Yesterday I had planned to meet up & hang out with the gender-expansive gay guy from the chorus with whom I’ve hooked up in order to have a clarifying conversation about our “friendship”. I knew what I wanted to ask him, what I wanted to say, feeling the additional protection of my post-op restrictions that don’t allow me to have sex, yet.
Well, my plans went to hell (in the good sense). We didn’t have the conversation. It didn’t feel like the right thing to do in that moment. As I was journaling in my diary planning this conversation a few days ago, I found myself writing, “I’m ready. Is he?” The truth is that I wasn’t ready, either, at least not yesterday.
I’ve been feeling very vulnerable, delicate, fragile, even dysphoric and disconnected from my own body this past week. It’s been hard. Pain and anger and grief and real concern around my dysphoria have been haunting many hours of my days and nights for over a week.
My decision to have the clarifying conversation with the gender-expansive gay guy was a rational and reasonable one. But yesterday what I needed was tenderness: I needed to be held, literally and figuratively, emotionally as much as physically, by a gay guy friend. I needed connection, validation, gender-affirmation, some gentle touch, not the rational dissecting of relationships. And he met me where I was yesterday.
But I also met him where he was. He wouldn’t have been ready for such a conversation. Instead of helping to soften his protective shell or lower his defensive walls, it would have made them more impenetrable. Instead of allowing us both to have a sweet afternoon in “teenager mode” together, it would have soured things.
We met each other where we were at.
And I also met myself where I was, where I actually was emotionally yesterday, not theoretically on paper.
And now I’m realizing that has probably been one the most important things I’ve learned in relationships — or become more clearly aware of — in the past decade, and especially in the past few years. Most of the “relationships gone wrong” have been due to the parties involved being unable and/or unwilling to meet each other (and/or their own self) where each one was. Not just compromising: actually meeting each other emotionally. This holds for me for all types of close relationships, including with one’s own self.
I think I wasn’t taught this very important principle of close relationships, of meeting people somewhere that works for all parties involved, emotionally. I was taught to compromise, even to sacrifice, and had to fight and shake off so much of that toxic conditioning. Compromising from the practical standpoint is definitely important. But it’s not enough. It’s been a slow process for me to learn to meet people where they’re at, so that our close relationships may work. I’ve learned to do it thanks to sensitive people who have met me where I was, or am. I also learned to do it, partly, through my professional experiences teaching. I’ve learned it instinctively, by doing, by trial and error (oh, so many errors!). The more people met me where I was, the more I learned on an emotional, instinctive level, to do that in return.
I didn’t see that at first, I just felt it, I felt something that felt better than in the past. Now I also see it. I still mess up sometimes, but at least I see it: this valuable key of healthy relationships.
The Little Prince and the Fox 