My life isn’t all about being “queer.”  There are many facets to my life.  I’ve been partnered in a heterosexual marriage for almost 35 years now.  I was dating my husband’s male housemate when I was introduced to Dave in early 1971.  Shortly after meeting Dave, I stopped seeing Andrew, his housemate.  Andrew was  a man I had been dating for eight months, although all but about three-and-a-half of those months had been conducted behind my parents’ backs since they had forbidden me to see him.  (I was 15, Andrew was 23.  Hmmm, parents were worried and scared.  Wonder why??)

I have had an on-again/off-again relationship/friendship with Andrew for many years.  We’re not lovers.  We’ve had sex a time or two, the last time many years ago, but we’re not lovers.  He has romanticized and idealized me since the age of 23 as the “leading lady of his innermost being.”  Or something like that.  I (and my husband) have remained his friend, and I’ve tried in many ways to open his eyes to the woman that is me in real life and not in fantasy.  I’m afraid I haven’t had that much success.

I gave him the link to this blog and encouraged him to read some of it, to become acquainted with the details that currently comprise my life.  He finally screwed up his courage and read at least parts of it.  He actually submitted a three-paragraph comment yesterday on the entry “In Love….Or Not.”  I didn’t consider that three-paragraph comment appropriate for public viewing and deleted it, but I’m going to reprint the first paragraph of that comment here:

‘Well, I dragged my feet in getting around to reading this.  I felt some kind of anxiety about what I might  read.  There is a working dichotomy within me between really wanting to know you and clinging to my  romanticisms about you.  Finding out that I am not on your short list does wrench my gut .  Strange that I
should feel this response, though, the feelings I have are long and deep, but not so intense, now.  I think that age and decreasing testosterone levels have something to do with it, as you have written…”

I wondered how he would react to discovering at the age of 60 that he is not on my Short List, and now I know!

I spent two hours last night composing an email to him, and this is what I said:

Andrew,

It is such a telling remark you made: “…I dragged my feet in getting around to reading this. I felt some kind of anxiety about what I might read.  There is a working dichotomy within me between really wanting to know you and clinging to my romanticisms about you…”

I’ve always known this about you, yet this is the first time I’ve ever heard you say anything so honest, so truthful, about our relationship.  Ironically, the only thing I’ve ever wanted from you in my adult life is for you to know me as the woman who exists in reality, not the idealized, romanticized version you have of her.  Quite bluntly, having you love the romanticized, idealized image of me that you harbor in your mind means nothing to me.  Having you love the woman who exists in the day-to-day world, the woman who is three-dimensional in all her strengths, weaknesses, musings, foibles, needs, and wants, – good and bad – is what would mean something to me.   Knowing me the way my closest friends and my husband know me, and loving me and accepting me as they do for the myriad of mainstream and diverse qualities I bring to the world, is what would add substance to our relationship.  I’ve given you this chance on a number of occasions, and I continue to do so.

When I assigned a number to my occasions of being “in love” — and I always put this in quotes because I feel that every person’s definition of ”in love” is different and completely subjective — I vacilliated on this and came to several different answers before finally deciding on one.

It probably comes as the biggest surprise to me that ultimately I did not put my high school best friend, Jane, the woman I first made love to when I was 15, on that list, although she was on the first mental “draft” of that list.  Then I thought further about it and realized that what I felt for her was not really my definition of “in love.”  I loved her very much; I have no argument or hesitation with that.  She loved me as well.  We often spoke of our love for each other and said those words, “I love you,” to each other.  I loved her with the depth that I would feel for a dear sister or a life-long best friend, and the great sex between us added a certain dimension of interest and color to the relationship, but I was not “in love” with her.  It was a revelation to me when I decided not to put her on that Short List after the tremendous impact she has had on my life.

I didn’t put Larry on that list, even though he was a very heavy-duty “crush” during my freshman year in high school, and the bottom fell out of my stomach and I felt dizzy every time I saw him at the skating rink.  I fantasized about him.  I had his picture up in my locker at school.  I wrote his name all over my notebooks.  I wanted to be his girlfriend in the worst way!  Was I “in love?”  No!  I was an adolescent in the throes of a hormonally-driven lust, infatuated for some unknown reason with a guy I didn’t even really know and hadn’t even dated, in very much the same way as girls were swooning over Donny Osmond and Paul McCartney and Davey Jones of  The Monkees.  From my 52-year-old perspective, that  kind of infatuation is not the same as being “in love,” so Larry was dropped from the Short List.  Had you asked me when I was 14 if I was “in love” with Larry, I would have given the world a resounding “yes!”

Why did Frenchie make it onto the Short List?  I don’t really know, considering that ours was a relationship of two terribly mismatched individuals.  It never would have survived if it had ever gone as far as an engagement or a marriage.  (At least, I don’t think so, but who’s to say?)  But for some irrational reason, he stays on that list, maybe in memory of the depth of my feelings at the time…and maybe just in his memory.  He died in 2000 when he was 52-years-old.

What about Andrew?  Why did he ultimately not make it onto the Short List?

There is no question that something profound was going on during that summer I turned 15, and you were involved.  If I were to merely look at the feelings I had that summer of 1970 and ask myself if I was “in love,” the answer at that time would be yes.  From a 15-year-old’s perspective, I was “in love” with you that summer.

From an adult perspective as the 52-year-old woman I am now, what was going on that summer was a combination of extreme adolescent rebellion and an infatuation with a man I didn’t know very well at all.  The forbidden aspect of the relationship that my parents imparted to it added a whole complex array of intense emotion to what was going on.  It was a jumble of adolescent emotion and growth, both normal and dysfunctional, given what was going on in my nuclear family at the time. 

