Bears and stars

Footsteps. Rustling sounds. All of a sudden I’m woken up by the sound of someone — something — walking around the campsite, the sounds of non-human footfall. 

I’m not consciously aware of this, it’s not my rational brain telling me, “Oh, that’s the sound of non-human footsteps”. It’s my instinctive, animal brain telling me. It’s my instincts waking me up, tearing me away from sleep and thrusting me into wide-awakedness within a couple seconds. 

I check my watch — an automatic reflex, I guess — it’s 3:31 AM. And I hear them again, not through the foggy brain of sleep, but wide awake now: the footsteps and rustling sounds of something big and not human at my campsite, only a few feet away from my small tent. As they get closer, I can hear the breathing, and I tear myself out of my sleeping bag, ready to jump or run, if necessary. But I sit still, frozen, listening, straining my ears. It’s right outside my tent now, I can hear the sniffing. It sounds like a big dog sniffing, but I know it’s not a big dog. 

Time seems to stand still. And I’m frozen, too, my body is frozen in fright. I’m not sure what I should do, I don’t know if the same rule of “making oneself big and loud” from the daytime would apply to a nighttime encounter with a bear. So, I just wait, immobile, holding my breath, with my heart rate through the ceiling. 

Eventually, the sniffing sounds stop, the footsteps get fainter and fade away, stopping, at last. And after a few more minutes, I start breathing a little more deeply again, and my heart rate starts going back down to normal, at last. And I look at my watch again: it’s 3:47 AM. 

Somehow those were the longest and the briefest 16 minutes of my life. 

Rationally, I know there’s nothing to really fear from the black bears we have here in Colorado. I am told they are more scared of us than we of them. That all they want is food. That they don’t prey on us, they eat berries and nuts and roots, and are only drawn to the smells of our food and drinks and lotions — which I had placed judiciously in the bear box. Everything. Every last item. Except for the gallon water bottle that I had got at the gas station earlier that day. I placed that right outside my small tent, right next to the flapper that opens as a door, in case I got thirsty during the night — which I know I do — nearby for me to reach without having to venture far (for fear of bears) but also not inside my tent, so as to be safer. I thought the gallon water bottle from the gas station wouldn’t really smell. I hadn’t thought that having been in a store it would probably be shrouded in odors; I had forgotten that I had drunk from that bottle myself when rinsing out my mouth from toothpaste earlier that night. So, that bottle probably smelled very interesitng to a bear — and that’s probably what the bear was sniffing right outside my tent, where I could hear it, by my feet. 

Even though I didn’t see it, I know it was a bear (I actually got confirmation from the camp-host the next day when I reported it). And it was my first encounter ever with a bear. 

I’ve seen plenty of pictures of them from friends and neighborhoods in this past decade of living in, or visiting, California, Colorado, Alaska. I even heard a bear while hiking with one of my buddies here in Colorado a couple years ago. But I have never come so physically close to a bear, and definitely not by myself. 

It was terrifying. And the fear, unfortunately, stayed with me for the rest of my trip, crippling my ability to go on the big hikes to the alpine lakes that I had planned. Too many trees, the woods too dense, and the hiking trails too empty of any other human. It was just me and the dense forest around a steep, technical trail. I kept jumping at every sound I heard — usually just birds flying out of a tree or bush, squirrels climbing or chipmunks scurrying. But my nerves just couldn’t take it. I felt too vulnerable, too small. Too alone. 

The loneliness hurt, even physically, on my trip last week. I could feel it in my chest. It made me feel lost and small. I had an extremely keen sense of really being alone in this deserted campground, on these trails with no other humans hiking. 

It wasn’t my first trip by myself. On the contrary, I’ve been traveling by myself for years, decades, at this point. I’m used to it and, often, I enjoy it. Although, admittedly, I used to enjoy it more — treasure it, crave it even — when it was an option among many. Now, it feels like it isn’t really a choice. The choice for me now, too often, is between going on a trip by myself or not going at all. So, I just go by myself. But being alone, time & again, is painful. 

And last week, the pain was more intense than it had been in a while. 

Partly, because I was still processing and feeling the rejection/abandonment from Bert’s change of plan regarding our tentative trip to Utah together in October. That still stung sharply. 

Partly, because I still had fresh in mind the memories from my recent trips with my buddy Bert, in June & July, camping and climbing and hiking and generally “adventuring” together. I thought I had found an “adventure buddy” again, at last, and had reveled in the joy. But then, he changed his mind about the Utah trip, and things went back to “normal” for me, i.e., traveling by myself as the only option I have. So, I felt the loss keenly and missed his company. And the memories being so recent made the comparison, the loss, the lack, ever more intense and painful. 

But the pain was very intense also because of a more general sense of frustration and lack in my life. There’s the craving for an adventure buddy or travel companions, from the human, emotional viewpoint of sharing and connection. This big hole in my life. But there’s also the practical aspect of it being so much harder to do things by oneself. If I hadn’t been alone last week, I would have gone on the hikes to the alpine lakes, despite the presence of bears in the woods around the trails. I know that for sure. So, being unable to do something I really wanted to do, something that makes me feel happy and alive, something that actually is the reason I want to live, is extremely painful and frustrating. And it can get to the point of raising the question: “What’s the point of life if I cannot do these things I love, these things I crave? How much longer can I take this? How much longer can I keep trying (& keep being disappointed)?” 

The shooting stars helped, though. This was what I have come to call “my Perseids trip”. It used to be normal for us to watch shooting stars in mid-August when I was growing up in Europe. That was the time of summer vacation, when we were in the mountains or at the beach, so it was easy for us to just sit outside at night and watch for shooting stars, “la notte di San Lorenzo”. But then, we grew up, life got in the way, and the workaholic habits of the U.S., especially, got in the way. Until last year. 

