Sunday, June 21, 2020

Conundrum


It's not surprising that the word "Conundrum" has come up today.  I first learned this word when I read Jan Morris' book of the same name. And I find it amazing that I now have a conundrum related to my transgender nature.

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There is one person in my life with whom I have patched up a "sort of" relationship.  No, it's not romance anymore.  But several things this person has said makes me wonder if she's having her doubts about things in our past. Although I have already started the process of meeting people to date (Vicki says this might be unwise), I don't want to rub this in my "friend's" face.  (I'm not sure of what to call my relationship with this person anymore, for reasons I won't yet discuss here.)  So I'm very careful what I say when the two of us chat online.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Zoom meetup with people from the hiking group that this person has attended.  (I plan to go on some of their hikes when I'm back in shape and have the endurance for their hikes.)  Today, I attended an in-person (socially distanced) meeting of the Live Music group.  (I met this meetup's organizer at one of my dinner meetups a while back, and invited me to come....)  We discussed the two dining meetup groups, the New Paltz group and the Beacon group.  The former is cliquish, and people have bonded tightly with each other.  Quite a few people have been bothered by this group's unwillingness to accept new people in Zoom meetings during the pandemic.  But the two key organizers don't give a damn about being open to newcomers.  The Beacon group is more welcoming, and Vicki wants to join me there.  Maria will occasionally go with me as well. 

Now that in person gatherings will likely start up soon, I now have a conundrum.  With the one exception of the hiking group, no one has seen me in male mode.  People would only recognize me as a female.  If I go to the New Paltz group in either mode, I will likely piss off this "sort of" friend.  Yet, if I let her tell me what to do and what not to do, I would lose all respect for myself.  We are not in a relationship - she has no right to ask me for this "favor".  If I go as a male, I might "out" myself if any one person other than my "sort of" friend connects my male and female sides.  If I go as a female, I would likely kill off the chances of friendship with this person.

What would you do?
























2 comments:

Connie said...

The only thing you should ever do is be yourself. Who else would you want to be accepted as?

Stana said...

Do what YOU want to do, not what someone else wants you to do.

I wish it were legal to kill rude neighbors, but we called the police instead.

  When we first started to talk about what we were doing this weekend, I was originally planning to go to RQS's place as Marian.  Howeve...