After we had been dating out in the open with parental consent for two or three months, I knew I wasn’t really “in love” when I couldn’t come right out and say it to you.  You wanted me to, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t say it and mean it.  It was then that I first started to realize the complexity of what all had gone on during the preceeding six months or so.  Something else was going on than a 15-year-old being “in love!”  That’s what the grown-up woman says.

Does this mean that we don’t have a caring, long-term relationship?  No, not at all.   The proof is in the 38 years we’ve known each other!  I love you as a devoted friend, as someone who will always be a part of my life!  I want to be there for you as a friend, as “family” who will be there and withstand the test of time.  I know that it doesn’t sound at all “romantic,” and it’s not, but it’s stable and steadfast and it will always be there for you.

So, you decide whether you want to know the real me after all these years or your romanticized version of me that you’ve held for so long.  I’ve probably given you all the “links” you’ll ever need if you want to know the real me.

In loving friendship,

Kinsey

I got up this morning to this in my Gmail account from Randi Sue whom I haven’t seen face-to-face since the evening of May 1.  (Keep in mind that I just met this woman on April 18!):

Dear Kinsey,

I feel like we are not finished.  Whether we are friends or lovers or something else needs to be discussed.  You are an important part of my life, if we never saw each other again (which I think is unlikely) you will still be my first.  I am glad you will never understand that sex can be both good and bad, but it was just good with you.

I really think that a person, at least this person, can truly love many people.  Why do I think this?  Because I am a parent of two children.  I do not love one child to the exclusion of the other.  The love of my youngest child does not diminish the love of my oldest child.

If you feel that I am not giving you the space you need let me know.  I know that I can be intense, but that is a strength as well as a weakness.  Do not fear that I will ever want to hurt you.

I am putting the ball in your court.  Let me know how you feel.

Seeking the truth in love,

Randi Sue

****************************

I promptly replied, half-asleep this morning:

Randi Sue:

If a relationship as lovers is going to develop in a way that I am comfortable with — and that’s an “if,” — it needs time to do that.  It doesn’t happen for me in a matter of hours or days.  I need to feel comfortable with lovemaking and outward displays of affection as much as you do, and I’m not there with it.  My needs are not driven by intense emotion right now.  They’re driven more by logic and grounding and how relationships fit into my current lifestyle.

If you want to be friends, I think that is good.  I think we enjoy each other’s company.  I don’t want to feel pressured in any way to be your lover.  I still actually think that your needs would be best fulfilled by a person who can give you her undivided devotion in a relationship rather than getting romantically involved with me who might see you once every other week.

So, that’s what I think in a very disjointed way this morning.  I’m not fully awake and need to get out the door to work.  I’m tired.

Take care,

Kinsey

******************

Dear Kinsey,

Thank you for getting back to me quickly, I do appreciate that.  I am sorry I wasn’t very clear in my last letter.  I agree with you that continuing as lovers is not what would be best for either of us.  I want to be able to develop our friendship while honoring the physical, emotional, and romantic connection that we have shared.  If sometime in the future the romantic and physical relationship develops I would not reject it, but I am not expecting it either.

I have felt like you have been trying to distance yourself from me.  I don’t want to be a pest.  I would like a friendship where either feels free to check in with the other, whenever.  I am not very elegant or articulate in my writing,  perhaps I am not in talking either, but I feel more comfortable in face to face conversation.  I think that my last letter titled “Unfinished”, was an attempt to reach out and say I would like to talk with you, “if” you want to talk with me.

I hope you had a good weekend.  Did you enjoy the Bi Brunch/Meeting?  Did you do anything else interesting?  I had a very full weekend, the MN Trans Health Fair on Friday and Saturday, and then Mothers Day with my mom.

Randi Sue

*******************

Randi Sue,

“I have felt like you have been trying to distance yourself from me.  I don’t want to be a pest.  I would like a friendship where either feels free to check in with the other, whenever.”

We’re free to “check in” with each other at any time!  As for myself, I’m not a telephone talker.  I hate the telephone.  Even when Dave is out-of-town, he seldom calls me on the phone just to “chat.”  That’s why I turn my cell phone on once a month.  I’m a writer and a journaler and an e-mailer, for the most part, and a face-to-face communicator when those occasions can be arranged.

I’d be happy to get together with you for an outing of some sort but not if the conversation is going to center on “where are we?  What’s going on between us?   Where is it going to go?”  Could we go out and just enjoy what we’re doing and let a relationship go where it’s destined to go in a healthy way for now?

The Bi Brunch was fun.  About a dozen people showed up.  The meeting was productive.  The food was good.  I had a fellow BOP member from Woodbury go with me.  I had met her at the one Chic Chat I went to.  Interestingly enough, she is also a novice beader and wants to learn more about that so I invited her over to my house Wednesday evening.  We’ll spread the beads out on the kitchen table, play around with them, and I’ll try to give her some tips on putting together some creations.  Should be fun.

We celebrated Dave’s birthday at Trevina Restaurant in South St. Paul Saturday evening.  It was a very enjoyable evening. 

I lost two pounds during the five days that Dave was gone last week.  After going out to eat Friday night, Saturday night, and having three servings of T’s enchilada casserole yesterday, I had put on a pound for the week!  This has got to stop!

Dave wants to go up to Duluth/Two Harbors this next weekend, leaving on Friday after work and coming back on Sunday.  If I can get the neighbors to cat-sit, we’ll go.  Maybe he’ll get his fishing pole in the water, if the weather is nice.

Take care,

Kinsey

*********************************

Watch out or you’ll end up in my novel!!