Last year, I restarted this habit. For myself alone, though, now. I don’t have friends available to go out watching for shooting stars, taking a few days off to find a dark sky and star-gaze. But I’ve started doing it again anyway. 

We got a lot of rain at Lake Granby last week, and cloudy nights. But I was determined: I was there to look for shooting stars, so I’d try my best to see some. 

On my first night there (the night that I was later woken up by the bear at 3:31 AM), I woke up by myself to pee shortly after midnight. The sky was extremely clear (& I wasn’t worried about bears, yet), so I took my camping chair, wrapped myself up in warm layers, and sat gazing up at the sky, losing track of time, losing myself in the Milky Way above me. And then, after the first shooting star, losing myself in the thrill of seeing one more, one more, just one more… until I had seen a dozen of them and my neck ached and I started feeling sleepy, as even the sheer, childish joy gave way to tiredness. 

On the second night, I was exhausted. It had rained before dinner, so I had brought my sleeping bag & pad from the small tent to my car, partly also because my nervous system needed a break to get back to baseline after the bear encounter the previous night and the constant sense of threat from bears while hiking during the day. So, that night, I just let myself sleep and I slept in the next morning and took a rest day, going for walks along the lake and sitting to read in my car when, later that afternoon and evening, we got several hours of pouring rain. 

But, despite the afternoon storms, I set my alarm for 3 AM on the third night, in hope of seeing some more stars, especially given that was supposed to be the “Perseids peak night” between 12-13th August. At 3 AM, my alarm went off. I felt extremely sleepy and almost turned over to go back to sleep, but just at that moment a big, bright meteor streaked across the sky. “OK”, I thought to myself, “that’s the sign!” So, once again wrapping myself in warm layers, I got out of my car and craned my neck for shooting stars. The sky was pretty cloudy, though, and I was still shaken from the bear encounter, so I just stood close my car, for a short while, until I had seen half a dozen shooting stars, and then went back to sleep. Despite the tiredness and anxiety, though, the joy was still present, and still growing at every meteor I saw. 

As I stood there sky-gazing, I forgot about everything else — the ache in my neck, the pain in my soul, the cold, the fear of bears — everything vanished except for the excitement of maybe, maybe, maybe seeing another shooting star… One more, just one more, please please please… 

Wholeness in the pain

I feel it in the pit of the stomach. A knot, almost like a punch in the stomach. I can’t eat, even if I’m hungry, even if it’s time for a meal. I feel like I want, or need, to throw up. 

It’s rejection. It’s how my body somatizes rejection. 

“You’ll have to tell me where to go from here, I don’t know how to get to your place”, Bert says on our way back from the climbing crag. 

“No, you can drop me off at the parking lot where you picked me up. I’d rather walk back home again”, I reply, trying to hide the hurt in my voice. 

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind”, Bert insists. 

“I’m sure. I actually like that walk”, I reply to him — “and I really need it in this moment”, I add silently to myself. 

At the parking lot, I grab my stuff from his truck, double-checking that I haven’t left anything behind, tucking in the loose objects. Bert is standing there, a little awkwardly, probably ready for the usual “buddy hug” that guys give each other at the end of an outdoor climbing session together. But I’m the one who needs space now, actual physical distance, and my body language is probably making that clear, as Bert finally just says, “Nice leads today”. 

“Thanks, you too”, I reply automatically, and walk off in the direction of the creek path, barely holding myself together. 

Although the real break down didn’t come for me until a couple of hours alter, I’m pretty sure Bert could tell I was upset. But, after all, he’s one the one who caused this pain. 

Some of our texting, some constraints he had lately been putting on our plans for climbing/hanging out together, had recently given me the gut feeling that he was trying to put a distance between us after our closeness on the 5-day trip climbing & hiking together in July. Sure, work stress is real for him, I know that, but I knew instinctively there was something else going on, too. And when we met in person to climb outdoors again yesterday, I got confirmation of my instincts. Part of it was still intuitions based on his behavior towards me at the crag. But then, the actual confirmation came on our drive back, when I asked him if he was still planning to do his trip to Utah in October and if he’d still like me to join him — something that he, not I, had brought up and suggested on our trip in July. As I asked my question yesterday, I felt him tense up somehow, or get more awkward. “Yes… I haven’t finalized my plans, yet, and I can’t remember the dates, but I’m tentatively still thinking of going.” 

Something felt weird but I needed to clarify, both because I need to know emotionally if this friendship is worth investing in and also because I need to start asking for time off at work, if I intend to take vacation. So, I clarified: “No pressure if you’ve changed your mind since suggesting the Utah trip to me at Devils Tower. But when you’ve decided, please let me know either way because I need to know what to do about taking time off at work”. 

And that’s when the hammer hit, that hammer I had been expecting for a couple weeks: “Yeah, it could be nice to have a buddy on this trip with me, it would make it less sketchy than running the canyons by myself… But I haven’t gone on a trip by myself, yet, this year, so I think I’ll need to go to Utah by myself”.

So, not only is he backpedalling, retracting the invitation/suggestion he made to me less than three weeks ago. On top of that, he’s also putting it as if the only reason he’d let me join him on the trip anyway would be just for safety, implying that my company — I as a person, I specifically as his friend — could be interchangeable with just any other “buddy”? 

WOW. Talk about some rejection.

