#i left the server we were in together and i'm considering blocking her on my private acc

[the-foungaytions-of-degay]

update my friend started saying that i was gaslighting her for *checks notes* telling her that i had to step back from her starting shit randomly bc i am in a lot of physical pain bc apparently setting boundaries is *checks notes* manipulation

[dear-eli]

Am I incorrect in thinking of you as a friend?

Not a best friend, not even a close friend (even though you're basically the only one I've got). But as someone who, no matter how infrequently we speak (or even if we never speak again), still thinks of me with kindness? Still passively wishes me well, or at very least does not actively wish me ill? Or has that changed? I need to know. I need to know because that will shape how I interact with you in the future. I need to know what degree of connection you still have for me, whether it's friendship or mere acquaintance, and positive, neutral, or negative.

I know you're busy. I know you're stressed and burnt out and your health is suffering. All that has been true since before I met you, to the point that I consider it a fundamental truth of who you are. I know you didn't really have time for me when we were together, and I don't expect you to make time for me as a friend. But I need to know how far over my shoulder to look.

Would you prefer it if I actively avoided you? If I unfriended or even blocked you on Facebook? Should I move off your claim in Minecraft and log off immediately if I were ever to see you logged on, or should I regard the server itself as your territory and abandon it entirely? If, out of happenstance, we ever ran into each other in person, should I walk the other way?

Or are we OK to stay as we are, sort of tenuously nebulously still connected, living on the same Minecraft claim and passing notes but never seeing each other, still friends on Facebook but never interacting (except when I unthinkingly cross an unspoken boundary and message you for some stupid selfish reason or other), not actively in each other's lives but not really fully out of them either, in some sort of gray-area liminal space between connection and non-existence? If we ran into each other would we make polite but awkward small talk, pretending we never were what we once were to each other, suppressing my reflexive desire to beg for a hug?

Don't get me wrong: I greatly and sincerely appreciate you not just fully going ghost and abandoning me the second I moved out of your house and left your life. It means more to me than I can say - and you know I'm very rarely at a loss for words. And it's not like I think some switch has flipped and you suddenly hate my guts; I do still know you well enough to know that would be out of character for you. But this friendship purgatory, this Limbo, is maddening in its uncertainty. If this is how you want to continue, I need it to be made clear. I need the ground rules to be set and clarified. Am I allowed to message you whenever I'm feeling sad and alone, or when my mom pulls her fuckshit, or to casually remind you of things happening on the server, without any expectation of response (immediate or otherwise)? Or does my reaching out to you for undeserved support create complications or make demands on your time etc, that are not worth the trouble they would cause for you?

I know you're not likely to actively seek me out for any reason. And I know I don't really have any right to directly interact with you anymore, either, and I don't want to make life more difficult for you just because I need reassurance. If you want me to back off and stop trying to be friends with you, I will. I just need to know where the line is so I can stop crossing it unintentionally.

I will still, always, carry positive feelings and goodwill for you in the back of my heart, whether we ever see each other again or not, whether we speak to each other next week or in 20 years or never. Like I said, I still think of you as a friend, which means I think of myself as a friend to you as well. That doesn't mean I want to rekindle anything romantic at all, by the way. I think of this sort of absentee friendship as more like a lamp, waiting to be plugged in, but shining bright as ever when that connection is made again. It's just up to you whether or not to plug the lamp in and how far to turn up the dimmer switch, or to put it away in storage for another day, or to get rid of it forever. If that makes any sense at all. I'm sure it probably doesn't, I picked up a bug at the Syrup Festival so now my brain is addled with cold medicine. This has kind of gotten away from me now. Hopefully I will clean it up a bit before I send it to you, if I ever do.

[transgirlhoshizorarin]

Story Time I Guess

The people this is about and the people who will read this are mutually exclusive. So this isn't about you.

I have so much to say, to no real effect. Maybe to make myself feel better, but that's just selfish and does nothing for the collective good.

Whenever I'm in a group of people, that's when I feel the most lonely. At least when I'm in front of a computer screen, the colors and lights keep me company, and the occasional interaction with people I like.

