There is probably some of that from my POV as well, I realized after a fairly painful and unfortunate attempt at courtship that I was better off just being myself and accepting people’s reactions as they came rather than chasing approval from others

But I do think the lack of internalizing those norms and expectations as so many people seem to do has helped me in that regard, because I’m genuinely never trying to live up to any standard but my own

one thing about being ourselves rather than trying to please others is that often the things we're hiding are the things that the people who matter could most appreciate

Agreed

This is the closest result to my own (the middle three ones are very similar, the first and the last are not).

Guess I am still looking for a sociopathic mason.

Quoting to see who got closest to my dog

Might be me lol, nobody was all that close

At times I’ve felt I’ve gone too far in the direction of shirking norms and expectations and have self-taught myself to observe them more for my own sake. There are some standards that life is easier if you abide and live up to them :/ even if you despise them.

I think it is easier for men to disregard norms and expectations than it is for women, speaking generally. Men are “eccentric” women are “crazy” etc.

yeah, unfortunately

it makes me appreciate that type of woman even more but I'm sure it can't make things easy for them

I grew up with older brothers, learning to groom up to the expectations of society has always a)alluded me b) felt like the most unjust bullshit. I remember they made fun of me for having hairy legs, I started shaving them young so they wouldn’t call me names. When I was fifteen my brother took me to music festival in Michigan. The Grateful Dead was there so maybe you can guess the crowd. I saw a woman who looked like she had never shaved, hairy legs, armpits, arms, brows etc. she was wearing little clothing and barefoot. I looked at her and judged her body hair and felt shame, but she was so at peace and carried herself so confidently. I had never seen that before.

In general, the double bind of presenting as a woman is burdensome, and while I do see suppression of emotions inflicted upon men, the binds on men are often balanced with benefits in society. As a woman, you are always either too much or too little of something no matter what you do and there are societal vulnerabilities (bodily harm, harassment, restrictions on where you can safely go etc, healthcare etc) and imbalances (pay gap, achieving higher positions, professional respect etc).

As a child I didn’t understand the world and was a relatively wild and free type. I most admired rebellious boys and would mimic them in style of dress and manor of behavior. It made growing into “being a woman” tricky and uncomfortable. Internally, I consider myself gender fluid or gender queer, but externally I present and receive the privileges (and disadvantaged) of cis-womanhood. Overall my reflections on my own experiences as sensitized me to the general privileges of cis-ness and the lack of logic and practicality to the gender binary in general.

nice post uglyd!

i think i'm gender whatever on the inside too, but outside i present male.


back to relationship stuff... in any relationship that has any meaning in my life i try to be aware that it's my job to make the other person's life better, and their job to make my life better too. otherwise the relationship is no good. that's probably partly why i've seen two people socially in the last 7 months fml so hard! lol!!!!!

i mean normally i'm pretty hermitty, but with the pandemic it's just been crazy *sigh*

I think I'm pretty heavily on the masculine side, but looking back on life, I definitely wish there was less pressure to never be even slightly feminine or gay.

I've definitely tried to act Normal and it's worked out poorly.

Now I just break out in song and dance from time to time

Ty filthy.

In general I think it is bad to expect other people to make your life better, but I think we seek company from those who add and don’t detract from our good time. It isn’t my job to make theirs better, but obviously I hope my company and personality lift their spirits. Maybe that’s what you mean? Idk I’m thinking of a friend I fell out with because she seemed to only wanna y’all about what she wanted to, didn’t seem to mind making me wait or disregarding my time, and sometimes invalidated my feelings or made me feel bad or inferior with long spiels on morality that felt like talking down. We have a shared friend who likes us both. She would frequently cancel plans last minute or go long periods without reaching out, yet would exclaim we were such close friends (almost immediately after we began spending time together she would say this, but I don’t let ppl in that quickly so I was confused). All her actions didn’t fit her words, eventually I stopped reaching out or responding positively to the few and far between invitations and we basically stopped being friends. It felt like a net gain all-in-all although I’m always sad to “burn a bridge”. My best friends are people I talk to infrequently and we have little expectations on each other, but when we talk or get together the depth is there. Idk this isn’t political, I just like talking lol

<3

My parents were hippies and kinda openly rooted for us kids to be gay, so I really never had any kind of pressure to act masculine or “not be gay”. That said I’ve always been very much cis-hetero-male.

I'm no gender by the way people itt probably use the term.

Though poly seems the better claim.

Care to elaborate, I’m curious?

What does poly mean? I know of polyamorous( loving many) does poly in terms of gender mean multiple genders?

I’m going to be that kind of parent, I can feel it

In some ways I’m still not entirely sure what people mean when they talk about being gender fluid/queer or any kind of non-binary. I mean I can understand the words and I can understand pronouns and just generally being respectful of how people choose to identify or present. But I don’t really understand it - maybe because I was raised without any kind of preconceived gender norms or expectations and so since I was “raised” as male but encouraged to be myself whatever that means it was just easy/natural for me to think of what I am as male? I don’t know. I kind of struggle with a real understanding of this topic tbh

disagree pretty hard with the bolded, but strangely i think we probably agree lol... like maybe we just phrase it differently.

like say you make a new friend. you made that friendship because it makes your life better. but you're not like "hey b*tch! make my life better! now!" but the whole point of friendships is to make our lives better. same for marriages, boyfriend, girlfriends whatever. and it's a parent's duty to make their children's lives better. and parents generally selfishly have kids to make their own lives better.

but if you consciously go around all the time thinking "it's your job to make my life better" that is not a good thing to be thinking, even though they should be making your life better.

it's more like "talking with my friend makes me happy and feel good yay!" so that's all good. but if talking with someone consistently leaves me feeling crappy even it's my friend or a relative or spouse or anyone, **** that.

my ex used to always call me a "gay ass little b*tch" if that makes it more clear

Apparently I was conflating them and the term is pangender.

As far as identity or gender I would say I have none. Never felt the least bit white or male or catholic or any of that junk.