I did eventually break down yesterday. When I got home from the climbing and the painful interaction with Bert, I ran some urgent errands of my own, still holding myself together by will power and a strong sense of practicality, or duty. Then, once at home again, I ate some food, texted with my gay runner friend to share/vent, had a nice long shower, and finally prepared myself to allow myself to feel. 

I knew the emotions needed to come out. I knew the knot in the stomach would be partially alleviated by a cry out. I knew that rejection was hurting like hell and that pain needed to be given space, all the space it needed. So, I made up my bed comfortably, set my alarm for half an hour later when I’d need to start getting ready for my evening plans, and put the song “Inkpot gods” by The Amazing Devil on repeat, as I curled up with pillows and my triceratops cuddly under the sheet. That’s the song that helps me get my tears out — it somehow taps straight into that deep well of grief in my heart. 

And, indeed, the tears came. The sobs, shaking my body. 

I dived straight into that deep well of grief and let the pain wash over me. 

It was cathartic, albeit terribly painful, even physically achy. 

And then, I felt the layers peeling away, in an experience that was almost on a different plane of consciousness, as close as I have ever come again to the experiences I had with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy three years ago. I let go wholly. And there was an incredible wholeness in my pain. Not only was the hurt child there again, yearning and calling for their Dad. There was also a sense of profound strength. I felt like an ancient tree, or mountain, grounded, rooted deeply. And I felt it physically: I wasn’t imagining it “rationally” in my head; I felt it deep in my body, in my soul. Almost as if it were some kind of strength that was going through me, being channeled by me. So, I released all control, and just let myself feel. 

I’m not sure how long it lasted, it was probably very brief. But it was incredibly deep and intense. 

Then, the pain washed over me again, with some more cathartic tears. 

And then, finally, slumber — like an empty shell left on the shore from a receding storm.

I’m over cis-het men

I’m over cis-het men. Or maybe I should say, I’m done with cis-het men. 

That doesn’t mean I’ll avoid them or their friendship completely or indiscriminately, of course. And it doesn’t mean I’ll stop interacting with the two or three cis-het men who are currently showing up in my life as good friends. But it does mean that I won’t initiate any more deep friendships with them or invest in any close friendships with them anymore. 

Partly, it’s a rational decision. But partly, and most importantly, it’s a deep shift within me at an emotional level — one of those decisions that I feel within me as a “point of no return” in my life, when I know I’m just moving on to another phase because I’m ready to. 

This has been coming on for a while now, I know. I’ve felt and written about my frustration in relationships with cis-het men several times in the past couple years, especially in the past year. But I’ve come to a breaking point now — a “point of no return”. 

I’m not sure why this has happened now. Maybe because there’s been one disappointment too many. Maybe because I am discovering, first hand, the depth and beauty and comfort and ease that comes from close platonic friendships with other gay men (even if it’s just two of them for now and they’re not even nearby geographically). Maybe because I’m feeling more comfortable and confident than ever in my open, explicit identity as a queer man, ready and desirous to show myself in the world as an openly queer man (e.g. even in my way of dressing/presenting) rather than trying to “go stealth” or “look straight”. 

I will forever be cut off from real intimacy or closeness with cis-het men. Partly because, as an AFAB person, I was socialized differently so their physical bantering with each other (which is very homoerotic, even if they will never admit to it) feels uncomfortable to me (maybe to that “girl” that is still partly within me). And partly because, as an openly queer man, as “the gay guy in the group”, I am perceived as a “threat” to straight guys or, at least, as someone whose physical closeness makes them uncomfortable. 

When I lived in the world “as a girl/woman”, I had an interest in interacting with cis-het men, partly because of feeling a level of sexual interest in them and/or of being an object of their sexual attraction towards me, and partly because it was the only way in which I could, albeit implicitly, get some affirmation of my masculine gender identity, of being “a guy among other guys”. The latter aspect of gender validation was important for me also in these past four or five years as I came more explicitly into my nonbinary transmasculine self and out to the world as a (trans)man. Interactions and even close platonic friendships with cis-het guys served me, were pleasant and fun and rewarding for me in several ways for many years — be it for gender validation, for sexual fulfillment, or for fun times. And those aspects were often sufficient for me to put up with the frustrations that came in relationships with cis-het men — be it their lack of communication or of commitment or of expressing how they feel, or my incapacity to feel fully integrated in “guy groups”.

But now, none of those reasons are sufficient anymore to put up with the frustrations. As a “man” myself now, I am no longer a sexual object of interest to straight guys (regardless of whether I might like them or be available to them in that way or not). And as an openly queer man, I’ll always be somewhat of an outsider with/to them, if not a straight out threat. Either way, I lose. Either way, I don’t get my emotional or relational needs met with them. 

So, I’m done with them.

Marginalization

[Content warning: misgendering; disrespect/discrimination based on transgender identity]

“That’s marginalization. I think one of the things you should do is go to the Office of Equity at your institute because to me it sounds like, among other things, you’re being discriminated against on the base of being transgender”. 

It’s not my therapist or a friend telling me this. Nor is it another trans person or someone in the queer community. It’s an elderly cis-woman retired professor of Engineering who, after having worked in academia for half a century, is now serving, with empathy and impartiality, within OMBUDS at the institute where I work. 

Her words hit me like a hammer. Probably because she’s finally voiced what I’ve been feeling inside me for two months but not even admitting to myself. Because that’s part of what marginalization is: we get so used to micro-aggressions, so used to being disrespected for one or more of our identities, so used to “putting up with things” in order to not make other people — straight people, privileged people, people in power — uncomfortable, that we end up telling ourselves that we “imagined it”, that it’s “not that important”, that we “can or should let it go, at least for now”. I.e., gaslighting our own selves. 