It's so lonely constantly feeling like I'm a third wheel wherever I go, like I'm dragged along because I'm a charity case. Bring this quiet person along so we can feel okay about ourselves for not ignoring them. Maybe ask her a question every now and then so she doesn't feel excluded THAT much. But therein lies the paradox: I'm so lonely and yet I am too scared to wedge myself into conversations and things to make myself known. It's better to not be seen, it's better to not exist, and yet I feel so lonely because of that mentality.

One place I felt like I was not an outsider, I was considered a friend. It was a discord server where some people were in voice chat consistently, and it was during a time I was painting for my 2D Color And Design course. I would join the voice channel and just sit and listen to other people talk. We were all trans. I was invited into the server from the person who made it. I joined a channel and asked if it was okay to just hang out there while I painted, since it was background noise. The people in there said they were okay with it, but they didn't speak much. I think they left after a while.

After trying to join the voice channel again for a different reason, I found out that I couldn't join. The server founder had to remove some restrictions on me that someone else placed, so that I could actually join the voice channels again. I guess someone didn't want me in there, just existing. So since then, I've been avoiding joining voice calls in discord. I assume it's because I'm older than a lot of people I exist with these days, and I can't reasonably assume I'm welcome in those spaces. I can't reasonably assume I'm welcome in any space. I'm trans, but only when it serves other people's interests as a joke, apparently. I'm fun, but only when it makes other people laugh. I'm useful, only if it's something I'm somewhat interested in and won't infodump about because it's not an interest of mine. Kept around when it's convenient, ignored otherwise. So I left that discord, not long after finding out that one of the higher-ups in that server had blocked me here on tumblr.

I'm also very interested in 2 people at the moment, one moreso than the other. Let's say K and T. I've known K for a very long time, and I've developed feelings for them...for at least 2 years at this point. They'll share their interests with me and propose we watch things together, and for the most part, I agree to do it when we have the time to do it. But when they ask if I enjoyed it, I do, but I have a hard time saying that I do, hard time saying that I enjoy any bit of material because, well, that's just how I am. I can truly enjoy something but I can't bring myself to say that I like it. I'll always say that "it's good," or "it's okay," but never truly say anything about liking it. People usually take that to mean that it wasn't actually interesting, so they stop sharing things with me. And I think that's what happened with K's circumstance here. But at the same time, I've dropped a couple hints and I think I got back what I expected - an implied rejection, but not outright because they were just hints and not outright statements of fact. "Hey I like you," isn't something I'm going to say to them. At this point, there's no way I can say it. I've tried to share my interests with them, and I've been met with basically a brick wall. They don't really seem interested in what I have to share, be it music or tv shows or anything that's interesting to me. Of course, they'll share things with me, and I'll take it in wholeheartedly. I see where it fits into how it made them the person they are today, and I appreciate it to see how it can affect me. But every time I try to level it out and share something with them, they don't listen. They don't watch. They'd rather go off and do something with someone else. And I let them go. So I guess that's how it should be. But how do I kill these feelings without just outright confessing to them about it, and having them shut me down like I want, but without making the friendship weird?

And in the case of T. Well, we only recently started talking. I don't know much about her. I could go sleuthing through her twitter, but that's weird and creepy and I don't want to study up on someone like that. She offered to be someone to listen to me when I have problems, but I can't in good conscience do that to someone I just met, and I definitely won't do that to someone I consider a friend, unless I know 100% that they're willing to listen to me complain about my paradoxical problems I've listed and alluded to here. She knows a lot about things that I don't, and I know that she makes far much more money than I do. Well, I just quit my job last thursday, so everyone is pretty much making more money than I am at the moment. I can't say that it's necessarily intimidating, but I feel like I have nothing to offer to her that would make me worthwhile to have around. So maybe I feel intimidated in that sense, that I feel like I cannot actually have anything to contribute to the relationship, be it friendship or anything more.