An excerpt from the 90-page manuscript from Behind Door #3, written when I was in my early 20s as a means of working through and gaining insight about my sexual orientation:

Wednesday, August 14, 1974     Evening

Dear Mom and Dad,

  The time has come for me to write this difficult letter.  I’ve put it off for much too long already, and there really isn’t much sense in waiting any longer.  I will say right off that the reason for writing you a letter about it instead of just talking with you is not to impersonalize it but simply to make sure that certain things get said.  Talking about it has given me more than its share of difficulty, so rather than face the prospect of mumbling through a few incoherent phrases in a panic, I decided that I would sit down in private and organize my thoughts.  It seems to be the best way to get this job done.

  To state a lengthy and complicated situation in its simplest terms, I’m gay.  I’ve had myself in one hell of a mess this past year, trying to come to grips with that.  I was in so much of a mess for most of that time that I couldn’t even admit to myself what I’ve been struggling with.  In fact, the admission has really only come about within the last six weeks or so.

    Not the struggle came on suddenly this past year.  No, the feelings have been there for years now, going way back into childhood, but  they were usually weak and undefined when they would occasionally surface, and in my panic that they may just mean something some day, I always managed to beat them back into the darkness.  I never let that 3:00 A.M. feeling in the pit of my stomach get the better of me!

   During this past year, however, those feelings abandoned the timidity of their youth and took on a startling new force.  Repressing them was no longer accomplished with a few Hail Marys!  They were demanding to be recognized, and I just wasn’t ready to do it!

   Suddenly I found myself in the predicament of devoting an enormous amount of energy into running from these feelings.  As you pointed out to me, Dad, in the middle of the night following one of my recent nightmares, this energy was coming from the energy I had available to do useful, productive things. The resulting drain quickly began to take its toll on my physical and emotional health, as we all witnessed.

   All of a sudden, I realized that I couldn’t go on like that anymore.  A new approach was very obviously in order!  I knew that the energy required to deal with this issue was going to be tremendous, but it could in no way compare to the longterm drain of running from it.  It was a slow, painful struggle, but I was finally able to admit my situation and take some steps to deal with it.

  With this new approach, I realized that I had some choices in front of me.  From my perspective, they are:

  (1) I could continue to be “nonpracticing.”  Call it celibacy or the priesthood or whatever you want.  It still boils down to a running game. The method of dealing with it is still a form of denial and self-rejection.  Its sole redeeming quality is that at least no one suspects what you’re not dealing with!  However, I need a special closeness in life with someone, and if I forbid myself to have a gay relationship, I am left with no other fulfilling option.  I decided that it was a quick way of finishing the job of driving myself crazy.

  (2) I could practice my sexuality in secret and therefore “protect” my loved ones from this aspect of my life.  At first glance, that option held a definite appeal by minimizing the risk of rejection and other conflicts.  However, I felt a vague, nagging uneasiness about this choice, and after thinking about it for awhile (and talking it over with a dear and trusted friend who has been there), I realized why.  The furtiveness and necessary deceptions, the inevitable guilt because of the deceptions, the fragmentation involved in maintaining such a complicated juggling act would produce a great deal of stress.  The prospect of developing a well-balanced life and a happy, satisfying relationship seems doomed from the start under such conditions.  I don’t care to set myself up for that failure.

  My third option is laying aside celibacy and secrets and being openly what I am: a man who finds deep joy and pleasure in loving another man.  In spite of the problems this choice is sure to bring, it’s the only option in this list that will truly allow me to get my act together and give a relationship a chance at success.

  That success is very important to me because “a relationship” is not merely a dream of mine anymore.  It’s very real and very alive right now, and  I have no intention of letting it die while still in the pangs of its birth.  I’m not going to stand by and watch while it disintegrates in front of my eyes because I was too scared to do anything else. It’s taken me a year-and-a-half of miserable indecision before deciding to give it this chance, but I’m firmly convinced that it deserves this chance, and it’s going to have it.  I’ve given my vote for what’s behind Door #3.

 Which is, of course, why I had to write this letter.  You’ve got to know the truth of my situation so that I can get on with the business of dealing with it in the way that I think is best for me.  If there were another way of accomplishing that without hurting you with this, I’d gladly take that route, but I frankly don’t see a good alternative.  For my own selfish reasons, you have to know the truth, in spite of the pain this truth may bring.

  As I write this, I feel horribly panic-stricken inside, fearing that I’m risking what is most important and treasured to me — my parents’ love — for……what?  I’m not even sure yet!  I hope and pray that I still have your love, for I desperately need it and would consider it my most valuable asset right now.  But I also realize that there are some things that some people just can’t understand or accept.  I will­ understand if you can’t.

 I love you both very much. You’ve been the most important people to ever become a part of my life.  When I called out for you in that Emergency Room five years ago, Dad, you dropped what you were doing and came to my rescue.  It changed my life, bringing me into the circle of a loving family and filling my heart with a hope that I never before knew.            

 Believe me, not a single day goes by that I don’t give thanks for that! 

                          Randy 

My husband and I have had quite a few open discussions about transgenderism (is that a word?) lately due to my recent relationships with two more trans individuals.  I’ve been thinking about why I have such a laid-back whatever attitude towards it when others struggle with this situation.

My first experience with a trans individual was with a woman who was in her late 30s at the time I met her, and I must have been about 22.  I didn’t know that she was a trans individual at the time I met her.  Perhaps she didn’t, either.  It wasn’t discussed.  I just knew that she was a “dyke,” a very nonfeminine lesbian, and she was very interested in having me as her lover.  I succumbed to her pursuits and had sex with her a couple of times.  On the second occasion, I actually got some of her clothes off and discovered that she was wearing men’s briefs underneath her jeans.  I didn’t comment on it.  In an intuitive way, I sort of understood what it was about and didn’t feel the need to mention it.

