Cosmo and FHM. I went full circle from googling ‘what do men like in bed’ to ‘what do women like in bed’, except only the second one seemed to excite me.

Myself and females seem to fit, or at least, I get a thrill from it, I get that nervous feeling that I assumed was normal. Finally I was feeling genuine feelings; I had assumed I was simply a heartless bitch up until I noticed women. My whole life the lines “he’s hot” and “awww it was cute he did that” were entirely lost on me, but one day I had this epiphany; if having doors opened for me, if being held and taken out on dates just makes me feel numb, then I wonder what opening doors and surprising someone else would make me feel like. To date, it is quite possibly the best idea I have ever had.

I was nervous. I was a virgin, I had no idea what I was doing and I was a little shy. I thrived on these feelings, all of the feelings, feelings which I didn’t think I was soft enough or ‘normal’ to ever be capable of having. I thrived on the fact that I wasn’t defective in some way, but I had worked it out; I was bad at a game I was never meant to be playing; I dating men had been like asking a fish to walk on land and not flounder. Well I was now in the ocean I belonged, and to say that I threw myself in at the deep end would be an understatement. I looked back at myself, from birth till now, and honestly wondered why it hadn’t hit me sooner. Sexuality is an intimidating thing to women though, and it was something I never wanted to question, probably because I knew what I would find.

Character

I'm a really good judge of character, which is why I fucking hate everyone. I mean, people are the integral reason for my unhappiness and/ or distress. I don't wish I was dead. Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish everyone else was. They have a tendency to make my personal life, appearance and just general business their own.

“You need to grow out your hair”

Why? For what purpose? Why bother telling me that in the first place? It is not your place to say it, and your opinion on my hair length will not magically make it grow any longer in that moment. I do not have to be decorative for you, I mean, one of the first openly gay men Oscar Wilde did say “women are the decorative sex”, is that why men seem to be so terribly outraged when I don’t look beautiful for them? Perhaps then I sometimes consciously look male to avoid the unwanted sexual attention. Looking older than I am, I would more often than not end up dealing with people being shocked over my age and I am more than used to having guys look at each other in wonder muttering ’its mental innit’  as if I were otherwise fuckable if I wasn’t so young. Of course now my only concern is never being able to pass with a child ticket for anything, even my oyster card looked dubious and caused second glances when I was under 18.. I have always looked somewhat like a 30 year old man. I would sooner that than have eyes wander over me in hunger though. I’ve discovered that it doesn’t even matter how butch I look; if I am female than I am fuckable, and that is that. Men on the other hand do not have this problem, and do not experience the unwanted attention to this extent. I believe I am right in stating that women's major fear on going on a blind date is meeting a serial killer, while a mans biggest fear is meeting with someone fat. Men have other problems though. If they want to get laid they have to master charm, but to get any sort of man a woman merely has to exist and be willing to pull. I feel like I suffer with both problems and both pressures sometimes.

I guess what I have come to discover though, is that gender is neutral until I leave the house. Friendships are real until they stab you in the back. Trust is trust until you speak to someone and realise it means something entirely different to others.I feel so let down sometimes, and so angry, so disappointed, so upset that nobody would go above and beyond for me in the way that I would for them. so that's whats forced me to change who I am as a person; life is a bitch and then you die or become one. I'm ‘born again hard’ as my mum likes to say. But that's upsetting too, because when your'e surrounded by awful people you start to become one, and that's something that I never started out wanting to be. Now though, I realise that I have to be cold to people. The more I say no to people, the happier I become, and the more respect I earn from people. You cannot be nice in this world, you cannot show weakness, or people go for the jugular, people whom you confide in go for your throat,  and just when you thought you could trust again your'e knocked right back to square one. I think it is actually quiet healthy that I spend more time wondering if I like the people around me than if the people around me like me. That may tell you that I'm surrounded by idiots, because in all honesty most of the people I know are closed minded bigots.