And that gaslighting of our own selves is, partly, a survival mechanism. 

But once you see the truth, maybe thanks to an empathic ally like the engineer woman with me yesterday, you cannot unsee it. 

When I reached out to OMBUDS earlier this week and started my conversation with the retired Engineering professor yesterday, I brought up my main complaint, i.e., a “typical” move of “academic politics” that has been performed behind my back, or over my head, to my detriment, which is making me not only stressed and uncomfortable at work but is also putting my actual job at risk. I hadn’t told the woman engineer how my supervisor had misgendered me three times in less than two months, including once in an email to the whole institute after I had already corrected her about my pronouns when she had read the email draft to me before sending it out. Nor had I brought up the fact that I feel uncomfortable talking to my supervisor about one of the issues I’m having with the video recordings for my online course due to my transgender voice because I feel my supervisor would dismiss or discount my concern, so I am “protecting” myself a priori from that pain or humiliation. But even without mentioning these incidents — these blatant examples of disrespect and/or lack of equity around my gender identity — the OMBUDS woman still recognized the marginalization based on gender of which I’ve been a victim. 

A victim. 

I think that’s the hard part for me to accept here. I’ve gotten so used to going into “tough guy” or “badass” mode, especially at work and/or when gender issues are involved, that it’s hard for me to accept, come to terms with, the fact that I am a victim here, not only of shitty academic politics (that apply to anyone almost indiscriminately) but also of marginalization due to my gender identity as nonbinary transmasculine person. 

Part of me is still in shock. It feels wonderful to be seen and validated, but it’s also shocking to come to terms with being a victim of marginalization/discrimination. It’s painful. And scary. And infuriating.

In fact, the other part of me is furious. Furious. Full of such intense and powerful anger that it’s hard to contain. 

But I know this anger is my friend. If I harness it, if I use it properly, I can let it fuel me in my next steps. Which include, indeed, reporting my supervisor to the Office of Equity at the institute where I work. And possibly filing an official grievance with respect to the “shitty academic politics” that happened recently in my research group, instead of just “venting” to HR. And certainly, using most of my energy, moving forward, to find another job. Report all the mishandlings here, so there’s as much on file as possible, and get out of here ASAP. Because it’s not going to get any better. And truth be told, I am afraid of retaliation. Which, realistically, would probably hit me harder because of the ingrained biases against marginalized people — and, as the OMBUDS woman rightly pointed out yesterday, bias against transgender & gender-non-conforming persons is, in reality, the most insidious one in STEM because it’s not even talked about (or hardly). 

So, be extra gentle with myself as a victim, because being a victim of marginalization is real. And then use this anger as a friend to fuel & guide me through the next tough steps.

Adventure buddies — Life companions

The alarm clock wrenches me out of deep sleep. It’s 10 AM. In an hour, I have to get on Zoom for a work training. Back to the reality of the daily grind, I drag myself out of bed, my mind still full of the emotions from the past five days and my body still store from all the intense climbing. 

On Saturday morning, my buddy Bert came to pick me up and we drove to Wyoming, where that afternoon we hiked and scouted out the Devils Tower National Monument in preparation for our climb tentatively planned for the next day. Our first multi-pitch climb together, ever: high stakes (literally as well as figuratively) for our first climb together just the two of us with no other climbing partners. 

When we got up at 4 o’clock on Sunday morning, it was still dark and we could barely make out the darker shadow of the Devils Tower a few miles away from our campsite. It had drizzled around 3:30 that morning, making the last, precious minutes of my sleep even lighter. I think I must have got about three hours of sleep total that night but the excitement was high and kept me going. 

We signed the safety register for climbers at the parking lot of the Devils Tower at 4:50 on Sunday morning and by 5:45 AM, as planned, we were climbing the first of half a dozen pitches. It took us less than four hours to reach the summit, 867 feet higher up, where we spent over half an hour basking in the sunshine (before it got too hot) and the exhilaration of our feat — or, at least, the first part of it. Two hours later, after four rappels and two down-climbing/scrambling sections, we got back to where we had left our extra backpack with the stuff we didn’t need to carry up the wall. We were exhausted, sweating buckets in temperatures that by that point had reached the high 90’s (Fahrenheit), thirsty and hungry. But mostly, we were two of the happiest people on the planet: we had done it, and we’d done it together! (And we had survived!) 

This is what I live for. 

This is what Bert lives for, too. 

For these feats, for these moments of exhilaration, for the physical and mental challenges, for the risk involved, the danger even. 

There are two aspects of this trip with Bert — the five days & four nights we spent together climbing, camping, and hiking to scout out our climbs — that are important and special to me in ways that fill me with joy mixed with other intense emotions. 

First of all, there’s the fact that I’m actually doing this again. Finally, I’m in a mental (& physical) space where I am once again able to face and endure and enjoy these risky feats, these adventures, pushing myself to limits that were familiar and natural and desirable to me for most of my life but that had seemed beyond my capacity recently. During COVID, first, and then again after my father’s death, my tolerance for risk seemed to disappear or go down to levels that for me weren’t “OK”, that made me feel like I had “lost myself”, I could no longer recognize myself. And that was heartbreaking for me. Now, for the past few months, those parts of me, of my identity, have been coming back as if I had finally gotten over the worst of the grief and burnout that had somehow “turned me into someone else”, at least partially, for the past couple years. This rediscovery of myself, literally finding myself & deeply ingrained parts of me again, has felt wonderful. 

Then, there’s the fact of sharing these adventures (& emotions) with someone else. Part of my shutting down or slowing down had also been caused by the lack, or unavailability, of adventure buddies. And this lack has also been heartbreaking for me and compounded the grief that I had from my other personal sources. 

