Suspicious Minds

Tonight we talked.

When I mentioned my plan yesterday, her first thought was that the numbers didn't add up. There was something I wasn't telling her. I know I'm a terrible liar, so I told her that Cassie and I had been planning to eat out before the meeting. She didn't freak out. She was deeply resentful that I can't find time to go out with her, but manage to arrange something with a friend.

She also doesn't understand why I need to go out into the public arena. Frankly, I don't know. She thinks this means that I want to live as a woman, and I'm going to spring this on her in five or ten years and leave her in the lurch. The truth, I said, is that I can't imagine living as a woman full time, or SRS. I see myself living somewhere between genders. Probably a more androgenous or metrosexual look that would allow me to slip between boy and girl mode more easily.

She was surprised by my decision not to go to the meeting. She approves of my attending them, but hates that it takes away one of our few nights together. She didn't get why I wasn't going. This is my chance to dress, with like-minded people, in a safe environment. My decision was based on a lot of things, including absence of close friends, a perfectionist streak working against me, the unbleached arm hair necessitating a last minute wardrobe change (long sleeves!), and having to throw my gear together at the last minute. Just not worth the effort. And, she believes, a passive -aggressive desire to hold her responsible at a later date. There's something to that theory as well.

I did explain that I need more safe time in female mode, that I haven't been able to fully engage in three months, that our "arrangement" isn't sufficient. She believes that leaving me to my own devices in the basement in the wee hours of the morning should be safe enough. But I see a kid barfing or bleeding in the middle of the night, and Dad being needed. Or a child having insomnia and wandering downstairs. I might be able to whip off a wig and throw a blanket over my clothes, but there's no way I could indulge in makeup. It's just too risky.

She believes this to be tolerant, but I still feel I'm fighting her to get this, and what I'm getting isn't enough. I don't know how far I need to go down this road, but I haven't gotten there yet. I tried to explain that there's a lot of gray between the two gender standards. Not sure she believes that's where I'm headed.

There was more, but we talked over an hour and covered a lot of ground. This was the most open I've been with her. I decided to share quite a few of my secrets with her. She was a little upset a couple times, but mostly it was calm and mature.

So what I've learned is: create a crisis, suffer the consequences, have the heart-to heart you wanted in the first place as a reward for creating a crisis. A perfect circle, perfectly dysfunctional.