Morris Mandel said “the darkest hour has only sixty minutes”. Now while I don’t really know much of him and I found this quote through google images, it reminded me that even though I feel like death right now, the moment will most definitely pass, as it has done before, and as it will continue to do so. I simply remind myself daily that there is a flaw in my chemistry, not in my character, and it is only by a cruel twist of fate that I find myself in no mans land. I need to stop thinking that I am not man enough or woman enough to make anything decent or worthwhile with myself, because there isn’t anything wrong with me as a person. It is only everyone else who is making me feel inadequate, and the sooner I learn that for good the better. 

Courage

I don’t know why it got to me but it really did, when guys were flocked around my female friend and only put up with my presence because I was the friend, yes, alright, I get that, but there was no need to say "don't fucking touch me." Ouch. I'm trying to keep in mind how that makes me seen as a very much masculine entity to the boys, because in theory...I mean, if I squint... it means that I've passed as male in their subconscious without even trying. Atleast, that's what I'm telling myself to make it stop hurting.  

I cant help but think though, that with all of the emphasis that I place on passing its all a little bit pointless. No one is going to know about my gender identity until I come out to them, and to do that i need to be certain of exactly what my gender identity is, if I want to have any hormones or surgery, and if i am by any means prepared to be brave enough to be subjected to the bigots and haters.

Most of what I have rambled on about on this blog is rendered very much pointless by the fact that no one will ever think i am the man that I know I am in my head and my heart if I don’t just pluck up the courage to say it. My only hesitation is that I don’t want to think so optimistically about it like I have everything else in my life that has gone horribly wrong. I don’t want to try to improve my body, to in turn improve my state of mind and sense of self, only to realise that I have horrifically mutilated myself instead. At the moment I can convince myself that I am in a happy medium, and I keep telling myself that things will get better and get easier; get better when I get older, but I am getting older and I will always be in this permanent state of male puberty. I have stopped fighting it, and I now embrace it, but deep down I know that I want to push it forward and gain the courage to, well, grow up.

I just need to make sure that this is something that I want. I don’t want to give myself the excuse that I am staying like this because it is easier for me to find someone to be with and function in society, because that simply isn’t the case. If I am with someone in the stat that my body is in now then I feel more alone than if i was single, and existing like this is by no means living. That being said, there is no going back on altering things. I don’t want to wake up one day and look down at myself with scars and unwelcome hip bones, only to discover that i have always been happy with my body, it was just everyone else that had a problem with it in the first place. I can’t realise that I have changed myself, and it was only again to please others because I was being seen as female to men. What if I go through with surgery, and they still do? That is inevitable, and I shouldn’t let it bother me at all, but in all honesty it does. It takes a lot to offend me, and i cant help that this is my one of very few weaknesses. I just can’t go through with things either, to hate my body, my choices, and still feel awkward and alone, with no one to blame for that but myself.

Hovis

There is a saying that lesbians are only lesbians because they are too ugly to get a man. the state of my body is just the collateral damage from my pursuit of happiness. Fast food, energy drinks, cropped hair, men's clothes, alcohol and cigarettes are all the reasons that I am still breathing today. People tell me that I'v ruined myself and exclaim ‘what have you don’t to yourself?’ or ‘what happened to you?’ well life happened to me, life ‘ruined’ me, as they so eloquently out it, and no thanks to them, this is how I have dealt with it. But while being called ugly is deeply offensive I have to admit that this is somewhat applicable to me, but then I'm not really a stereotypical lesbian, or a lesbian at all really.


My masculine traits had always been something that I tried to hide and they were what I thought I had been told by countless doctors were ‘problems’. I felt ugly because they outweighed my feminine features, but by embracing my male side, and what I have come to consider my ‘true’ self, I realised that they are actually positive things. I know that I am just trying to console myself. A friend once pointed out that my nickname ‘Hovis’ was not very accurate as I am not exactly the best of both, more like the worst of both. The cruel reality is that I will always be an ugly, barren woman or a man without a dick depending on what way you look at it or how I am presenting. 

