A common thing, especially among trans friends, is that allowing oneself to express and be their gender is extremely powerful. But how does that work when you explore there and find absolutely nothing? Not a default configuration, not NB, not a suppressed narrative, but nothing — a tabula rasa in which impostor syndrome turned out to be correct?

I’ve been struggling with that for awhile, and I decided I’d build my own. I’m not good at this yet, but I’m trying.

I think this is part of why I have so much trouble relating to people or figuring out how relationships — even casual friendships — are supposed to work. All of the hardware is there, all of the software is installed correctly, except I didn’t come with any configuration files whatsoever.

Which I guess I recognize as not broken, nor exactly. But it leaves people uncomfortable that I’m faking it. Which I guess I am.

I guess that also leads people to fill in the gaps for this behavior. Common things I hear, in paraphrase:

* “Oh, them, they never respond, they’re probably an asshole.”
* “They’re really quiet except for specific subjects. Then they give way too much information.”
* “I think they’re plotting something.”

And I guess I understand the impulse to think that, but usually it’s because I’m paralyzed not knowing what my identity even is.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on that, especially in light of how folks’ perceptions of reality can dominate the truth. And I guess this is why I always expect things to go poorly for me in any group setting, reinforcing my predisposition to hide from people already.

Because if folks think my resulting reclusive behavior is an indicator I must be a bad person, I... really don’t have the bandwidth to challenge that notion nor change the behavior.