Sometimes I say things that people misinterpret as me knowing very much. It’s always so damn frustrating.

I love that.

I am sure of one thing. If I didn’t have people who rely on me (not dependents like wife and kids, never even had a girlfriend), I would have gone all the way. Maybe it’d ultimately be for the wrong reasons, but let it. If it made me happy, why not.

Some of what you said here gives me this idea: maybe I am trans, and the proof of that is how far I have been able to imagine being a woman. Not simply a girl who is trying makeup to make herself feel better, but a woman in a life of humanity.

Or maybe I am such a good empath, or at a delusionally good one, that I think I can feel what it’s like to be a woman.

I can at least be happy that I have felt some beautiful feelings. That I think I know what it’s like to be a woman. Even if they ultimately have to be repressed.

I appreciate you, everyone, who takes the time to talk to people this supportively.

I agree, but in a “stoic” way.

Some things can’t be, even if only because we may not have predicted that we would want them.

For practical purposes, I will go with what another commenter said. I had thought of it myself. It may as well be true. Idealization of the feminine, anxiety, low self-esteem, a deterioration of a sense of self.

Yes, I would have loved to try a whole lot of things. Even if to quench a curiosity, even if to just play. But I know that if I keep digging, and I’d have to dig alone, I will be more and more alone and lonely. Even if there is something very real buried right there.

This. I think about this possibility as well. In fact, this might be it.

However, I wanna like me rather than wanting people to like me. And maybe it’s the idealization of the feminine.

I very much agree. But, on the other hand, my ability to find things out and decide things has deteriorated over time, drastically so in the past few years.

If I could, I would happily and unapologetically try experiencing stuff as long as I didn’t hurt myself or anyone else. But as things stand, that’s a no go.

I would, but there’s not much room. So if any attempt, however private, does indeed lead to stronger and more real urges to explore further, I will only have intensified my sense of loss.

I still remember the feeling and scent of the lipstick I tried a bunch of times. The mascara.

I see myself doomed to go the path I’m already thrown in. And since deeper thoughts about being a girl are rather new, I can more easily chalk it up to the anxiety and pressure of the last few years of my life. Maybe wanting to be a girl is just a way to escape my reality, my anxieties, or even some of my responsibilities. I can’t even be 100% sure about that, but I guess that’s the more pragmatic way of looking at it.

Thanks. I’ll listen to it as soon as I find my earbuds.

And you are good with words.

He’s good though. And far from repressive. He even encouraged me to try a few things. But, ultimately, he said these thoughts are a symptom of something else.

I’d love nothing more, but since it can’t go beyond thought, it’d be a waste of people’s time.

I’d be happy to share my thoughts with people if I knew it’d help someone, but I have had no real experience in life, despite being in almost my mid-thirties. And thought without some basic experience is useless.

It’s complicated at best. There are some things I don’t know, and I don’t trust people who are supposed to know, namely, the authorities.

I would have hugged you very tightly and very long if you were here.

I can only imagine there is something about being a girl around girls that I don’t think being a boy around boys can match.

I wish.

I would not have liked anything more than certainty.

Probably, in some ways. I don’t want to have go to the country I legally belong to but have never lived in. It’s probably the worst country in the world.

Basically I belong to a fundamentalist and backwards country, I was born and raised in a country that doesn’t like me (and sometimes can’t wait to show it), and I have disappointed myself and people around me in the basic aspects of life. Going for “I think I’m a girl” is a no go every way I look at it. That is, if I am legitimately trans, because my therapist didn’t think so.

Thanks for the recommendation.

That’s exactly what I have to do. Unlearn a bunch of stuff. Not just conventions of patriarchy though. Some basic stuff as well

I really enjoyed what I tried (makeup). It was the most joy I had felt in years, even despite accentuating some of my “manly” facial features.

But I could never go any further than than that. I have to perform the role I have been given.

Thanks. I’m going to read that.

I can’t try anything real though. My situation doesn’t allow that. And I can’t get away from it.

Introspection is good. But it can be paralyzing if it leads somewhere you can’t actually go. And I’m very prone to analysis paralysis.

Yes. This. I am neutral about being a man. I don’t mind it, especially in so far as it’s the reality I have to live with. But there is also a big chance I think about wishing to be a girl for the wrong reasons. Gender is a social construct, and I have (over)thought myself to the point where I think I’d very much like it if I could walk that path and for my body to follow. I can’t though. Maybe I will (again) some day secretly try in small ways to indulge some of the thoughts.