Still, this is my body and my world, and what I try to tell myself every day is that as a man, I have large feet and large hands, a strong jawline, broad shoulders and I am tall. All other factors aside, these are normally enviable traits, and in the gay community a good femme will appreciate that I can make a handsome butch. As a girl I'm not all too unattractive though. Naked, my figure is not overly masculine provided I don’t ever lose too much weight from my hips. And I am good with my makeup when I am in the mood. I have nice eyes that appear green on occasion. When I lives abroad, a teacher in Spain once pointed that out that my eyes change color. I like that. 

I also like to think that I have the power of the first humans who were both genders that even Zeus feared. I tell myself that I have the potential to posses the serenity of ying and yang. I think its all that I can do to make myself feel cute. Anything to make my own little category of person hood that little bit more special and less of a potentially life shortening medical condition. I would much rather be considered a special little snowflake than a medical anomaly, infertile woman or neutered man. Besides, doesn't ‘two spirit’ sounds much better than circus freak?

Chauvinistic

I'm a chauvinistic feminist, another oxymoron, I know, but it is true, and sometimes I worry that I re-enforce the binary myself. I try to act masculine sometimes to live up to a role and fit in with the guys sometimes, and I do the same with women. I get ignored when I'm looking feminine and so everything I say tends to be blazed by men that would otherwise talk to me like a friend. 

To my horror, I was chatting to a girl online and she said ‘you know that I'm not really girly right?’ and later discovered, only after she cut her hair short, that she was somewhat genderfluid. I'm not sure to what extent, but I saw that some of her posts talked about gender anarchy on facebook. Anyway, I had done to someone what I hate people doing to me; I had assumed her gender, and therefore her gender role and preferences.

I hated myself, and what society had instilled into me, just how I hated the way that society had taught me to gossip and work racist or homophobic slang into my language when words hurt more than most physical pains i was so sorry for doing that to her and sorry to myself for what I had became. I was so obsessed with being read as male at one point I forgot what it was to be myself and that there is no shame in being a woman either. While I think that I should be super militant queer and think, ‘If girls don’t want to be my friend because I look like a man then they aren’t true friends’, I should also think ‘If guys don’t want to be my friend because I look like a girl then they aren’t true friends’ too.

I realised I had been changing myself to fit in, but on another end of the scale, which is just as bad as being in the closet. Then I realised I needed not to hide my leg hair or painted toenails when I'm at the beach with a group of like minded, friendly individuals, because if I am to identify as gender-less, then I should judge others accordingly until proven otherwise. 

Gemini

I didn't believe in the zodiac, just as I don't fully believe in any one thing, particularly any form of religions and other ethereal musings, as interesting as i do find them to study. Once I did start investigating Gemini though, and that's when I discovered that I share the same zodiac sign with Johnny Depp, so that can't be too bad. 

What Gemini dictates about your character was all incredibly close to home though. It states that I am emotional, but that I cover it with humor. Very true. And  that I am easily bored so I dabble in lots of things, and I am constantly sociable with a wide circle of friends because I can see things from other people's points of view. Scarily true also. Plus I mimic people's accents that I'm with without realising it. 

According to Gemini, I am a cynic also, but then it would say that...haha. I do tell myself that these are all probably just widely cast nets of 'traits' that as a Gemini I will try to see in my personality. But then I have brown eyes that tint green sometimes too. And pale skin. And my strife's are always emotional rather than physical and I am a book worm but no one seems to notice it. How did they guess all of that? The twins are typically shown male and female.  This gives me the hope in that there is some kind of ethereal, magical, spiritual purpose to the universe, and maybe i am not a mistake of nature but that i fit in somewhere out there, even if it is in another life on a different ethereal plain. were trans* individuals not worshiped as shamans in lots of ancient cultures? Are gods and angels not still depicted as inter-sex in some societies?  It reminds me to always keep my mind wide open, which I always tend to try and do. 

The Art of Conversation

It has come to my attention that I need to be less controversial and aggressive in conversation with new people. I forget myself with sensitive individuals and that my sense of humour is incredibly dark and dry. Unless people know me well they fail to understand that I have a soft side, and this leads to typically white middle class girls and baby-loving women to clash with me; or perhaps I naturally clash with them because they embody everything I hate about society and maybe even deep down everything that I am jealous of.