The result is that now, mixed with the deep and exhilarating joy from this recent trip with my buddy Bert, there’s also an intense craving and with that, of course, the fear of losing this. 

For my entire life, my strongest desire has been to go on adventures with an adventure buddy who’d also be my life companion. 

I had that with my Italian sailing buddy, a boy I met at the end of high school with whom I spent four blissful years of sailing together, exploring, sharing adventures and experiences, and even being sexual partners. To a limited extent, I had it again, on & off, with my Californian sailing buddy almost a decade ago. And now, I crave having it with my buddy Bert. But now, it’s so much more complicated because I am a trans guy. 

My friends tell me to protect my heart, to be patient, to not rush things, to not make assumptions, to be careful. And I know they’re saying this from a place of love & care for me, and I know they’re right. And I can see my “pattern” and “my type” repeating themselves with/in these three (cis) guys. But what is hard to explain — to my friends and to the world in general — is the depth of this craving for me. 

I am aro-ace. This is the way I experience “attraction”. I don’t feel “romantic emotions” or infatuation, I don’t care about “romance”, I don’t get crushes or fall in love. I never dreamt of getting married or having a “family” or even buying a house or “settling down” with someone. I don’t feel attracted to, or interested in, anyone when I go to parties or clubs or out dancing or meet people out in the world. I’m not attracted to physical beauty or “sexiness”. And even the desire for sex that I do eventually come to feel with these very particular, or special, adventure buddies has nothing to do with “romance” or “sexual attraction” but, rather, stems from a need to co-regulate and/or a desire to connect more deeply while also to just relieve a physical urge in a shared, consensual, safe, and fun context. 

What I crave — and, fortunately, was able to have with my two sailing buddies — is, on the one hand, to be seen & treated both as a boy and as a girl, and on the other hand, to bond or connect through shared adventures as shared experiences/goals (rather than “romance” or sharing a house or “building a family”). I want an adventure buddy who’ll also, at least to some extent, be a life companion. That can include sex, but not monogamy. It would involve regular, frequent trips and experiences together, but not living together in the same house/apartment. It would require or entail trust, love, commitment, respect, and honesty, but no romance. 

This is hard to find because it’s not only non-normative: it’s also beyond, or different from, what lots of queer people have or seek because of the adventure aspect. Not only am I seeking a non-normative type of intimacy (aro-ace, polyamorous, no marriage, no children, no cohabiting); I’m also wanting, or needing, it to involve risky adventures together. 

So, I’m seeking someone who’ll be both adventurous AND open to non-normative relationships — AND open to, or interested in or attracted to, a nonbinary trans guy like me. This is the kind of person, the type of relationship, I’ve craved my entire life: an “adventure buddy / life companion”. Something like a unicorn, maybe, and something that’s being awakened again by these recent experiences with Bert. 

Scared of my feelings

“Yeah, I was thinking, ‘I dealt her all six of the cards’…” 

The world seems to stop for a fraction of a second, then Bert continues, “I think I gave you all the cards…”

This was two weeks ago. And those sentences, including the pronoun her, were referred to me. 

Bert & I were on a camping trip together, our first trip ever together, just the two of us, supposedly as buddies. 

Bert & I have known each other for almost four years now, although we’ve gotten closer only over the past year, very gradually. We met through a common climbing buddy in the autumn of 2022, before my gender-affirming top-surgery and when my features were still less markedly masculine. Yet, despite meeting me at a time of my life when I still looked like an “androgynous girl” and knowing me only superficially, Bert has always been, in his quiet way, one of my strongest allies. So his use of that pronoun her referred to me threw me for a loop. It didn’t offend me. For a bit, partly, it hurt. But the biggest emotion I felt was surprise, and in some way confusion. The question that came up for me was, “Doesn’t Bert see me as a ‘buddy’ and this as a ‘buddy’s trip’ then?” 

In these nearly four years of our acquaintance, Bert & I have seen each other a handful of times. After that first time climbing together outdoors with our common friend in the autumn of 2022, we went climbing outdoors as a group of three a couple other times. After my top-surgery, I was invited to a Thanksgiving celebration at Bert’s, through our common climbing buddy, and I remember noticing that Bert & I were the only two people at that gathering who were single. Then, in January 2024, I invited Bert to the huge party I had to celebrate the first anniversary of my top-surgery, and I remember him having brought glitter that he put on his face and offered to whoever else wanted some — again, something that struck me as “different” from my other straight guy friends. After that party, there were a few other occasions when he & I climbed together but always with some common friends. Then, at the beginning of June 2025, I invited my closest climbing buddy with his wife and Bert with his then-girlfriend to join me & my oldest nonbinary transmasc friend to a Pride event, as allies. They all joined and the general atmosphere was festive and relaxed. Once again, though, it was Bert who struck me as he was wearing bright purple, shiny spandex shorts and Pride swag that made him look very queer/gay — or, at least, that I would not have expected to see on a “straight” man, no matter how much of an ally he is. I was pleasantly surprised, and probably that fact went and added itself to the bucket of aspects that made me consider Bert as “quirky” in a positive and refreshing way, especially compared to many other straight men. 