I drifted away from the church congregation that we were both members of, and I went for maybe a year without seeing her.  I coincidentally showed up at church again after a long absence on the day of her commitment ceremony to Kate which followed the regular service.  I knew nothing about this, nor did I realize all the changes that had taken place during that time I had been gone.  During the commitment ceremony, Tara was called “David.”  (No, I don’t use people’s real names in these posts.)  At the reception in the church basement, I offered my congratulations to the couple, and Tara told me that her name was now legally “David.”  S/he was on testosterone therapy and making the transition to living as a man.  I was glad for her/him (okay, the pronouns are hard when you’ve known a person as one sex and then he/she switches it on you at some point!) and said so.  It seemed like the way that “David” would be happiest, and I knew that.

It was during my relationship with Tara that I met Max.  I was sitting next to Tara during a church service and the minister asked for prayers for Max who was in the hospital.  I leaned over and asked Tara what Max was in the hospital for.  “A hysterectomy,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.  And nothing more needed to be said.  That one surprised me because I had only known Max as Max and never even had an inkling that Max had female sex organs.  He had already had his mastectomy before I met him.  I became good friends with Max and visited him in the hospital when he underwent his first surgical procedure to construct a semblance of a penis and saw firsthand what cosmetic procedures were being attempted.  I was a friend, and I was interested, and I accepted it for what it was.

There was a man named Kenny in our church congregation at this time as well.  On the first Sunday after New Year’s, Kenny showed up to direct the choir as Victoria.  He/she had made the public transition to start the new year.  Again, I took this all in and quietly acknowledged the situation, having to say that Victoria looked a hell of a lot more attractive as Victoria than she did as Kenny!

A lot of years went by — 17 to be exact — while I was abstinent from sexual relationships with women and absent from publically hanging out with the GLBT community in any organized way.  Then I started dating again.  I had a three-year relationship with Maura.  After we stopped seeing each other, the next person I dated was a MTF trans woman.  She said she felt very comfortable with me.  I learned a lot about “transition” from her: emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

I’ve known several other MTF trans women since then.  They said as well that they felt comfortable with me.  I was easy to talk to, easy to be with.

It’s just me being me.  I have had a natural, easygoing attitude about sex since I started to learn about it as a pubescent child.  I had a keen interest in sexual matters, not just from the usual childhood curiosity standpoint but from the medical and scientific standpoint as well.  I was born too late to be one of Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s associates, but I well could have been if I had been a peer in his era!  From finding the library copy of Dr. Kinsey’s Sexual Response in the Human Female in my room as a high school freshman to Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) on my nightstand as a sophomore and The Sensuous Man in my collection as a junior, I drove my parents nuts with my unabashed interest in human sexuality.  My somewhat explicit journaling while still in high school turned my mother completely gray-haired and ashen-faced!

Nothing much shocks me.  Nothing much surprises me in the realm of human sexuality.  I’ve always believed that we in Western society have done ourselves more harm than good by the puritanical attitudes we’ve maintained over the centuries about our own sexuality.  Yes, I believe in sexual ethics.  I believe that sexual behavior should be shared in a loving manner,  mindful of and responsible for the potential consequences of that behavior.  However, those ethics don’t develop in a healthy way in the midst of inhibited attitudes and shame.

As a teenager, I became acquainted with and embraced my bisexuality, learning early in my life that there are more shades of gray in our sexuality than clear lines of demarcation.  I know that I have many fluid, androgynous qualities.  I move comfortably between my male traits and my female traits, embracing them all as a part of me.  I don’t feel any discomfort about loving men and loving women.  Even my male alter ego can love a man as well as a woman!  It’s all just part of me and the full spectrum of feelings and desires that I’m able to experience.

Do I understand gender dysphoria, the feeling of being the other gender while carrying the chromosomes and primary sexual characteristics of the genetic sex?  No, I don’t.  I’ve never stood in those shoes.  I’ve got XX chromosomes and sex organs and have always felt comfortable with my identity as a woman.  I don’t know what causes gender dysphoria in some individuals.  I’d like to know more about it, but I’m not sure that science has the answer to that situation so I haven’t done any review of the literature on it.  I may at some point just to see what I can glean from it, but I’m anticipating that it’ll be a hodge-podge and mishmash of stuff, perhaps much of it contradictory and all of it inconclusive.

What I’ve done is accept.   I don’t understand and comprehend gender dysphoria in a personal sense.  I don’t think I really can from my perspective.  I accept that it exists.  I accept that gender reassignment is the solution for some people in this situation.  I accept that their basic needs are the same as everyone else’s. 

That’s what I understand.

I’m trying to develop a social network within the bisexual community here in the Twin Cities.  I’m trying to do my part towards supporting a sense of community for the bisexual population  within the GLBT community.  I believe in this cause.  It’s been sorely lacking in my own life, and I would imagine that many people who identify as bisexual feel the same sense of aloneness and isolation in their lives.

The only group I’ve connected with so far here in the Twin Cities that seems to have any merit in this regard is the Bisexual Organizing Project, and they have a grand total of 240 members, a handful of which participate in any social events!  That seems like a very low number considering the rather substantial bisexual population that must surely exist here in a large, liberal metropolitan area.  However, it is what it is.  (Organizing bisexuals is a lot like herding cats, a whole line of thinking reserved for another post!)

