Sunday, January 11, 2009

Learning how to be normal...

Even though most people who know me wouldn't say that I'm anywhere near normal, this life I'm living now is as close to normal life as anything I've ever known. Most of you know, my years of pre-transition were foggy workdays waiting for weekends of crossdressing, more drugs, and more alcohol, sobering just enough to go to work on Monday and doing it all over again. Those days are over, and now I find myself not knowing how to do the 'normal' things that most people my age learned years ago. I didn't grow-up, my biggest problem being, I didn't learn how to be in a social gathering, conversation eludes me. I feel so inept, like a teenager in a group of adults, wanting to contribute, but utterly afraid of saying the wrong thing. So I keep to myself, a wallflower, dying on the inside. I don't know how to change this, but I must. It is keeping me from becoming whole.

Stephanie

1 comment:

Gillian said...

Could it be that the people with whom you are having trouble conversing actually don't have anything to say themselves? Find out. It's been said more than once that the best conversationalist is a good listener. Instead of trying to come up with statements, ask questions. Then listen to the answers and ask more questions based on those answers. Somewhere along the line, an opinion of your own will surface, and then you can make a statement.

Here's another point: unless you're hanging out with other transfolks, you're probably the most interesting person in the room. It comes with the territory. They're probably not asking you questions either because you're passing too well. (That's what I always hope for.) Or they're too "polite" to give voice to the questions that are bursting inside them. (When the woman came up to me and asked, "Are you a crossdresser or a transsexual?" I was overjoyed to give a little lesson in TG 101 - after overcoming a strong desire to strangle the bitch!)