My last post was about my views of romance before getting together with @Princess-Flufflebutt, so this post will begin to cover the "after". Or, well, this post covers how we got together, and maybe there will be more details on the "after" part later. But anyway.
I was the one to actually ask her out, but in some sense, I feel like she was the one who started it. We were part of the same online communities, and in my interactions with her, I encountered a few reasons to believe she was interested in me. And it's not that I wasn't interested in her, but... I suspect I would've been interested in almost anyone who expressed interest in me?
Well, that's not entirely true. I already knew she was cute and sweet, so it's not like there were any real red flags for me. But it was different from my earlier expectations of romance in that I didn't already have an idea in my mind for where the relationship would end up, or where I wanted it to end up... I just had the feeling that it at least had the potential to be a good relationship, and my understanding was that this is how most relationships in real life begin. So I asked her if she wanted to give it a try and see where it goes, and she said she did. We both wanted to take it slow, and said so.
And it's interesting being in that position, going through the motions of being in love with someone just to see if it connects, rather than because you're already expecting a connection. But it seemed to be working. Right away we started spending private time together to watch TV shows and flirt with each other, and it felt really good! Without getting into too many embarrassing details, I'll just say we did multiple things that were first-time experiences for me due to my never having been in a relationship before, and I was glad to finally be able to be part of something like that and see how it felt. (In short, I felt giddy.)
But you may have picked up from reading this blog that I am a naturally self-conscious person. I knew I was willing to put work into the relationship if it was something that made sense for both of us, but I wasn't sure what direction we were actually going, and I struggled to see what she (or anyone) could see in me. And so... I told her this was what I was feeling, and I asked her what she was feeling.
I'm requesting a side tangent here, since the reason I want to share my experiences is to connect to other people on some level, and a lot of this involves engaging with cultural expectations of what to do in situations like this. I already wrote one post about how I struggled to navigate the world of cishet relationships before realizing I was trans, but let's go back to that topic for a few minutes.
During that pre-transition time, most of the advice I saw for dating had to do with confidence. If what people seek in men is ever boiled down to a single word, it's usually that. Men in most romance stories, whatever other traits or flaws they might have, are at least certain in whatever they're doing... actually, that could be said of men in most stories in general. Advice on how to talk to women usually centers around exuding confidence and certainty in all things, and avoiding topics that suggest otherwise. Similarly, it's recommended that dating profiles are cleaned up to focus on clear signs of strong, confident traits and interests.
One of the major reasons I eventually concluded that no woman would ever love me is because I knew I would never be able to bring that kind of confidence into a relationship. I'm rarely certain in anything I do or feel.
But one of the other major reasons I concluded no woman would ever love me is because I never understood why anyone would ever think approaching a relationship this way was a good thing, and so I refused to ever become that kind of confident person.
Confidence is good for increasing the chances that any given person will notice you and be interested in you, sure. When romantic interest clicks for someone, it's usually because they see something certain in someone that serves as a clear good direction for a relationship, not something ambiguous that makes it a tossup as to whether the relationship would be good or not.
And to some extent, avoiding certain problematic things at the start is also a good idea. It's good to be self-aware and to show signs of it by managing your behavior to help the other person be happier and more comfortable when they're around you. It shows a certain level of consideration.
However! Ideally, a long-term relationship lasts a lifetime, living through both good situations and bad. It means gradually understanding everything that your partner is, how they respond when things get stressful. It means understanding what your partner's goals and concerns are, so you can work together with them to help them through their own trials. And it means being open and vulnerable with your partner so that your partner can provide the same help and companionship to you.
So to me, while confidence may be good for getting a larger number of people to be interested in you, it is ultimately contradictory to a healthy long-term relationship. Being in a relationship means being willing to open up about everything you're unsure of. There's still a balance to strike, and it's different for everyone... In general, it does make sense to start off more confident and gradually open up about more and more vulnerabilities over time. But I feel it is ideally done with the intention of eventually being open about all feelings, even if there's still always going to be a proper time and place for discussing those feelings.
I already knew from cultural perceptions and firsthand experience that most people didn't treat relationships this way. Most married couples didn't seem to take their spouses as seriously as other relationships in their life, and the focus of all relationships seemed to be purely casual conversation about hobbies and keeping living situations maintained. Nothing about emotional connections.
And I know the women in my personal life were always either dismissive or outright disgusted whenever I opened up about my own vulnerabilities--whether it's because they didn't want me to have those vulnerabilities, or just didn't want me to admit I had them. And it's not like these were romantic relationships or had any potential to become them (some of these situations were with family members) but it still set precedents for me for what women expected from men in general--and again, I wasn't capable of fitting that role, and didn't want to.