I wish I was straight; straight looking, straight acting, straightforward. Life would be simpler if I had been born into a family which kept me rich, innocent and carefree, and my only goal was to marry and reproduce. The grass is always greener on the other side though, and the entire social construct of what I just said seems cripplingly dull and controlling. Still, I need to stop offending people, as even though it is a good device to push people away, people that I know I would not want to be friends with, one of these days it will make me lose the few nearest and dearest that I have, simply because I cannot control my tongue. Deep down though, I think it has more to do with the fact that I cannot distinguish when to trust and when I can let myself be happy and safe with someone else’s company. It all bores down to me being afraid of being close, only to find myself being called a freak by them after coming out. And that is no fault of my own. 

Asexual

It is in my blood and in my nature to see men as my brothers and women as ‘something else’, something that I am far from being, something that I don’t understand, and that's what makes them so fascinating. That's why men aren’t all that interesting to me sexually; I see too much of myself in their personality and their habits. That being said, I don’t really find anyone all that attractive. Sometimes I feel somewhat asexual. I don’t really see many people in the street or in the media that I find fanciable. I also find myself struggling to differentiate between people that I fancy and people I want to be or just be very good friends with. On occasion its both, but of course I would never let them know that. 

I can only imagine that your girlfriend telling you she actually identifies more with men is very hard to stomach. That is why I am incredibly closed when in a relationship, and I have yet to come out to a partner about my gender identity issues. I also feel as though the person who loves less in a relationship has all of the power. Its a defense mechanism, and I have a habit of finishing with people, be them friends or more, either before they discover my gender and finish with me, or before I start to care deeply for them myself.

Jealousy

When I hear people say ‘I hate myself’ or ‘I wished I look different’ you'll find me in the corner, silently fuming, and that's another reason why I hate people. People don’t appreciate what they've got till its gone. Like how I wished I was the weight I was back when I thought I was fat. Or like you're gender. I've learned that the hard way, and all I can do is pray to a god that I don’t believe in that my voice wont drop too low, my hairline wont recede any more and my beard wont continue to creep over my lip and cheeks. But its not even my wish though. I like those things about myself usually. I would simply find it more difficult to ‘pass’ as female the more male I become, and I would like the option to remain female, because in order for me to maintain any sort of physical relationship with straight identifying men or gay identifying women, I have to be a woman still.

I still want to see myself as all woman sometimes too. I think whats most unnerving about it all is the feeling of detachment, and the feeling of waking up as something that you don’t recognize and aren’t used to. Imagine, if you can, having the voice in your head speak much more higher and less monotonous. Its extremely unnerving and surreal, and I don’t think I will ever get used to the uncertainty of it all. I am someone who, by nature, very much likes having structure and certainty, but on the most fundamental level of my own body, I don’t even know whats going to happen. Doctors don’t know, and I live my life by not knowing anyone at all like me.

I don’t see anyone in the street or in the media like me, and nobody can even begin to predict what I'm going to look like in the future. Its the blind leading the blind in this, and the days in which I feel sick with myself only occur when the most unpredictable things happen. Such as when I've being called ‘it’, or when i don’t expect to menstruate and do, or if I discover more hair in places where there shouldn’t be or on my pillow. It reminds me that I'm different and it scares me a lot, it shakes me up and it makes me doubt myself. I begin to question why I am this way and why people wont understand or accept me as what I am. 

What people don’t seem to fathom is that I cannot control or choose these things, all I can do is make the most of them, embrace them, go with what I've been given and try to feel comfortable in my own skin. It throws people off when I say I'm proud of myself. I enjoy that, its like I'm claiming back myself, its like I get to fuck with society,instead of it always fucking with me. I tell my doctors my beard doesn’t bother me and they are stunned to say the least. I inform people that being called male is more of a complement than an insult, and yes my doctor martens do go with this dress and my full face of makeup fits perfectly well with my stubble rash so no i don’t want surgery: I just want to be myself. 