The monthly “bi brunch” is being held this Sunday at a member’s home northwest of Minneapolis, followed by the every-other-month board meeting.  I’ve vaciliated about attending.  I’ve been tending more towards going rather than not going since finding out through the Yahoo Group postings that Millie is otherwise occupied on Mother’s Day! 

I extended an offer to Anne to ride with me to the brunch and meeting on Sunday, aware that she currently does not have a car and relies mostly on public transit.  I’m not going to let that relationship of two “dates” duration deter me from getting involved with the group.  I have absolutely no ill feelings towards Anne.  I wanted to be her friend.

My husband has no ill feelings towards me being friends with Anne.  He stated that he had some trouble wrapping his head around my potential sexual involvement with trans women, and he further went on to later refine this discomfort to say that he has trouble with the concept of me getting sexually involved with pre-surgical trans women.  I understand this feeling, even though I don’t share his same level of discomfort.  I respect his feelings, especially since they were stated in a very appropriate personal ownership of these feelings without any demands, ultimatums, slams or insults in any way associated with his sharing of these feelings.

We’ve talked quite a lot about this whole situation in recent days, and I’m impressed with the level of honesty, open communication, and non-defensive sharing that has gone on.  I’ve acknowledged his feelings.  He’s acknowledged mine, and we’re learning from each other.  Saturday night, I did draw my line in the sand, which was this: “I understand your feelings about my potential sexual relationships with trans women, particularly pre-surgical trans women, but I expect that they’ll always be welcomed warmly as friends in our home and treated no differently than anyone else in that regard.” 

He was firm in his agreement of that position.  “Absolutely!” he stated.  “Of course!” 

Of course, I never expected that there would be any problem with that aspect of my relationships.  He’s a good man, not a bigot, not a “red neck,” not narrow-minded and rigid in his beliefs.  He’s trying to wrap his head around a complex set of issues, a set of issues that his own personal experiences have not covered in his life, and I respect him for the effort he puts into expanding his insights.

Anne, however, appeared to reject my offer of friendship.  The feeling I got was that if she can’t have me as a lover, then she doesn’t want my company.

So be it.  You can’t have everyone as your lover.  Some people are platonic friends, and that is well and good.

The Bisexual Organizing Project with its 240 members appears to be its own little ”Peyton Place,” with members having romantic and sexual partnerships with each other.  That seems to be a complicating factor in its dynamics.  Probably even interferes with its smooth operation at times, depending on who is sleeping with whom and who isn’t anymore, etc.!  I really would like to keep those complications to a minimum if I’m going to get more involved with this group!

Anne turned me down for the ride to the Brunch and Board Meeting on Sunday.  I told her to let me know if she changes her mind, that her contribution and input to the group is welcomed and appreciated.

I want to support this community, not do things to cause conflict and ill will.  Let’s pray I succeed. 

Randi Sue was over to our house this past Thursday evening and met Dave.  We then went out to a local family restaurant and had a bite to eat, just the two of us.  I wanted to tell her about my feelings regarding our relationship, that my feelings in no way matched the intensity of her feelings, given the less than two weeks we had known each other, and that I was deeply concerned that her intensity and impulsivity was going to steer her down a path best not taken with me.  I am never going to be her “one-and-only,” and I don’t want to deter her from seeking that in a partner.  The truth is that I’m not focused on finding a “steady girlfriend” right now and being her exclusive partner.  I need a social support system in the bisexual community, not a lot of romantic entanglements to potentially hamper that process.  (As it is, I didn’t go to the monthly Bisexual Organizing Project’s girls-night Chic Chat last night because I was concerned I’d end up in an awkward situation with either Anne, Millie, or both!)   

I couldn’t say all those painfully truthful things, though.  She is so emotionally needy that I just couldn’t get the blunt words out.  I told her that I’m concerned about the “in love” aspect of her feelings and overwhelmed by it, but I couldn’t go into hard, cold honesty that it’s freaking me out and I don’t want to be in that situation with her.  It’s an imbalanced dynamic between the two of us, and that’s not good for either one of us.

Friday morning, I took about 60% of the middle section of that previous post titled “In Love…or Not” and posted it to my journal on the dating site through which we met.  She looks at my profile a couple of times a day.  Why, I don’t know, but she does, and I knew that she’d see the condensed version of my WordPress post there.  Later that day, I got the following email from her:

On 5/2/08, Randi Sue wrote:

 Dear Kinsey,

    I am not sorry that I shared my feelings with you.  I am sorry that we don’t share those feelings, but whatever will be will be.  I am an intensely emotional being.  I need to learn to protect myself from being hurt and still love freely.  I hope I can find a balance.

    I wish we had more time to talk yesterday.  I am glad I can talk with you.

    I would like to continue our friendship.  I like talking to you,  I care about you.  I don’t think that I can have a sexual relationship without being in love. I need and deserve love in my life.

Always,
Randi

And I responded with:

From: Kinsey
Date: May 2, 2008 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: Love
To: Randi

Yes, Randi, you need and deserve love, as much of it as you can get.  And if you need to be in love to have a sexual relationship, then that is what you should do.  That is why I’m pulling back from having that sexual relationship with you.  I don’t share that same level of intensity right now and may never.  I haven’t had enough time to tell if that’s where it could lead, given my own personal emotional composition and needs in life.

You need to find the person(s) who can feel as deeply as you do and who are free to get as involved as deeply as you would like to.  It needs to be a reciprocal relationship in order to give you the satisfaction, pleasure and fulfillment you need.  You deserve that, and I’d love to see you find it!

I would like for us to be friends, too.  I enjoy talking with you and doing things with you.  I care about you, too, and want what’s best in the long run.