For fuck's sake. I'm 35. And I haven't had a single relationship last more than a year or something. And all of my relationships have had some really crazy inequalities that either made me the deadweight or I had way too much power so I had to distance myself because I simply felt bad for being in the relationship. And in all of them, I was too scared to end it myself. I'm sorry.

I just want to exist and share a space with someone else.

But there's also the question of physical intimacy. I know in theory, and in my head, I would like that. I know I would like it. But when it comes to actually doing it, I can't make myself even touch the other person without feeling like I'm overstepping boundaries. Am I touching them too much? Do I use my hands? Do I just lean up against them? Am I not touching them enough? Do they want more than I'm doing now? If I ask questions, I'll get answers, but if I ask questions, I'll also sound absolutely clueless. Which I am. I just don't know how to physically interact with other people in any meaningful capacity.

I don't know what to do.

[asecondyelping]

Black Angus Steakhouse

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ever wake up Sunday morning with the "steak starvies"? I'm sure you have. Abby and I woke up one Sunday morning in October and felt a particularly sharp craving for some of that true steak, the kind a real cattleman would fix over a desert wood fire, under a full coyote moon, sitting under a canopy of desert pricklies. Luckily for us, down the freeway from our church proudly stood a steakhouse made entirely out of wood (remember those?) like it could've been erected in the Old West by a herd of cattlemen. Don't forget- Hayward is an Old West Town in it's own right and tucked next to the H&R Block, a simple memorial to heavenly steaks and dusty cattlemen still stands. Abby and I got there early and eager, so we had to wait a few minutes. When the doors swung open at 11a.m., we swaggered in and were promptly seated.

We opened up our slippery menus (usually a good indicator of the juiciness of the steaks, trust me) and took a gander at the selections. I already knew what I was getting. I had to order a 16oz. cut of the Ribeye Steak. Medium Rare. Typically, I'd order up a Pittsburgh Rare cut of steak, but I've been having some health problems with my colon and my doc advised me to "Give up red meat or there would be hell to pay". I think Medium Rare instead of Pittsburgh Rare is a good enough step in the right direction. I only bring this up because I think it's proof that I would know what a good steak is having eaten enough to be officially prohibited lol. Along with the steak came a choice of two sides. I ordered the Traditional Baked Potato and Steak Soup. The missus ordered the Cobb Salad, which I wasn't expecting since we came in hungry for slabs of cow, but hey, we are all entitled to a change of heart I suppose. We handed the menus over to our delightful waitress who, after placing our order, walked back with a warm round loaf of native grain bread seeded with what looked and tasted like barley. This wasn't my first rodeo. I knew the deceptive friendliness of that loaf. I've made the mistake before of filling up on the delicious and complementary bread so much so I couldn't finish my steak. That wasn't going to happen this time, I vowed… as I mashed another buttered hunk into my mouth.

The soup came out first. A delightful little stew of barley, kidney beans, and cubes of beef. The aroma alone took me back to a campfire dinner I had with my family as a kid out on outskirts of Vista, California, putting cans of Campbell's Chunky directly on the coals to heat up. I had a few spoonfuls of the slurry before I had a thought: it tasted EXACTLY like Campbell's Chunky, just like my dad used to make on those camping trips back in the day! I believe that taste can be a powerful channel for nostalgia and Black Angus's Steak Soup was a slow flood of boyhood memories.

Though I knew I had a massive platter of steak on the way, I basically inhaled that stew in 2 minutes flat, which is remarkable now that I think of it considering it seemed like the recipe called for 8 ounces of everything in the kitchen roughly blended together with a stick of butter throw in. It was not light. At this point, I was seriously doubting that I could manage to finish a 16 oz'er along with potato. As I glanced around nervously for the waitress touting my impending meal, my eyes landed on a television screen hung above our booth; an infomercial for the Copper Chef was on! In fact, it was playing on all the TVs hung on walls of Black Angus! Imagine that… at a steakhouse, watching the Copper Chef fry up steaks, hot dogs, corn on the cobs, and potatoes au gratin in the same pan. Actually, a few minutes of watching Copper Chef was all I needed to regain my "zeal for the meal". Just as though my stomach had sent out a specific frequency only audible by experienced waitstaff, our server appeared around the corner with our plates followed by an older lady that seemed like the owner of the establishment.