Physical

I used to wish that my body was completely consistent with one form, but then again, my body is pretty consistent with my mind right now. I am the sort of person who tries to see the silver lining in situations, and from speaking with the transgender community, I have come to appreciate and accept myself a lot more. What i mean to say is, a lot of people would kill to have a body like mine. I feel like I have gender qualities and traits in my person hood that are matched well with body. The whole essence of who i am is to be both, and this is what many people strive to be.

“I want to show the maleness of my breasts and the femaleness of my muscles.”

 -Genderfork.com.

 This is very accurate. There are no set boundaries, only binaries. Some individuals aim to purposely inject hormones into themselves in order to become as androgynous as I appear, and others are left with a body like mine after changing their mind on medical intervention or as a result of their current transition from male to female/female to male. I am naturally like this, and I suppose I need to take as much comfort as I can that I am in some senses cis-gendered because my body matches my mind.

I can only assume that some transgender people are often lead to believe that, because their sex can be so different to their gender, that they have something mentally wrong with them. I, on the other hand, am able to say that I have a medical condition, and I don’t have to convince any doctors to give me the hormones that I need to feel comfortable in my own skin. If I look at things that way, then its possible, with a little stretch of the imagination, that I am actually cis-gendered. I love the idea of this.

This makes me feel a lot better, and to know that some people envy me for this means that I will try my hardest to remember to be grateful each day, for their sakes, because I can only assume that being transgender is a lot more difficult than the things which I face in my own situation. I am also very thankful for not having had genital surgery as a child, or ever having ambiguous genitalia to begin with, or at-least to the point where I cannot have penetrative sex/ appear too much out of the range of a normal female. These things in themselves are a godsend, and I would like to take a moment right now to show my appreciation to the powers above for allowing me this physically adaptive and emotional comfort of being me. 

Being Vocal

My resolve was thoroughly tested yesterday. As if doing a presentation wasn’t stressful enough. I must say I found myself considerably more mature and confident in the situation that a few years ago would’ve made blush crimson red. Still, they say that those who blush quickly make good lovers. I am going to wishfully think that this is a good thing, but what I have to remember is that I have improved dramatically socially speaking, as well as in terms of my own well being and sense of self. 


We were recorded play-acting our selling skills at college, and it went fine, seamlessly in fact, until I realised we had to grade each other by playing the recordings back over and over. I felt somewhat sick and somewhat scared throughout, under arms breaking out into a cold sweat and my breathing growing labored, either because consciously doing so was taking my mind off of it all, or I was stopping myself from having a panic attack.

I simply hated, hated my voice. I mean, “you sound just like your boyfriend” has even been thrown around a lot in the past. I am sure many transmen would kill for my monotonous droney voice, and surely I should be proud of it, but for one reason or another it makes me ill, my hairs stand on end and i have to lick my teeth because the way I sound cuts through me like a dentist's drill. I thought I was never one to be too dysphoric in the scheme of things, as I know that many suffer with dysphoria and their bodies much worse than I do, and I cannot even pinpoint what exactly it is that do hate about it, but it chills me to the bone. I think it has a lot to do with the unnerving fact that the voice in my head; you know, that inner monlogue? It sounds entirely different to the voice on the outside. Every time I open my mouth it is like a stranger is in the room and it is the most grueling, grating and truly twisted thing in my world. Every time I get a cold I fear that it is breaking deeper, and in the mornings my throat and vocal cords feel thicker so I practice pitch heightening exercises before leaving the house and always check for an adams apple. 

It kills me when people mock it in jest, which many do frequently because I have a tendency to point out the differences in my body as an ice-breaking joke before others do, but if there is ever a joke to be made, then the way in which I sound should not be the punch line because my god it cuts me deep and makes me feel woozy.