It wasn’t until this past autumn of 2025, though, that Bert & I started interacting more directly, independently of our common climbing buddy. Once again, I invited my closest climbing buddy with his wife and Bert with his then-girlfriend to my birthday party but of the four of them only Bert could join, so he came alone anyway. At that party, I reminded my friends how the upcoming holiday season would be hard for me and therefore to please include me, if possible, in any of the celebrations — and indeed, a couple weeks later, Bert invited me to join him & some of his close friends for Thanksgiving and then he invited me to join the same group of tight-knit people for New Year’s brunch. At the latter, Bert & I talked quite a bit — something rather unusual for his quiet nature. So then, when I needed a place to stay for a few nights in the city where he lives, about an hour away from my place, in February and March, I asked him for hospitality, which he gave me. His then-girlfriend, with whom he was still living at the time, was barely around, so he & I had time to ourselves and got to know each other better, in a way that felt easy and spontaneous, and I was several times pleasantly surprised, almost amazed, at the breadth & depth of his knowledge or understanding, and even sympathy, of trans issues. I could talk and be as authentically myself with him as I can only with my very closest friends — and yet, in some ways, the friendship between me & Bert was/is still very “new”. But I felt comfortable and safe with him, that I could be my true whole self, and I genuinely enjoyed his company, his intelligence, his gentleness. The thought that went through my head, reflecting these feelings, was simply “I really like Bert!”

This spring he broke up with his girlfriend and moved — and I, together with his other close friends, gave him practical help. He had shown up for me so often, especially in the past year, that it felt only natural for me to show up for him. This past spring, I had also suggested to him and our common, close climbing buddy a camping/climbing trip all together: the latter declined, saying that for the time being he can only do “local days at the crag”, given his wife’s pregnancy; Bert, though, replied positively, saying he’d be happy to, as of June or so, after he’d settled in from his recent move. So, I decided to try and pursue this friendship, thinking quite logically to myself: “Here’s a person whose company I enjoy, who shares many interests with me, who’s shown up when I needed it, and who’s now also single, which most of my other buddies are not. So there’s potential for a good friendship here”. And, indeed, two weeks ago Bert & I went on our first trip together, just the two of us. 

And it threw me for a loop. 

I hadn’t known what to expect. I was excited but also a little apprehensive, not knowing whether we’d really be compatible as traveling companions, having never spent more than a few hours in each other’s company. Now we were carpooling and spending two days & one night together, camping & doing some easy hiking. So we had plenty of time for personal interactions. And the ease I felt in those two days with him blew my mind. I hadn’t felt so relaxed, truly relaxed, my whole nervous system relaxing, and so happy in a profound but also simple way, in years. And his use of the pronoun her for me, that slip he made, didn’t spoil those feelings for me. Somehow, after the initial pang and surprise and confusion, it added to the sense of ease with him. Maybe it was precisely that slip on his part that opened up in me the desire to get physically close to him. 

I am not physically/sexually attracted to him, and I honestly don’t even consider him handsome (i.e. esthetically attractive as some of my other buddies might be). And yet, I guess my aro-ace self was (& is) drawn to this person because I feel safe with him and seen in my whole self by him. He knows I’m trans. He’s even seen me pre-top-surgery. He knows I’m gay/queer. He’s one of the few cis-men around whom I still feel comfortable wearing leggings (he sometimes also wears leggings, by the way). When I brought up to him, the next day, his use of the pronoun her for me, it was evident he felt awful about it and he was extremely apologetic, saying, “I don’t know what happened there”. But I assured him I wasn’t offended, just curious to know how he sees me, explaining to him how important friends like him are to me, those few people I still have in my life who’ve seen me throughout the various phases of my gender journey. His reply was: “I see you as a guy. But there are also aspects of you that I would call ‘feminine’, like the connection you have to your feelings and the openness with which you talk about your emotions, which are things that in our society we usually associate to ‘women’. I wish men would do more of that, too, but we’re not socialized to as much, unfortunately”. 

His answer totally made sense to me. It didn’t offend me at all, on the contrary, in many ways it was validating. I don’t care if Bert sees my “feminine” sides — on the contrary, it’s a relief to me that he does and that I can express them freely with him, in ways that I still feel uncomfortable doing with my more recent cis-guy friends (at least, with the straight ones). 

I don’t know how Bert feels with me or about our friendship. I don’t know whether he sees me “just as a buddy” with whom to go on an occasional weekend trip outdoors. But I know that the way I feel with him is the way I want to feel with a companion, a partner, an adventure buddy with whom I can imagine & would desire connections that go beyond platonic. 

And these feelings I have for Bert scare me. 

Lost my sense of purpose

In his impactful and moving memoir “Man’s search for meaning”, psychiatrist & Nazi concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl observed that those who survived were not the “physically fittest or strongest” but those who had a purpose, something to look forward to. He even credited his own survival to having the goal of completing a book, a purpose that was bigger than himself and above or beyond the daily horrors. To put it simply, he said that what keeps us going — i.e. what enables us to thrive in our daily life but also to survive horrors — is a sense of purpose. 

Yesterday evening, as I tried to weather the storm of the most recent stressful event in my life and shared my sense of burnout, fatigue, and anxiety with my buddy Ron, he said: “You know, one of the theories about burnout is that it’s actually due to a lack of purpose rather than too much to do”. Ron is very open with me about his own experiences of anxiety and depression, so we talk about these topics quite freely. And while his being a cis-het man building a very normative life makes it hard for him to understand some aspects of my pains and fears, I do think that in many ways his comment about burnout hit the nail on the head for me right now. 

I have lost my sense of purpose. 

At the end of high school and throughout college my goal was to get a degree in Physics, go sailing, and leave my parents’ home where I was so stifled and not allowed to be my authentic self.

Then, my goal became earning a PhD and becoming a scientist. 

So, I did: I got my B.S. in Physics while sailing competitively and enjoying life with my boyfriend-sailing-buddy; then, I got into grad school in a beautiful city that I loved, earned my PhD, and tried working as a scientist for several years.