Abby was looking dumbfounded at the size of her Cobb Salad. I love gazing across the table and seeing Abby's face light up like that. It happened at Romano's Macaroni Grille, and it happened at the Nordstrom Cafe. Just typing this part makes my heart swell :' >. This is why you should take your lady to decent restaurants, fellas. I looked down at my own plate with tantamount dumbfoundedness. The ribeye had a beautiful cross-hatch char on it and the potato was split in the middle and in it burbled butter and sour cream. The presentation was incredible. Turns out, the older lady that looked like she was the owner was one of the most special members of the staff: she came out from the back of the Black Angus whenever someone ordered the 16 oz rib to personally deliver it. She took a special silverware setting out from her back pocket and placed the knife in my right hand, the fork in my left hand, and unrolled the napkin onto my lap. "Sir, would you mind slicing into your steak to confirm the doneness for me?", she said. Just wow. This had never happened to me at a Black Angus before. I cut into my steak (with some difficulty admittedly, the knife was really not very sharp I think) and it indeed was cooked to a perfect Medium Rare. She nodded and a proud smile broke discreetly onto her face. "Enjoy you steak sir, and madame, I hope you enjoy your Cobb Salad."

Everything after that was a blur. Bite after bite went into my mouth and I chewed every piece as if I was gnawing through a rope that bound me to a sinking ship. I ordered extra butter upon extra butter and drowned my potato in it. Steakhouses probably have access to really good butter, now that I think of it. I couldn't recall now, but it seemed that Abby was grimacing at me through the haze. She says now that she was smiling, so maybe I am just projecting, but I was unashamedly just devouring my meal like a nasty scoundrel. To tell you the truth, I don't quite remember the taste of the steak. I knew it must have tasted good, since I was tearing it to bits, but I honestly was more spurred on by the act of chewing the meat. "Steak Starvies" really means "I am starving for steak". I just remember my vision had dimmed to a tunnel that framed everything with a lurid glow. I should wrap this review up here actually, I'm sorry it's so long! I'm getting hungry again ahaha!! Anyway, if you're ever looking for a traditional American Western restaurant for the domesticated cowboy within, hop on your horse (or get in your car) and mosey on over to the Hayward Black Angus where they'll treat you right and ask you if they're doing a good job. It's right off the freeway! Oh, and I finished the steak and potato :)

Abby’s take: you know it’s going to be a good Sunday when the day begins at Black Anus. Unfortunately, they do not yet have a country breakfast menu, but they do open at 11am ! Perhaps true steakmen don’t see a need for labels when it comes to steak, unlike us city people. To the true steakman, steak is steak no matter the hour or gender. It seemed we were not the only patrons who wanted to begin Sunday in the atmospheric American darkness of a high-end ranch house. A fine way to escape the fast paced city life, slow down and take some notes from the locals! It really is a different way of life over at the steakhouse... I myself have always dreamt of country living. Blame it on my freckles, or my collection of Kenny Chesney fan fiction, I have always wondered if I was meant for the farm.

I ordered the vegetable Cobb, curious to try a “Country” take on a “City” classic. It was delectable! The cuisine equivalent of the musical masterpiece “Old Town Road”. I’m hoping Kenny Chesney is able to hop on that horse as well, perhaps accompanied with the always masterful Marshall Mathers (M&M). Those two on a musical horse would be quite the sight and sound!

The hubby, perhaps in an attempt to impress the locals, ordered a steak, medium rare, with no cityman dizzle-dazzle-add ons or subtractions. I for one, was impressed with his restraint, and took the moment to reflect. How accustomed have we city people become, to custom orders - “no tomatoes, no gluton” even picking and choosing particular Kenny Chesney songs to purchase from the ITune store, instead of purchasing the whole album. While I so enjoyed the cob salad remainders we took home, this lesson may have been my most valuable “takeaway”.

Local tip: “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems” is a great starter album for the Kenny Chesney novice.