Anyway, it made me truly sick to hear it played back to me. My stomach muscles clenched to stop me falling off the world, and at that point I wished I would do just that if it got me out of there sooner. The urge to run was overwhelming, and as soon as the bell went I was out like a bolt, yet acting perfectly un-phased as I always do. I deserve an Oscar for my ability to hide my pain, which thinking about it is both good and bad considering I hated drama because of how I sound of all things, and I hear that only the depressed bottle up their feelings.

Sexualised

Privileged people don’t have to worry about things that others have to take into consideration. A lot of my guy friends look at me questioningly/expectantly for me to join their social group and have a chat. Call me lazy, shy, faithless or all of the above, the fact of the matter is that I don’t want to be subjected to so much ridicule in such a short space of time. 

Being stared at by strangers is fine; they are strangers, but I would rather not sit awkwardly next to my friend while his friends try to come to a conclusion about my gender. They don’t seem to notice the fact that most groups of men will either treat me as some sort of odd lesbian mascot, completely ignore anything that I have to say or try to chat me up. This makes for a very awkward series of social interactions, and I don’t care to deal with them at all. it makes me feel emasculated against my friend too. 

I cant help but compare myself to a lot of guy friends to try and figure out more about myself. I spoke my mind once, saying, "I seem to be more masculine than most men" which was met with , "and what your point?", which made me realise that first of all, i need to watch what I say more. secondly, nobody else really seems to care about gender anywhere near as much as I do some days and thirdly but most importantly other makes masculinity should not be compared to or validate and invalidate my identity. 

But what they always fail to notice is the odd, foul little niggling comments that do still have the ability to ruin my day. A good of example of this is when I was with my friend from college. We walk to Sainsbury's quiet a lot during the week to get lunch. We happened to end up with someone else in our entourage. He said that the new guy was a dickhead, I agreed, but before I could expand as to why he said it was because he was bragging about how much money had. Its like, no, that's not why hes a dickhead. Hes a dickhead because when I said I got lucky at a club he said ‘you should have invited a guy back with you and had a threesome, that's hot’. No. No, that's not at all hot, because I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a porn star and if any other guy said he had got lucky he would’ve said well done mate and left it at that or asked for details. Awkward. 

We are 'human'

The whole ‘I am human’ thing pisses me off, because we are all different, and we have all spent hours and years of our lives finding our label to best explain to people our strife and pain and what makes us happy and comfortable, which is at he end of the day different for everyone. To be labelled as girl or a boy and to identify that way tells people that you like certain things and certain social interactions, and it allows us all to be civilized to each other, sensitive to each others preferences and wants, just as the identity of trans, gay, lesbian, pans and all other identities; they all means something, imply something,and to ignore that core part of someone is a bit of an insult in my opinion. 

I mean, if i say that I am gay and people to continue asking me why I don’t have a boyfriend yet, i would consider that person to be misinformed, then rude, then ultimately a bit dim. We are all human at the end of the day, but the recurring theme of annoyance that I have to deal with is when people say something along the lines of,

 "I believe that our sexuality sits on a spectrum and that gays and straights are just trying to label themselves because we are all somehow bisexual to varying degrees as humans"

That shit makes my blood boil. Then things get awkward, particularly when its the straight identifying white girl whose saying this, as they have all of the natural privileges to say such things. it is always the privilege who try to speak for the downtrodden and the few. They have never had dyke shouted at them in the street or spent late nights trolling the internet for gay to straight conversion sights crying. they have never looked down at themselves and felt so uncomfortable in themselves and so unlovable they have nearly taken a knife to their genitals, only to be told that they are all just trying to 'label themselves' to stand out because we are all the same. We are by no means all the same, and labels are core to your identity. They are the difference between having kinship and community with strangers wearing rainbow bracelets to feeling utterly and ashamedly alone. 

To be told that I am just trying to be different, and that we are all the same is a myth in itself, because we aren’t at all the same. As people, we all have different likes, dislikes, identities, personalities, bodies, and to say that we are all the same wipes away all of the anguish and struggle t hat I have been through to find myself and claim my label as my own. Gay people are not naturally 'proud'. we get that way through blood sweat and tears, that's it why there isn't a straight pride. because pride is the opposite of ashamed, and that is what most people in the community have felt about themselves, whole heartedly and fatally at times. We wear our LGBT label as a badge of honor, like a medal won in the war of society vs us, our own problems and our own identity. 

