#oh also for context. i think im aro so im just not interested in dating at all

[weaverofink]

Here's a question. What do u do when u have the sneaking suspicion u just accidentally agreed to a date w someone

[rosepetalkitty]

hh serious post bcuz someone else's really cute post reminded me of an interaction with my family that i feel like venting about, other trans girlies can maybe relate

so for a long time i

insisted to myself that i wasn't really aro and did really romantically love my partners

lied to my parents about being in relationships, out of fear and self preservation

and if you're curious, no, that didn't stop my mom from referring to me hanging out with two friends (who i never even came close to dating :/ one was a friend from preschool) as "menage au trois." i was 15. to this day she blames me for "not taking a joke" if i bring up how uncomfortable that made me.

but i digress. eventually as a senior i had a breakdown during a family argument and stormed off outside. the breakdown was partially fueled by my intrusive thoughts about my boyfriend being gone (for those who dont know the context: he didn't die we just couldn't contact each other for a year and a half and were very codependent) being worse that day.

i was sitting by the road outside our house and my dad came out and apologized for shouting and asked if i was okay. i told him "not really" and he asked what was going on, if it was about my boyfriend, etc. i was feeling really shit and the secrets were making it worse so i explained to him that i was dating my boyfriend as well as my girlfriend and another person who i no longer consider myself to have really dated — they were a friend of my ex-boyfriend and i (the one who introduced us actually) and we trauma bonded over missing him, but that was it. no real relationship.

the first thing he said was "well do they all know?" and we both laughed and i was like "yeah no im not cheating on them it's just complicated to explain relationships" and he was like "yeah. i don't necessarily understand, but i understand why i don't understand"

i was like "what? what does that even mean?"

and he was like "well, it's so interesting to me. i always thought that because you're, y'know, you weren't raised as a girl, that your relationship with your mom would be like mother and son, and that it would take a while to change that. but now that im looking back on it it's always been more like a mother-daughter relationship. i just think that's neat."

im pretty sure the implication was that he felt like dad's don't understand dating which is why he "understood why he didn't understand" but like. idk. that conversation was the first time either of my parents had really acknowledged me as a girl beyond my name and pronouns. my mom especially has always been very performative about gender — i tried to explain what genderfae (the label i most closely identify with) meant and she responded "oh just tell me if you're a she or a they beyond that i don't need to know."

she also got upset with me to the point of shouting for trying to explain to her that nonbinary and agender were not the same thing — she had been volunteering for the trevor project and was pissed that their training slides "didn't make sense."

idk. i just feel like it's interesting. especially that my dad, a cis man, still notices stuff like how my mom parented me being more like a daughter than a son. although tbf my childhood was a fucking trainwreck and not entirely due to them. lots of mental health issues as a toddler and elementary schooler, they're kinda funny to look back on but terrified the shit out of my parents. so like, maybe im not the perfect example for this. but uh. yeah.