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stella41b -> RE: What makes a wannabe in your eyes (11/20/2008 8:34:22 PM)
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Okay I stand corrected, though I did interpret it totally differently. I found the third person speak confusing.
Maybe part of the problem wasn't what was written but my own experiences and guilt. I grew up as a boy and though I've also lived as a guy I sensed pretty much by the age of 17 that I wasn't "normal" and that at some point I would have to make major changes in my life. I also had a 'vanilla' life, and for some years that 'vanilla' life was as a guy, and yes, as a wannabe. I would date women, I even went through a phase of Internet dating some years back in Poland, and even date women, admitting that I was a crossdresser, but somehow knowing deep inside that I was more than this, that it was far more than the clothes and dressing up as a woman. The thing was, when things got intimate I would back off, sorry that I had allowed her to get that close to me, and I would end the relationship. Why was I doing this? I wanted and craved acceptance, understanding and love, but I was going about it the wrong way. I even put on weight, a lot of weight and remained fat. Why? My body changed when I was younger due to my mosaicism, I have rather feminine hips, legs and bottom of a woman, no hair, and women would notice when we got naked. Being fat women didn't notice and I 'passed' as a guy. This is how I ended up getting married. But all along there was always much more to me and to my issues than just being a crossdresser, it was far more than this, it was me, it just took a long time for me to work it out and accept it. The labels - CD, TV, TS, etc. - changed not just with my awareness but also with my willingness to accept me and who I really am.
The marriage was short, turbulent, but successful in the way it resolved issues for both my wife and me. I was becoming known and popular in theatre and wanted to move to Warsaw, my wife was a beautiful blonde living in Warsaw who had a drink problem. She knew I was a crossdresser, but even though she tried she couldn't accept this, and it turned out to be much more. The marriage turned out to be platonic, we decided to separate in 1998 and divorced on Feb 14 2000. My former wife quit drinking and moved onto someone else and now has two lovely kids, I had started to try and transition from 1998 since when I found contact with a domme in Warsaw.
Some people have suggested I write a book about my transition, but I guess I'm more of an expert over how not to go about gender reassignment, but one of the hardest things I have had to do in life was to learn to accept that I am not male and have never been male, that I only have certain male physical characteristics and that many changes have to be made.
Years ago when I first came out and I was in London I could pass, and I mean really pass and nobody would have known I was anyone different from a female, and gradually these days are coming back. But now it isn't that important, I make no attempt to hide the fact that I am transgendered because it is who I really am, and I will always be transgendered. In fact the most important thing to me now is that what you see online is who I am offline, and this is important to me, because I don't want to mislead nor deceive anyone.
The Internet for someone like me is a Godsend, it really is. It makes my life so much easier and is instrumental in helping me become more integrated into a community and out there in society. But it also helps me to shorten the odds. I live a life where very few things come easily and many things come after a struggle or with some degree of difficulty. Even simple things, sometimes someone forgets and calls me 'Sir' even though I'm dressed up to the nines, and whenever I call my bank I have to go through endless security questions just to speak to someone. Relationships, even friendships are few and far between because very few are genuinely interested in having even a friend who is transgendered. It would appear that more people want to come into my life, but these are people who are curious, who maybe want to find out what it's like to be with someone transgendered, they need a second option, they think I am some sort of experiment, they want some domestic work doing, or so on. Many times people have said they want to meet, they want to get to know me, or they want to start a friendship and relationship, but they don't mean it, and taking them at their word I start to believe and trust them, only to find out later that it was only words and good intentions, or they do, and then when they lose interest they drop me just like the proverbial cigarette butt or sweet wrapper, and I'm left to pick up the pieces.
But then again, am I really all that different from everyone else? And do not other people share the same experiences here?
You know I always recall a programme I once heard on radio about a mother and her son who was losing his hearing. He was going to be deaf. His mother gave him the choice that he could either accept it and accept the limitations of being deaf, or he would have to try harder. I think of this programme quite often, and know that yes, this is a sort of handicap for me, but all I can do is try harder, and this is what I do in actual fact - try harder.
Now I could focus on all the people who have let me down or not followed through but this would make me miserable and depressed and it would also take me down the path of undermining my self-esteem and self-confidence, not to mention arouse feelings of anger and resentment. Or I could just let it go, accept that some people just can't or won't follow through, for whatever reason, and instead concentrate on those that do, which is pretty much what I do anyway. Things took a great leap forward when I realised that many of my gender issues weren't really my issues, but social issues connected with gender and sexual orientation and that the cross I was carrying was way too heavy for me to carry.
I have come across a guy even who claims to be able to tell from looking at any photo whether a woman is a naturally born woman or transgendered. He's made it his hobby. But this is how I see people who are trying to spot fakes and wannabes, it's such a pointless exercise. You are going to encounter such people anyway, but why waste all that time and energy in trying to work out whether someone is wasting your time and energy? I just see it as pointless.
I mean when you think about it it's the people who matter who only really matter. The rest don't. This is why I posted earlier that I only really look for the positive in people because I find that people treat you the way you treat them, and if you look for the positive in those people they tend to respond likewise. One of my reasons for coming here to these boards is that I do feel accepted, and understood, and liked and loved by different people, some of who I'm probably never going to meet. But this isn't the point, the point is that I've taken a step in the right direction, that this place always exists and that the same people are here. There are friendships which have formed as a result of being here and some of those friendships have got to real time, and therefore I feel that sooner or later the rest will come with time. All it takes is a bit of patience.
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