Buddies

I have buddies here. And it feels so good. 

I haven’t had buddies like this since grad school — for over a decade. And this was one of the things I missed the most since finishing grad school: male friends with whom I could hang out easily, spontaneously, as peers, as if we were all a bunch of guys — me just as much as them. 

Tonight I hung out with my French buddy. We’re mainly climbing buddies but we also share other passions like hiking and motorcycle-riding, and I’ve already visited him a couple times at his new house for dinner with his girlfriend as well. 

This evening was partly impromptu. The original plan was some outdoor climbing in a group of four or five of us and then dinner&drinks out all together, also to celebrate the completion of my textbook and the start of my new job. But the weather got bad so plans changed last minute and in the end my French friend and I just met up for a climb at the gym. 

I love the dynamics between us. It’s all so easy, so simple, so spontaneous. We get each other instinctively, without having to say much, and yet we can also have deep, interesting, or personal conversations. 

We have similar levels of recklessness and we balance each other out nicely in risk-taking, pushing and cautioning each other to the right degree. 

I love how comfortable and safe I feel with him while also pushing my limits and my comfort zone. I push my comfort zone with him, and feel comfortable doing so, because I instinctively feel safe with him, instinctively trust him. It’s a gut feeling. It’s felt like this ever since he helped me, as a total stranger, when I got stranded in the canyon with the overheated engine of my car. 

We were lead-climbing at the gym this evening and I was struggling on a dynamic move at the top of a roof at the end of a tough route. I tried it over and over, not pushing myself as hard as I could because I was instinctively trying to avoid falling. He let me take my time to try and rest and try again. Then he finally said, “Go for it — take the fall — I’ve got you”. I knew he was right: I knew I would fall trying it all the way but I also knew I had to try it all the way, and I knew he had me, of course. So I tried the move, and fell. No big deal. But once I had taken the fall and seen it was no big deal, then my confidence was even stronger, so I got back on the wall, tried the hard move again and made it. And got to the top. And the next time I tried an even harder route, taking all the risks, and letting him catch my falls. 

These falls at the gym are safe, they’re almost mock, but they’re a good playground and practice for the outdoors. And he’s the perfect buddy for me to push myself, to take risks broadening my comfort zone while feeling safe and having fun. 

My confidence has been coming back. The couple of weeks off and especially the vacation, the relaxation and also the adventures on the trip visiting my other friend recently, helped me regain my mental balance. I’ve been doing fun, adventurous things again, taking calculated risks, in ways that I used to before and that feel good to me, feel so much like “me”. 

But having buddies, like this French friend or the friend I visited recently, makes it feel even better, and probably helped to accelerate my renewed grounding and courage and pushing the limits in a fun, healthy way that is so “me”. 

I like these guys so much, I feel so comfortably well with them. Safe with them but not stifled. It feels like I can grow and improve myself with them while having really lots of fun. And it feels mutual. But above all, I like how it feels like a brotherly friendship between us. I feel that the boy in me can really come out, really just be himself with them. I talk openly about my non-binary/trans identity with them, about the masculinization processes I’m undergoing or planning, but also about my concerns. We don’t pretend that I’m exactly like them, a cis-male, but they don’t treat me like a woman or girl. They treat me like a boy, like a buddy. I love that. 

I wonder how much of their treating me like this has to do with the different — new but also partly old & renewed — way I have of posing and presenting myself… Do they treat me like a boy (more than guys have been doing over the past decade) because I’m posing myself more as a boy than I was doing in the recent past? 

If so it would be an interesting and even powerful result of my own redefinition of my gender identity & gender expression. An interesting and powerful result of my living even more authentically & truthfully to my own self.

But regardless of the cause, climbing at the gym and then spontaneously going out for dinner, sharing a beer, and celebrating the completion of my textbook with my French buddy was an extremely wonderful evening for me, and something I had missed in a very long time!