Middle, middle
I'm having a bit of a mixed time at the moment. There's been a lot that's been going well, but as usual, it comes with its own set of bad that needs to be dealt with.
The good is that I'm much stronger emotionally than I've ever been, and I seem to have figured out the kind of personality I am. A slightly fluffier way of saying that is that I've figured out the kind of woman I am. I've been expressing that personality, and as I have been doing so, I've been growing as a person, sometimes a little too quickly.
I've also been getting feedback from other people, both on the empathic level and the verbal. On the verbal, I'm starting to hear some of the things I've been thinking and trying out. For example, I've had someone tell me I'm empathic but in an intelligent thinking way, which I know I should be and have been doing my best to express.
Not all the feedback tells me things I expected. I was thanked at the last TransLondon meeting for helping to organise the banner crew for Pride, which seems to be a general acknowledgement of the fact that I'm becoming a good social organiser and I seem to be the main mover and shaker behind most social outings that I go on.
So, onto the bad. Something I've already touched on is that I had some issues surrounding physical intimacy with women due to the hormonal changes. Instead of sorting itself out as most small issues do, this has been ballooning into the mother of all issues and it's been making me realise that any thoughts that it would go away were just wishful thinking.
I've kinda been aware of this at the back of my mind for a little while and I've been trying to avoid thinking about it. Looking back, it's been pretty obvious that I've been subtly avoiding the company of women. I feel much, much safer in a group of men than I do in a group of women, even if I'm the only woman and they don't know I'm trans.
I'm happy being in the company of men because I feel useful. On the whole, the testosterone distancing effect on emotions and the way masculine people have a hard time relaxing around each other means that I have a usefulness because I support them to make sure they have a good time, and the trade-off is that I feel protected and valued. I wasn't really aware that this was happening, but it's been something I've been thinking about once I spotted it.
Thinking about that made me think that, with my personality centred around being nice to people and needed by them, I probably just felt better able to be more useful around men. But that's only part of it, and that got graphically demonstrated to me when I first saw darwinian_woman a month ago. On the whole, I implicitly trust her more than most people, so she kinda slipped past all the subconscious barriers I'd set up so I could deal with it later and that's been causing me all kinds of problems because I have no idea how to deal with this, or even what this is exactly. I also get this problem when I visit my Zumba class, which isn't supposed to be, but has turned into, an all-women class.
The good is that I'm much stronger emotionally than I've ever been, and I seem to have figured out the kind of personality I am. A slightly fluffier way of saying that is that I've figured out the kind of woman I am. I've been expressing that personality, and as I have been doing so, I've been growing as a person, sometimes a little too quickly.
I've also been getting feedback from other people, both on the empathic level and the verbal. On the verbal, I'm starting to hear some of the things I've been thinking and trying out. For example, I've had someone tell me I'm empathic but in an intelligent thinking way, which I know I should be and have been doing my best to express.
Not all the feedback tells me things I expected. I was thanked at the last TransLondon meeting for helping to organise the banner crew for Pride, which seems to be a general acknowledgement of the fact that I'm becoming a good social organiser and I seem to be the main mover and shaker behind most social outings that I go on.
So, onto the bad. Something I've already touched on is that I had some issues surrounding physical intimacy with women due to the hormonal changes. Instead of sorting itself out as most small issues do, this has been ballooning into the mother of all issues and it's been making me realise that any thoughts that it would go away were just wishful thinking.
I've kinda been aware of this at the back of my mind for a little while and I've been trying to avoid thinking about it. Looking back, it's been pretty obvious that I've been subtly avoiding the company of women. I feel much, much safer in a group of men than I do in a group of women, even if I'm the only woman and they don't know I'm trans.
I'm happy being in the company of men because I feel useful. On the whole, the testosterone distancing effect on emotions and the way masculine people have a hard time relaxing around each other means that I have a usefulness because I support them to make sure they have a good time, and the trade-off is that I feel protected and valued. I wasn't really aware that this was happening, but it's been something I've been thinking about once I spotted it.
Thinking about that made me think that, with my personality centred around being nice to people and needed by them, I probably just felt better able to be more useful around men. But that's only part of it, and that got graphically demonstrated to me when I first saw darwinian_woman a month ago. On the whole, I implicitly trust her more than most people, so she kinda slipped past all the subconscious barriers I'd set up so I could deal with it later and that's been causing me all kinds of problems because I have no idea how to deal with this, or even what this is exactly. I also get this problem when I visit my Zumba class, which isn't supposed to be, but has turned into, an all-women class.