Sad Bitch Hour: What’s the opposite of a social butterfly?

August

I follow Luna up an array of escalators to a chic diner on the sixth floor of the train station. Through its glass facade, I can see walls painted in neutral hues, booths paired with cold steel tables, and exposed-bulb lighting dangling from the ceiling. Large windows bathe everything in warm sunlight. Trendy. She has good taste.

We’ve come during the lunch rush, but fortune has smiled upon us today as we’re ushered into the last empty booth. Luna slides into the far side and I slide in across from her. She looks good. Rings adorn her fingers and the bouncy black curls that hover above her eyes match her all-black attire. I do not look good, however. I’m dressed in white baggy pants and a T-shirt. There couldn’t be a starker contrast between us.

I had laser done on my face a couple of days ago, resulting in my face becoming dark and bumpy, and leaving me feeling ugly and dysphoric. Today’s amorphous outfit is the uniform I’ve settled into this week, hoping to cover up as much of myself as I possibly can in an effort to not be seen as a man or a woman or really even a person. This is rather embarrassing in front of Luna, though.

I reach for a menu, even though I already know exactly what I’m going to order. I always research restaurants ahead of time: what’s on the menu, how to order, how to pay, and so on. This way, there are no surprises, which is good because surprises are bad. They lead to stress and stress leads to overwhelm and overwhelm leads to me acting in strange ways that people don’t seem to like.

I hope to impress Luna, and to do that I think I need to appear somewhat normal. A tall order, but I’m willing to give it a shot. I pretend to peruse the menu thoughtfully. It seems like the right thing to do.

Today is our first time meeting in person. We had talked a little online, but only a little, mostly about topics unrelated to ourselves. I wasn’t sure what to expect after she messaged me out of the blue inviting me for lunch, but as soon I sat down in her passenger seat this morning and saw her face for the first time, I realized I had made a severe miscalculation.

The possibility that she could be pretty never crossed my mind. Not that trans women can’t be pretty, plenty are, but in all my scripting of our impending encounter I never prepared for what to do if she were pretty. And she’s not just a little pretty, she’s really pretty. I can’t take my eyes off her. This is a surprise, and we were supposed to have of none of those today, and now I’m doing strange things like pretending to study a menu that I have burned into memory.

After a little while, Luna asks if I’m ready to order and I say yes. I order a Neapolitan spaghetti¹ and she orders some veggie thing. An awkward silence follows, which means that I must be bombing this social interaction because a long time ago I got it in my head that I am destined to carry the entire weight of any conversation I’m ever a part of. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s always me.

I need to say something, so I ask about her hobbies—oh, you play guitar?—but I barely hear her answer because I’m preoccupied with making appropriate eye-contact. If I look at her then I become completely dumbstruck by her beauty, but if I don’t make eye contact then she will think I hate her. I must thread the needle. Enough eye-contact to seem interested, but not too much that it gets weird.

My efforts are a miserable failure. She’s so easy to look at, too easy, so I settle for a middle-ground: I’ll just look at her hands. This way, I can look at her without looking at her. Brilliant! They don’t call me Sage for nothing.

The good news is I’m not totally inept at conversation. I’m pretty great at the part where the other person talks and I listen. It’s easy! I just keep asking questions and it seems like I’m a good conversationalist. If the person likes to yap, we get along swell.

But god forbid they ask me a question. How dare they! I give weird, ramble-y answers and half-truths while I franticly try to move the spotlight away from me. My favorite tactic is to mention something that I like, and then ask do you like it, too? and if they say yes, I ask them to tell me about it and then—bam!—I’ve shifted the role of speaker back to them. It works more often than not.

I’m often told I’m a bit of a mystery, and it’s probably because I hate talking about myself. While I can write about myself at length, the moment things enter the verbal space it’s different somehow. I’m not good at forming thoughts quickly, so people think I’m slow or confused. Really, I just need a little more time to think of what to say and how to say it, but rarely am I ever afforded that time.

Luckily, today I have plenty of time to think, but I can’t think of anything to say. Luna asks about my hobbies and I swear I have those, but I can’t recall what they could be. Her gaze is disorienting. It turns my mind to mush. Butterflies swirl in my stomach and I feel a warmth stirring further below. I feel like I’m in high school again. Gross.

Although, maybe it’s kind of nice…

Snap to. Focus. I tell her I listen to a lot of 90s rock.

“Just 90s rock?” she asks.

I say yes. Stupid. So stupid. It’s not even true, but I said it anyway because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. The worst part is, I can’t tell whether she’s onto my ruse or not. She probably is. She’s probably regretting inviting me out to lunch in the first place.

Her plate is nearly clean and I’ve barely eaten one-third of my spaghetti. She notices this and asks in a sad voice, “Oh, is the food not good?”

“No,” I say. “It’s great, I’m just not hungry.” Another lie and my stomach betrays me, rumbling in protest. The food is genuinely delicious, but I can’t get myself to eat in front of her. What if I eat weirdly?

We pay for our meal and walk through the station to her car. Brief bouts of small-talk and awkward silence make up our car ride. By the time she drops me off at my place, I’m sure she’ll never want to see me again.

I’m used to this feeling. Another botched first impression. Nothing to do but ruminate about it for the next few weeks.