Take care,

Kinsey

I think the romantic, sexual relationship with her is over now, and frankly, I’m relieved.  I felt way in over my head on this one, and that’s not a comfortable feeling at all!

And my husband once more reminded me to keep my pants on until it’s a little clearer what and who I’m getting involved with.  He said with a smirk that some tendencies just seem to be hardwired into my chromosomes, but I really should try to practice some restraint before getting into these sexual situations too early in a relationship!

 I agreed with him. 

 Enough said.

Yesterday evening, as we were relaxing after just finishing our evening meal, Dave said to me, “I read  your WordPress blog this afternoon.”

“You read the latest entry I wrote this afternoon?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” he confirmed.

I had not as yet given him the details of what all has happened this week between Randi Sue and me.  In part, I’ve been a bit embarrassed that I have found myself in this situation again.  It happens from time to time, and as I said in a previous blog, my vow was not to rush into sexual relationships with people, which I have had a tendency to do.   Dave was given instructions to remind me of that if I ever called home on a first or second date again and said that I wasn’t coming home that night (barring being too drunk to drive — also not a good thing!)

Well, he wasn’t around to remind me of that last Wednesday evening nor last Friday night.  Not that withholding a sexual encounter would necessarily keep a person from “falling in love” with me.  That can happen in the absence of sex, as I well know from my own experience.

Nonetheless, I hadn’t rushed into telling him every detail of this past week with Randi Sue.  He knew enough by the time he had finished reading my previous post.  As (almost) always, he was understanding, sympathetic, supportive, and we had a good talk last night.  I unburdened my soul to him, a process that always makes me feel better and less alone.

We talked quite a bit about this phenomenon known as “being in love,” and I told him who was on my Short List.  Him, of course.  (He was relieved to hear that!)  I did recall aloud last night that we had only known each other about six weeks and had been dating for a month when those three little words were mutually spoken to each other 37 years ago.  Not a lengthy period of time to know each other before saying, “I love you!”  However, when I said those words to him for the first time, there was no hesitancy about saying those words.  I meant it from the bottom of my heart.  I knew them to be true and right.  There was never any question about it, no second thoughts.  There never has been with him.

I don’t fall in love easily.  I’m pretty reserved about that emotion, if one actually does have control over that emotion.  I’ve been in love six times for sure.  Four of those times were with men: my boyfriend from my teens, Henry, then Dave, and two Johns.  John #1 was the brother of a good friend of mine in high school, and he and I began a relationship while I was around their house a lot during the six months I was involved in the engagement festivities of his older sister.  I was one of her bridesmaids in her 1974 wedding.  Maggie got married and moved off to Columbus, Ohio, and her brother, a young man who was then struggling with his gay sexual orientation, and I continued our relationship.  That relationship went on for another three years, although it was by and large an intellectual and long-distance relationship.  I haven’t seen him since 1977, but I still think about him and hope all is well.

John #2 was a Family Practice physician I worked with in 1977.  We kept in touch after I left that clinic’s employ.  He was a married man 11 years older than me with four kids.  On the night we made love for the first time, I was 24 and he was 35.  I was in love with him until the summer of 1985, even though I only saw him less than a handful of times during those years.  I went from loving him intensely and deeply to feeling literally nothing for the man when I found out what all came out as his divorce proceedings at that time: he had been physically abusing his wife.  There were times when his wife would end up at the E.R. after John had dragged her around by her hair and blackened her eye.  Stuff like that.  I felt sick, and that was that.  It was over, and I shuddered to think that I wasted my love on the man, that I was ever alone with him.

Then there were two outwardly platonic friendships with high school friends that never played out in any sexual and/or romantic sense, but I was in love with both of those young women: Lorrie, a neighbor girl, whom I had known since she was 11 years old and stayed in touch with until she was 25, and then Marie, a high school classmate of mine.  (Marie died when she was 40-years-old of some kind of cancer.  I was heartbroken when I read that obituary in 1995.)  I loved those two women, but it was unrequited love.

Yes, there have been some relationships other than those which qualified for “in love” status that have caused their share of emotional pleasure and pain, and have been deep and meaningful relationships in their own right.  I’ve loved individuals without feeling that intense emotion I associate as “being in love.” 

I took note of the fact that all of these “in love” relationship began much earlier in my life, in my teens and early 20s.  Does age and/or hormone levels affect this phenomenon?  I would speculate that it does.  It is a powerful drive to pair off with a mate and want to express that desire sexually.  I think that age, experience, multiple time and energy commitments such as career and family, and decreasing hormone levels makes the “in love” phenomenon less common in older individuals — older individuals such as myself!

And this led to a discussion last night about whether trans individuals who have just recently made the full transition to living physically as the gender they self-identify as being are more susceptible to this “in love” phenomenon due to the newness of their lives, the novelty, the inexperience, and the effect of recently-initiated levels of sex hormones on the brain and other organs.  I’ve had two experiences lately of middle-aged (late 40s to late 50s) trans women being “in love” on the basis of a first date and another such experience that occurred 18 months ago!

I don’t know if there will ever be more people to add to my Short List of individuals whom I have been in love with.  That may or may not happen.  We’ll see.

My horoscope for today, courtesy of Holiday Mathis in the Twin Cities Star Tribune newspaper, reads: “Getting back to basics is a personal process, since what is ‘basic’ to you is not even in the realm for someone else.  Get what you need without wondering why you need it or telling yourself that you shouldn’t need it.”

Interesting advice.  Of course, these horoscope snippets found here and there are always subject to one’s own interpretation in light of whatever may be going on in one’s life at the moment.