Then, my longtime dream of moving to the U.S. became the next concrete goal, eventually becoming more specifically moving to California. 

This dream took a while to come true as I also tried to juggle a relationship, but I eventually broke free, moved to California and rebuilt my life there, coming more and more into my full authentic self. I went back to the world of Physics, started sailing very frequently again, and generally opened up to the world, exploring and doing lots of new things that had been on my wish-list for years or decades (motorcycle, triathlon, rock climbing, etc.). 

After the height of COVID, as life started “going back to normal” in 2021, I was hit with PTSD and a strong dissatisfaction, unhappiness even, with my life. My professional life felt unsustainable and my social life was almost non-existent, definitely not fulfilling my needs. Plus, my gender-journey had started gaining importance, really coming to the forefront of my thoughts and feelings. So, I moved to Colorado where, in the summers of 2019 & 2021, I had had a glimpse of dreams that might come true. 

Once in Colorado, I had some very strong, directed purposes: to rebuilding a career in academia and to live even more fully as myself, as a man and as an adventurer/climber. These were very concrete, specific goals, requiring many practical steps: paperwork; surgeries; doctors’ appointments; planning; job applications; dedicated, even strenuous yet fulfilling, full-time work; climbing courses; regular climbing buddies. 

In many ways my first three or four years here in Colorado were a transition phase: not in the (trans)gender sense of the word transition, but in a broader perspective, as I was transitioning, figuring things out, figuring myself out, between an old phase and a new one. It was like a youthful, exploratory phase, involving friendships with “buddies”, a lot of exploration in terms of geography/travels and activities, and limbo or precarious solutions when it came to my jobs and living situations. As I was still becoming my fuller self, everything was in flux: my job, my housing, my car, many of my relationships even. 

Now my gender-journey goals are fulfilled, i.e., my outside looks at this point align with my inner gender identity and I can live in the world as the queer man that I am. But the rest of my life feels purposeless. I feel I don’t have any goals now — or, rather, that the goals I had cannot be fulfilled and I haven’t found anything else to substitute them with. Emotionally, I have outgrown that youthful phase (including the “buddies” relationships) but I haven’t found solid ground, yet, from a practical viewpoint (job, housing, car I can trust, fulfilling social life). I still feel in a limbo but now this limbo feels uncomfortable, insufficient, not fun as it was a couple years ago. 

A couple years ago, I didn’t care about not having a stable living situation or a stable job: all I wanted to do was explore, climb, travel, hang out with my buddies, live the boyhood I hadn’t been allowed to live fully earlier in life. Now, while I still wish I could do more exploring and traveling and I wish I had adventure buddies or companions to share experience with, the weekend trips or a day at the crag or even a summer vacation are not fulfilling because then I have to come back to a daily reality that isn’t satisfying. 

I cannot continue escaping my unsatisfying daily reality by going on trips and adventures. These are only temporary solutions, placebos, band-aids. 

Time has come for me to sit down and figure out what I want to do with my life, as the grown man that I now am. 

The problem is, I have no idea what I want to do or where to start.

“The buddy days are over”?

I can hear the song “The dog days are over”  by Florence + The Machine playing in my head. And maybe, for me, “the buddy days are over”.

“[…] 

The buddy days are over

The buddy days are done

[…]

[…]

Run fast […]

[…]

Leave all your love and your longing behind

You can’t carry it with you if you want to survive

The buddy days are over

The buddy days are done

[…]

[…] 

“ 

Within the first six months from moving out to Colorado in Jan. 2022, I met and bonded with four cis-het men that quickly become trusted climbing buddies and close friends. Then, by the spring of 2023, I had also made two close friends as running buddies, also cis-het men. 

These six men were among the most important people in my life. The four climbing buddies I met when I had just started using “they” pronouns and presenting as non-binary, before my top-surgery and before starting GAHT. So they met me when I looked like a girl, when I was still in that caterpillar phase of trying to define myself while my outside looks didn’t align to my inner feelings. Despite probably “seeing a girl”, they totally treated me like a “bro”, like the boy I said I was. They were like brothers to me, incredible allies, helping me discover my masculinity along with my identity as a climber. The two running buddies, instead, I met shortly after my top-surgery, at the first race I was able to do after two months of recovery & no running. So they, too, met me in a very delicate and important phase of my life, in a limbo when I was still adjusting to my “new” body and the GAHT hadn’t had its full effect, yet, on my facial features & body-hair. They, too, were there for me as allies and “male havens”. 

For a couple years, I reveled in these close friendships, in the camaraderie, in the frequent runs or climbs or adventures with these guys.

Then, gradually, these friendships started shifting, or ending even. 

My Italian climbing buddy — who had been the first non-medical person to see my “new” chest, my boy’s chest after top-surgery, and to this day is still the only cis person to have seen the photo-shoot I did in Dec. 2022 to commemorate my breasts before chopping them off — moved back to Europe. 

My French climbing buddy — who had been the very first friend I made when I moved to Colorado in the winter of 2022 and was the buddy who took me to my top-surgery in Jan. 2023 — moved to California. 

The younger of my running buddies and I both moved away from the town where we were living when we met; the effect of that, combined with his increasing family duties and the differences in our running goals, is that now we see each other only two or three times a year instead of once a week. He was the buddy who supported & shadowed/paced me in a race where I protested for the rights of nonbinary & trans athletes, and the friend who took me to my salpingectomy. 

The older of my running buddies has basically stopped all communication with me since last Sept. 2025, for “mental health issues” of his own, according to his wife with whom I’m still in touch. He was partly a friend and partly a father figure for me. 

