So, I'm supposed to have a second date tonight, and I'm not quite feeling in the zone. I'm fine, everything is fine, but I just feel somewhat off my game. Not that ever had game, and maybe that's my problem. I'm tired. I had a horribly busy weekend with work, that drifted into the work week, and now I'm just exhausted, and feeling like I'll be a bore. Fun times. (Not aided by the fact that a friend of mine just got dumped by her boyfriend, another friend is fighting with her ex, and a third friend hasn't been hearing from the guy she's been seeing. Man alive – is Venus in retrograde, er sumthin'?)
When I think about dating, it dawns on me that I have no clue how this works. I tried to give myself small challenges, like "make more eye contact," and "engage in a conversation when someone talks to me." Which is all well and good, until I started stepping it up. "Ask the hott girl out," seemed like a good idea at the time. It was "good practice," everyone kept saying. But now that she's said yes to not one, but two dates, I am feeling a bit stumped. I have ideas of where to go, and can chat up anyone once I get over my paralyzing shyness. Those things aren't the problem.
I simply don't know the dance – the tiny gestures to keep things afloat. I haven't thought about what was going to happen beyond asking someone out. And there is an inherent responsibility for which I wasn't prepared. This notion that you have to consider every action and reaction. It didn't feel as pressing before my transition. But now, every text I send, every joke I try to make – I sense they are being scrutinized for insights and reflections into my soul. How scary is that? Jokes that female friends have told me, if repeated, might make me seem like some douchey dude now. If I take too long in getting back to a text or an email, it may make me seem disinterested, or difficult. I think about all of my female friends that have turned to me to analyze their beau's communications, and I see it in such a different light now.
There is an innate pressure being on this side of the gender divide that I never could have anticipated. I am not trying to say: "Oh, it's so tough being a guy, feel sorry for us!" But everything carries such weight. I fear that I'm not given the benefit of the doubt, like when my bff calls while having a bad day while I'm in the middle of texting with the aforementioned gal of interest. There is no way for her to know that I may have received a call, but tones then change, and I feel like I missed the boat. There is so much pretext, and I am clueless.
I want to get it right, I want to learn it all so quickly. It feels like such a mess, like there is no way to learn gracefully in the moment. It reminds me of that scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin when his guy friends are telling the main character to go date a bunch of "hood rats" to learn how to have sex. Their thesis was that there is no way for him to be good at first, so he should 'practice' (there's that word again) on people he doesn't care about, to hopefully improve his skillz by the time he'd want to make a move on the "hott granny," played by Catherine Keener.
So, what you're saying is: I need some metaphorical lab rats dating-wise. Hood rats, whatever... Not for the sex part, but for the pretext part – of all of the asking and telling, the outing myself as being trans, all of it. Guh! How the fuck does this work? It feels like shit knowing that I am going to be bad at something, and still having to go through it anyway, as a learning experience. For fuck's sake! I don't want to be bad at something. Worse yet, I don't want to be bad for the other person's sake, either! I don't want them thinking how lame I am, but moreso, I don't want to waste their time on someone as bumbling as I am right now. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THIS?
I think most people are used to going out on a few dates, and sort of sizing people up, if they are interested in hanging out more. For me, all of my relationships started off as friendships that started to become so intense, that there was no choice but to date and try to work it out. There was no formal date request, since the majority of my exes were straight women, and just initially thought of me as one of their other female friends. So, going out to dinner and such didn't have the same gravity back then as it might now, when I ask a straight woman out for drinks or for dinner. Weird. Back then, with the foundation of friendship first, it took a lot of the formality out of things, and when we became romantically linked, it felt like we sort of started in the middle of things. It's becoming ridiculously obvious to me that I have no clue how to do the 'beginning' stages of this stuff.
I don't know how to be the man, and I think it shows. I fear that it crosses me off the list, when people see that I'm not going through the 'correct' routine procedures date-wise. Date two coming up, and I'm already stepping all over myself. Awesome!
I'll let you know how it goes... Sigh~
When I think about dating, it dawns on me that I have no clue how this works. I tried to give myself small challenges, like "make more eye contact," and "engage in a conversation when someone talks to me." Which is all well and good, until I started stepping it up. "Ask the hott girl out," seemed like a good idea at the time. It was "good practice," everyone kept saying. But now that she's said yes to not one, but two dates, I am feeling a bit stumped. I have ideas of where to go, and can chat up anyone once I get over my paralyzing shyness. Those things aren't the problem.
I simply don't know the dance – the tiny gestures to keep things afloat. I haven't thought about what was going to happen beyond asking someone out. And there is an inherent responsibility for which I wasn't prepared. This notion that you have to consider every action and reaction. It didn't feel as pressing before my transition. But now, every text I send, every joke I try to make – I sense they are being scrutinized for insights and reflections into my soul. How scary is that? Jokes that female friends have told me, if repeated, might make me seem like some douchey dude now. If I take too long in getting back to a text or an email, it may make me seem disinterested, or difficult. I think about all of my female friends that have turned to me to analyze their beau's communications, and I see it in such a different light now.
There is an innate pressure being on this side of the gender divide that I never could have anticipated. I am not trying to say: "Oh, it's so tough being a guy, feel sorry for us!" But everything carries such weight. I fear that I'm not given the benefit of the doubt, like when my bff calls while having a bad day while I'm in the middle of texting with the aforementioned gal of interest. There is no way for her to know that I may have received a call, but tones then change, and I feel like I missed the boat. There is so much pretext, and I am clueless.
I want to get it right, I want to learn it all so quickly. It feels like such a mess, like there is no way to learn gracefully in the moment. It reminds me of that scene in The 40 Year Old Virgin when his guy friends are telling the main character to go date a bunch of "hood rats" to learn how to have sex. Their thesis was that there is no way for him to be good at first, so he should 'practice' (there's that word again) on people he doesn't care about, to hopefully improve his skillz by the time he'd want to make a move on the "hott granny," played by Catherine Keener.
So, what you're saying is: I need some metaphorical lab rats dating-wise. Hood rats, whatever... Not for the sex part, but for the pretext part – of all of the asking and telling, the outing myself as being trans, all of it. Guh! How the fuck does this work? It feels like shit knowing that I am going to be bad at something, and still having to go through it anyway, as a learning experience. For fuck's sake! I don't want to be bad at something. Worse yet, I don't want to be bad for the other person's sake, either! I don't want them thinking how lame I am, but moreso, I don't want to waste their time on someone as bumbling as I am right now. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THIS?
I think most people are used to going out on a few dates, and sort of sizing people up, if they are interested in hanging out more. For me, all of my relationships started off as friendships that started to become so intense, that there was no choice but to date and try to work it out. There was no formal date request, since the majority of my exes were straight women, and just initially thought of me as one of their other female friends. So, going out to dinner and such didn't have the same gravity back then as it might now, when I ask a straight woman out for drinks or for dinner. Weird. Back then, with the foundation of friendship first, it took a lot of the formality out of things, and when we became romantically linked, it felt like we sort of started in the middle of things. It's becoming ridiculously obvious to me that I have no clue how to do the 'beginning' stages of this stuff.
I don't know how to be the man, and I think it shows. I fear that it crosses me off the list, when people see that I'm not going through the 'correct' routine procedures date-wise. Date two coming up, and I'm already stepping all over myself. Awesome!
I'll let you know how it goes... Sigh~
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