I’m in a “patch” again, brought about by a evening a week ago Friday that ended by feeling an emotional connection with a person.  We impulsively kissed at the end of Friday evening.  Necked, even.  Wednesday evening, it went further than that at her house.  Friday evening at my house, she announced that she thought she was falling in love.  She emailed that she loves me on Sunday.  She’s intent on being my “girlfriend.”

She said that she hoped I wasn’t scared by this.  Well, yes, honestly, I am freaked.  I don’t fall in love in a week’s time.  I haven’t done that kind of thing since my teens and early 20s.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling of “being in love.”  (I’ll grandfather my husband in on this emotion, however, since I felt that “in love” feeling very strongly towards him in the earlier months and years of our relationship, and it slowly developed into a deeper, more enduring kind of lifelong love and partnership.)

I need a relationship to develop more slowly, learning about each other along the way to know if a deeper, more enduring relationship is a feasibility given all the other circumstances in my life (i.e. married and bisexual, full time job, lots of demands for my time and attention.)  This “in love” process in the matter of a week is something I just can’t relate to.  Yes, I’m pragmatic and logical, not impulsive and emotional.  Usually.  I must confess that I didn’t behave like my usual pragmatic and logical self a week ago Friday evening, and that confession doesn’t really feel good now.

Does that make me wrong for wanting a relationship to proceed at a slower, more conservative pace?  Does it make me wrong for feeling skeptical, hesitant and concerned about the future of a relationship based on such an impulsive beginning?  Does it make me less of a feeling, caring person for needing my space, needing to grow in trust and sharing rather than jumping into it with both feet (and an arm and a leg?) 

I don’t think so, but I feel like the “bad guy” here for wanting to back off from my “girlfriend’s” level of intensity and involvement.  Frankly, I just don’t know what to do with it right now!

She is an unattached woman right now, not in any other romantic relationships, and on the rebound from recently splitting with her spouse.  I find it hard to imagine that her intense emotional involvement with a woman who is clear about her marriage being her primary relationship is fated to be a positive experience long term.  I see her wanting a one-on-one relationship with someone she can come home to every evening, someone to share her bed every night, someone who puts her first above all others — like my husband is to me.  I won’t be that person to her, and I will disappoint her, sadden her, and it will end.  This is the pragmatic, logical side of me speaking, but why go there? 

Yes, why go there?

I’m just not sure what to do with this.

In my previous post, Transcending Trans, I published a letter that I sent six days ago to not one but two trans women in my life.

Anne (not her real name) was the woman who had contacted me via a dating site, and I wrote about that contact and meeting in the post, Caffeine Hangover.  Even before we met that first evening to go to the Bisexual Organizing Project’s women’s-only evening at Wilde Roast Cafe called Chic Chat, she had sent me a brief email that said, “This makes me really glad that you are willing to go to Chic Chat with me.  Don’t give up on BOP just because of Millie.  You know, the irony of our situation has not escaped me.  You and I first met on a dating service when you had given up on dating services, and I was the one who made that original posting for the BECAUSE conference you found.  And yes, when Lynn was talking about who had helped make the conference possible, my name was in the list.  Please, take it as a sign that I was fated to be here for you…”

I responded to that email by saying that I had taken it as a sign, and I had.  Fate had given me a second chance to get involved in the bisexual community here in the Twin Cities.  Fate had snagged me by the back of the jacket as I was running from Millie again and all those attendant emotions and said, “Hey, come back here!  Here is a supportive friend who is willing to go with you and introduce you to some people.  Go!”  I had not gone down the path, though, of thinking that this woman was slated to be a romantic partner because of the means of our introduction and some common events in our background.  I approached it from the standpoint of making a friend and building some connections, an important thing in and of itself.

She said nothing in her profile on the dating site that suggested her status as a trans woman, and that’s okay.  However, my experience with that situation in the past was that individuals have been upfront about these circumstances, even if it’s in a rather oblique, subtle way at first, not wanting to surprise or discomfit their dates in any way.   It just puts that set of circumstances out there right away and prevents any misunderstanding or embarrassment later should this be an unsettling situation for the date.  I figured it out on my own in three seconds when I picked her up at her house that Saturday evening, visually took in her stature and bone structure and the male timbre of her voice.  I knew what her basic circumstances were without knowing any of the specific details.

We had a pleasant-enough evening going to Chic Chat that Saturday, but I was relieved that it wasn’t a one-on-one date.  She was difficult to engage socially.  She had split with her spouse of close to thirty years within recent months and was seriously depressed.  It was readily apparent that there were many stressors in her life, and she was just hanging on day to day emotionally.  And then there was her status in an “extended, polyamorous family,” a situation I approach with a great deal of reservation as a potential participant until I know the details of that configuration.   My conclusion by the end of that evening due to multiple factors in her life was that this was a person I had no interest in getting romantically involved with.  I was interested in being her friend.

However, that Saturday night, I had no sooner dropped her off at her house and returned home when I had an email waiting for me that said what a nice evening she had had and she wondered if she should have kissed me goodnight or invited me in.  I replied, no, I was in no hurry to take things in that direction.  I was interested in developing a friendship.

In that spirit, and knowing that she was depressed, bereft, and struggling, I had suggested during that evening that we make some plans to go out for an Indian meal, something I knew she’d enjoy.   We went out for this meal at Taste of India, a restaurant that I love to visit for its wonderful cuisine.  We had a nice evening.  We talked about many things over supper: her life, my life, all kinds of things.  She actually seemed more at ease with me on that one-on-one level, and after a two-hour dinner, I left feeling the bonds of a friendship.  I also found out that evening that she was in the process of putting together the details for her surgical transition that had yet to happen, and I wanted to be there as a source of support and friendship as she entered that phase of her life.  We shared a quick goodnight peck on the lips in the car when I dropped her off.