So, of those six men who had been so important in my life, with whom I had had such strong camaraderie and the experience of being “male buddies”, an experience I longed for so much, had craved for so much of my life, only two were left: E. & J. And with both of them I have recently had final friends-breakups. 

The loss of these six buddies over the past year or two has had different causes for each of them. Some of these losses have been more gradual or “organic”, due more to “life circumstances” than actual conflict or abandonment/rejection, whereas the recent friends-breakups with E. & J. were caused by actual breaches of trust. But regardless of the causes or modalities, all these losses are painful. Having deep, platonic male friendships that felt like brotherhoods — that male camaraderie, those adventure buddies — was something I had craved and sought out my entire life and found here in Colorado, at last. Or so it seemed. Those relationships were fundamental to my own coming into myself as a man, fundamental for my gender journey, key in finding or establishing myself as a climber & adventurer. Those friendships were fundamental for me in a delicate, key phase of my life. And those friendships are now over. 

“The buddy days are over”. 

I’m struggling with the end of that phase — or with having to acknowledge it, to face it. 

But face it I must: a phase of my life has ended. Whether it’s because they moved on with their straight, normative lives or they broke my trust or I grew out of needing a certain type of “male model”, the end result is the same: “the buddy days are over” for me. I don’t have any more friendships that are of that youthful yet profound male-buddy type. 

But maybe, instead of pining over the end of that phase (& the loss of those men from my life), I should embrace it, taking the cue from the song “The dog days are over”  by Florence + The Machine who encourage to embrace the sudden happiness. In my case it’s not sudden happiness but it is, nonetheless, the opportunity for a new beginning. After all, I have changed and grown a lot from 3-4 years ago when I met those guys and bonded with them…

Yes, six doors have closed for me, but for every door that closes, there might be another one that opens, somewhere else…? 

Washing off the grime

[Trigger warning: objectification/sexualization, unwanted sexual attention.]

Yesterday, I went for a swim in the small pool of our apartment complex, then took a shower, and finally took a bath at night. 

I feel terribly about it from the environmental viewpoint but I really needed it for my emotional health. I needed to wash off the grime that I felt from having been so carelessly, selfishly sexualized by my friend Jack. Or ex-friend, at this point. 

In our phone call yesterday afternoon to clarify where our friendship stands now, he did some blatant back-pedaling, a full 180-degree-turn on me. While admitting that his relationship with his girlfriend is “flawed” and that it’s “changing but he doesn’t know what the timelines are”, he said that she’s also being “supportive and compassionate with him” now with his business worries and struggles — once again forgetting all the times he complained to me about her lack of support, lack of compassion, her mean and manipulative behaviors towards him, etc. But he can lie about their relationship as much as we wants to, that’s his problem. What’s worse for me is that his backpedaling and 180-degree-shift were about me, too, about his feelings for me: i.e., he maintained that he’s able to see me “only platonically” with no effort or pain now. 

That’s a complete shift from the last time we talked four weeks ago. 

At the beginning of April, while being in a monogamous relationship with her (& not telling me about it until later) he was telling me in great detail about all his sexual fantasies involving me, with no encouragement from me. And now it’s all gone?!? 

I am disgusted. It makes my stomach revolt. Even if he truly had no more interest beyond platonic for me now, the way he came onto me in March & April, while being in a monogamous relationship with a woman, describing all the details about his sexual fantasies involving me and with no encouragement from me*, is awful. And it didn’t start then. It didn’t even start with his joining me in Chicago and asking me to have sex with him then. Now, in retrospect, I can see all his comments on my body, all his little gestures & touches from last spring & summer as the early symptoms of that objectification/sexualization of my body. 

I’m not prudish. While being aro-ace, I’m sex-positive and I know many climbers tend to be body-positive, making comments on each other’s physical aspect or athletic capacities. So, since Jack & I had started our friendship as climbing buddies, I took his repeated comments about, and looks at, my naked torso, or his light touch on my arms, as a brotherly camaraderie between male athletes & friends. I felt no attraction for him and I assumed that he, as a “straight” man, intended those comments and gestures in a platonic “bro-y” way. But they were always more frequent, more insistent than with any of my other climbing/running buddies. And now, those comments, those looks, those touches from him feel “dirty”, objectifying & sexualizing me without my permission. And without my knowledge even, at least at the beginning.

I trusted him. I trusted him to be a close platonic friend, a “brother”, as we called each other. 

I never talked to him about my sexuality, it wasn’t important — until he asked me about it, saying his girlfriend had asked him about my orientation. I shared with him openly about my “gay-leaning, high-libido asexuality”. I thought I was telling a brother, like any of my other straight climbing or running buddies. And maybe at the time I was… I’ll never know. But then something started shifting for him and instead of either keeping it to himself (for the sake of our friendship & of his monogamous relationship with a woman) or of sharing with me, openly, honestly, with vulnerability, his feelings and thoughts about being attracted to another man for the first time in his life, he treated me like a disposable sexual object. 

Because he couldn’t keep his sexual frustration (with his girlfriend) and his attraction for me under control, he treated my friendship, my trust, my feelings as collateral damage of his boner for me. 

I am not a sexual object and I will not be collateral damage for selfish, careless, and entitled behavior from someone who should have been a friend. Someone I thought I could trust. 

My body (as sexually attractive as it might be) and my sexuality are my own, they belong only to me. And this violation on his part, I know, is what is fueling my anger and disgust today, causing that need for washing off the grime in water yesterday.

*[NOTE: on the contrary, in a moment of great vulnerability & need of brotherly support on my part.]