So no, we aren’t all the same and we aren’t all bisexual or open to different ‘gender roles’ or like to secretly cross dress because it is socially acceptable for women to wear jeans now or whatever it is you think some of us ‘get off on’...we are all different, as well as human. But more importantly, however different we all are, we should all be equal. 

Confidence

As a woman, you are told and you believe a few fundamental things. Long hair is staple, and tight fitting clothes are normal. Once doing the opposite, I discovered an entirely new world. The way in which people spoke to me altered entirely, some of these changes I liked and some of them I didn’t. I couldn’t hide behind my hair anymore or the feigned stupidity of womanhood. That is to say, I couldn’t be the dependent and weaker vessel. I couldn’t be quiet in the corner, I couldn’t twiddle my hair or laugh at everything someone said, I couldn’t bat my eyelids to get a free drink and when walking along in the street no one moved to let me pass and no one would offer to hold my bag or open doors. I had to rely entirely on myself and my strength and my mind. I felt incredibly vulnerable and naked, although that might have just been the breeze against my freshly shaven head. Either way, I felt an elated sense of self reliance, and as scary as that was I got used to it very quickly; I had to, because there was no one looking out for me. Not that there ever has been.

It made me realise, though, that I would rather be single and butch than single and femme, because as an effeminate person you need to rely on someone, and when you're single and femme there's no one to come and save you. You start to feel weak and helpless, but then you wonder why no one wants to be there for you. You doubt yourself, change yourself, and find yourself with a man that can be there for you, accept he isn’t there for you, hes there for this fake personality you've created to get him to date you. What hes dating is actually nothing like you at all. At-least, this has been my experience. And in my experience, paired with my natural tendency to like doing things myself and not relying on others, is one of the reasons why being butch/dom/top/masculine is something that I feel much more comfortable and natural in sync with above all other things that I have tried to make myself be in the past. 

Self Love

I heard a joke the other day that if you're inter-sex you can just fuck yourself silly. Well instead of being offended, I got thinking, and I came to the conclusion that i want to date myself. I am the only one that knows everything about myself, all of my wants, all of my needs, we have so much in common: we would never argue. There would never be unfair opinions or judgments made about myself. I wouldn’t have to break it to myself that I have an un-gendered personality and body to match. I could take myself out for dinner and a movie, i would order my favorite and watch the latest flick that i wanted. I could take myself clubbing and to restaurants and dress up nicely for myself and hold my bag and open doors for myself and give myself total control of the remote and my favorite side of the bed. 

I would never have to compromise. I  would share all of the same interests, and i would never have to disappoint myself or get anything wrong. I wouldn’t have to start the relationship out with any hidden qualities or untrue pretenses. I would love myself for all of my faults and see clearly all of my virtues. I would consider myself both strong and pretty and i would let myself know daily. 

So today my dear readers, i'm going to ask myself out, and i'm not just a little nervous about it, but then i'm gonna take myself out for a nice romantic stroll on the beach followed by a movie night with all of my favorite films, run myself a luxurious bath, paint my toenails for myself and eat all the best junk. One day i'll treat myself on a shopping spree when I've saved enough money up, and then I'll plan a great surprise for myself for valentines day and I'll tell myself how strong I've been over the years and how lucky i am to have myself. Then I'll muse about how funny it is that I can appreciate all of my own talents and that I can love all of my own little habits and quirks. 

Problem is, I am scared that I'll cheat on myself, or that I wont be able to bring myself to have sex with myself because my body is so different to the soul that's inside. Or worse still I will get somewhat far into the relationship and panic, breaking up with myself because I am not used to being honest and happy with myself. Either all of that, or I'll just ask myself out and turn myself down right then and there. I'm too scared of committing to myself. Maybe I am just better off single...