The next morning, I had both a brief email, thanking me for a wonderful evening and stating that she wanted to see me again soon, and a link to a web page depicting a medevial, romantic scene.  The verse on the card was:  

Can you imagine my surprise
When I looked into your eyes
Because after all
It was just a meeting of the lips,
Not so very much at all.
A soft caress, a fleeting touch,
Just a whisper of a kiss.
But it set my blood afire,
Singed my soul with desire.

She added the message, “What is in a first kiss? Hope and longing for what may come.”

Okay, well, I knew we were on two different paths with this thing at that point and I was mildly freaked, although I am generally such a calm, together person that I don’t display too much outward emotional demonstration when I am only “mildly freaked!”  I spent a lot of time that Sunday talking to my spouse at various times throughout the day about my recent social developments.

There were even some musings during that day with him as to what it would be like to be married to a person for many years, then to find out somewhere down the road that the partner is transgendered and wants to transition to living as the other sex, complete with the surgical reassignment.  That’s a nearly impossible situation for a straight spouse to adjust to.  I went on to say, however, that I, as a bisexual woman with a fully-developed sexual appreciation for both sexes, could probably make that adjustment, given that the relationship had many other redeeming qualities.  I could emotionally and sexually transition along with the partner, and even continue with a sexual relationship while my partner was in various stages of the transition, including living outwardly as a woman while still having the genitalia of a man.

I think at this point, my husband was mildly freaked.  He didn’t say anything during the course of the day, but that Sunday night, under the influence of a bottle of wine, he said what he did, that he was uncomfortable with my relationships with trans women.  As I mentioned in the letter I wrote to Anne, he didn’t elaborate further, and I didn’t press that night, just kind of quietly digesting that disconcerting bit of sharing and wondering what to do with it from there.

Anne’s response was, “I understand, Kinsey.  You have your primary relationship to worry about.  I hope you and Dave are able to work through any issues you have.  I have to confess that I cried a little, but I expect I will heal.  I only wish that what I am didn’t keep having to be an obstacle to people.  I want nothing but the best for you.  I will miss you.”

So, no consideration of my offer of friendship there.  I get the impression that she wanted a romantic relationship with me or nothing at all.  I’m undecided as to whether I should try to clarify the situation with her and again extend that friendship or write this one off as two people who are clearly on different pages.  (Any thoughts, Readers?) 

Dave read the letters I had sent to both Anne and Randi Sue, and he read Anne’s response.  He initiated a conversation about this on Tuesday morning this week and clarified that he did not mean his statement about his discomfort with my relationships with trans women as an across-the-board, blanket statement.  He said that he meant it with regard to the situation of me having a sexual relationship with a pre-op trans woman, that he was having trouble getting his head around that.   He didn’t mean it in a general way that he was uncomfortable with my transgendered friends or even that he would be necessarily uncomfortable with a sexual relationship between me and a trans woman who had been through the surgical reassignment.  He just couldn’t wrap his head around the situation of me being sexually involved with a person who physically was still in an incomplete state of transition.

“That wasn’t specifically what you said Sunday night!” I pointed out.

“No, that wasn’t what I said,” he countered.  “Consider the state I was in by the time I said what I said!”

Over the course of the next day or so, I thought about who my husband is a person, what has gone into shaping him into who he is.  He is a soon-to-be 58-year-old man who was born and raised in a town in northern Minnesota.  Although it is an ethnically-diverse region, those cultures are of the European variety, and he did not grow up with any contact with racial diversity.  He didn’t know his first African American person until he moved to Ohio when he was 20-years-old.  He did not have any contact with sexual orientation diversity as a child or young man.  Sex wasn’t even something that was talked about in his conservative and inhibited household.  He may have had some acquaintance with a couple of gay men during his college days on the Iron Range, particularly during his involvement with the Theatre Arts folks at the community college (yes, I’m being stereotypical here, but there is some truth in the stereotypes, I’ve observed!), but nothing on a personal basis.  I’m sure that I’m the first woman he had ever known who loves being sexually with women, and lo and behold, he found himself engaged to her!

Having a bisexual woman as his best friend, lover, and wife since his early 20s has been a culturally “enlightening” experience for the heterosexual guy from northern Minnesota!  He has been a very open and accepting individual to the range of orientation and gender diversity that I’ve introduced him to as part of my own orientation and involvement with the LGBT community.  He has embraced his expanded horizons and has been a loving partner to me and a welcoming individual to my friends and lovers over the years.

He ran up against a “sticking point” last weekend with the idea of me getting sexually involved with a pre-surgical trans woman.  He even said that it was his problem, a potential growth experience for him, and at no time did he deliver any ultimatums or demands regarding my behavior.  I chose to respect those feelings, even in their rather incomplete description initially, and shared with my trans acquaintances what was going on here.

I publically give the man a hell of a lot of credit for all that he is and all the acceptance, kindness, and openness he has given to me and to my many LGBT friends over the years.  He is a remarkable man, still growing, still learning, and I love and appreciate him for it.  He has grown in many ways that so many people wouldn’t even consider!

Anne has apparently written me off as a friend, and I’m sorry for that.  I’m also sorry for any pain my husband’s words of that Sunday night caused her.  I can appreciate her feelings in the matter.,

Randi Sue (not her real name), on the other hand, a woman I met face-to-face for the first time nine days ago, said that she’d rather have me as a friend than not at all, a response that seemed a bit more appropriate to the circumstances.

To be continued…..