The reason I bring all this up is because I can think of a specific example that reminds me of the exact situation I was in with Flufflebutt--and I think I had it on my mind when I was going through it, too. One time my sister introduced me to this youtuber that she liked, and it was some girl just kinda... talking about various life stuff, once a day, and each day had a different category assigned to it. I forget the context she brought it up, but I remember her saying that a guy asking his girlfriend why she loves him is a red flag. She said that if she said to her boyfriend "I love you" and he asked "Why?", her response would be "?????" And yet, being the self-conscious person I was, I couldn't picture myself being in a relationship without sometimes feeling the need to ask that question.
So I struggled to picture myself in a happy romantic relationship when I saw myself as a guy, but once I transitioned, I realized that it opened up some new freedoms for me. Women do not have the same cultural expectations to be confident or emotionally stoic. Now, obviously that fact leads to its own problems, but it meant I no longer had this particular stranglehold on me. Not only was I with a woman, but I was a woman myself, which meant that she wouldn't expect rigid confidence from me--and more importantly, it's not something she felt was a prerequisite for her own attraction towards me. I could doubt myself in front of her if I wanted to--and indeed, I felt that the very act of doing this would show her that I trust her enough to be vulnerable with her, and would continue to do so in the future for the purpose of building a deeper and stronger relationship with her, and she would be able to understand this.
...But before I return to the narrative between me and her, I want to make something else clear: I do think it's possible for men to be emotionally vulnerable, and I still encourage emotional vulnerability for all the ways it plays into forming deeper emotional connections with others, romantic or otherwise. Even if popular culture still doesn't understand it, I still encourage it, and I have seen it in some men myself. It's actually easier for me to find it in men now that I'm not struggling to be one.
I don't know how men do it. I never figured it out, and it's not for me to figure out as a lesbian. I'm more interested and familiar with how women do it. But I get the impression that men do, in fact, find some way to connect emotional vulnerability to the idea of confidence--being confident in one's own vulnerability, to whatever extent that's possible. I know it's probably easy to look at my own posts and argue that I'm doing the same thing, even.
But if you're a guy reading this, and you want a relationship like the one I have, then however you do it, just make sure you do this: Learn to be open and vulnerable. I know you'll meet resistance for it, and it's really hard. And it's shitty and it's unfair. But whoever's out there who would mesh with you and be with you and everything you are, it's not just about what you'll get out of it, although that's important too--they'll be eternally grateful that you are everything you are, and willing to be open about it. That you're brave enough to put yourself in a position where you're able and willing to share it with them. And I hope you'll be able to be in a relationship like that someday.
Going back to my then-new relationship with Flufflebutt: I told her that I was willing to work with her to build a relationship, but I needed a better idea of what she saw in me, what she wanted from me. She didn't speak in great detail about her emotions like I do--she still doesn't, today, that's just part of who she is. So I felt like I had to ask her point-blank what this relationship meant to her and whether it was really worth it to her.
...I don't remember exactly what she said in response, because... it wasn't the words themselves, it was something about the tone behind them. It was about how she was responding to what I was saying. Listening intently. Taking me seriously. Deeply wanting to show me... something, in response, about her feelings for me. Something very important to her, that she didn't necessarily have the words for.
I don't remember exactly what she said, but something in it... made something click in my mind, or maybe in my soul. In spite of my cynicism, in spite of my predilection towards assuming there was nothing in me for her to be interested in; she showed me, in her approach, in her intonation, there was something. Something I didn't have words for, either. But it was enough to convince me that she was already working as hard as I was, in her own ways, and we could grow something good together, even if I still didn't yet know exactly what that good thing was. And my lack of confidence in myself did nothing to make her doubt how she feels about me.
Well, it's been about two years at this point, and we're still together. We're out of that honeymoon period, so we're not as constantly engaged with flirting with each other or whatever, because... who has the energy to keep that up? But we do still flirt a little bit here and there, and I still feel giddy when it happens. And we spend a ton of time together, at least in the ways we're able to while we're separated by an ocean. (Don't worry, we've spent a few weeks together in person.)
And we've only grown more vulnerable with each other, too, and accepted each other for those vulnerabilities. Helped each other through them, provided comfort or assistance. She's definitely helped me in both the short-term and the long-term, and she says I've done the same for her, and... though it's still in my instincts to doubt that I'm really helpful to anyone, I love her and so I choose to trust her!
There's plenty more to talk about. We're still exploring everything that love and affection means to both of us--how we express it, how we want to express it, how we feel it's expressed to us. It's just happening at a slower pace than in the beginning, because the deeper we get, the more complex it gets, and the longer it takes to work through it all.
I'm still confident (ironically?) that we both have a deep desire to work through it, though. And so we will. And I like exploring that kind of stuff in my writing, so I'll continue to work through it on here, as well.