September

A long carpeted hallway stretches out before me, and a plain white door stands at its end. Yellow fluorescent lights run along the ceiling and at least a dozen people line the walls. Each of them stare at me, wide-eyed with lifeless smiles plastered across their faces. They look at me expectantly.

I don’t know why, but I must enter that door. It’s important. As I begin my approach, I’m greeted by the figure nearest me. “Hi, █████! How are you?” it says in a cheery voice. I’m stunned. How do they even know that name? No one calls me that anymore. I shrug it off and continue toward the door. The next figure addresses me. “Hey, █████!” it chirps. “I was just thinking about you!” There’s that name again. I turn to them and inform them that my name is Sage. They silently stare back at me, their smile never breaking. What the hell?

I hurry down the corridor. I don’t look over my shoulder, but I can feel everyone’s gaze boring a hole into the back of my head. With each figure passed, another greeting: “█████, it’s been a while!” “Morning, █████! Fine weather we’re having.” “Oh my god, █████? Long time no see!”

“Sage! My name is Sage!” I shout at them, but they do not relent. At last, I arrive at the door and quickly slip inside.

I find myself in a packed courtroom and I’m in the defendant’s seat. It’s quiet. My mother sits in the judge’s seat, dressed in black robes and gavel in hand. Everyone seems to be waiting for me to say something. No, not just anything—they’re waiting for me to explain myself. They want to see me beg.

“I’m not that person anymore,” I plead. “I’m Sage! I’m a woman.” My voice cracks.

The judge snickers, cutting me off. “He really thinks he’s a girl!” she sneers. “He thinks he can put on makeup and grow his hair out and that makes him a woman.”

The courtroom erupts in laughter and begins to chant. Tranny, tranny! They point at me and hold their bellies, unable to contain themselves.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask. My voice sounds distorted, shifted a couple of octaves lower. “Why are you doing this to me?” Tears rush down my cheeks as their cackling grows louder and louder.

Tranny, tranny!

It’s deafening. My ears are about to burst. It’s the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.

Tranny, tranny!

Their chortles morph into a regular rhythm and its pitch alters to a monotone digital screech. I shoot up from my futon in a cold sweat.

The workday is a blur. I had a few classes today and I numbly felt my way through them. The morning’s haunting really got under my skin, and I’ve been dissociating like I used to before I started hormones.

During our lunch break, Michelle senses something is off and asks if I’m feeling alright. I tell her no and recount my dream. She offers sympathy as best she can, then changes the topic.

“You remember those guys we met at the festival last weekend?” she asks.

I think for a moment. “From your Japanese class?”

She nods.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, they were asking about you. I think they thought you were going to start coming with me or something.” She looks at me with a slight smile. “Anyway, they really thought you were a girl!”

They really thought I’m a girl? I am a girl. Why should it be surprising that anyone thinks I’m a girl? Of course, I know the answer. But still.

Anyway, this is obviously a fake story.

“Nah, I can’t believe that,” I say, shaking my head. “I won’t.”

She looks at me with a puzzled expression. “What? Why?”

“I talked to them. They heard my voice. And I know what I look like. There’s no way they think I’m a girl.”

“I’m telling you, they do. They were asking about ‘that girl’ from the other night.” She pauses. “You looked good. You had your makeup done really nice!”

“That’s true, I tried really hard, actually…” my voice trails off. “But it was dark out.”

“Okay,” she says with a hand wave. “Whatever you say.”

I’m not an idiot. I’m still in my first year of transition. There is simply no way anyone is reading me as a woman. I don’t pass, and I’m not going to delude myself into thinking I’m anything but clocky. Assuming this was a true story, these people were being nice at best. And hey, good for them—yay allies!—but they knew. There’s no way they didn’t know.

At the end of our session, a familiar awkward silence creeps in. We only agreed to meet for (Japanese) tutoring, but it feels anticlimactic to part ways so soon after we both traveled quite a ways to meet. I want to ask Luna out for dinner, but I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to do so. I’m sort of her student now? The last thing I want to do is make it weird.

I study the floor like I’ve just made the next great archeological find, and then I hear a voice. “So,” she starts, “do you want to get dinner?”

I giggle. Maybe we’re on the same page, after all? “I was hoping you’d ask.”

She leads me to her car and I suggest we go for Thai, trying to accommodate her pescatarian diet. She agrees and turns on some rap music for the drive.

“So, you remember when I said I just listen to 90s music?” I ask.

“Mhm.”

“Yeah, so that was a lie,” I confess, nervously laughing. “I listen to a lot of different stuff, actually.”

She snickers. “What the hell, girl! Why?”

“I dunno, I guess I was nervous.”

“Well, what do you actually listen to?”

“I do listen to a lot of 90s rock. But also other stuff. I’m really obsessing over Jane Remover right now. Know her?”

She nods. “Yeah, she’s cool.”

“Anyways, I feel like a made a bad first impression and…” My voice trails off.

She looks at me, her pretty face contorted in confusion. “What are you talking about? You were fine!”

“Yeah, well, I was just nervous. I’m not very good at meeting people and-“

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“-like, I couldn’t think of what to say. Anyway, sorry.” I let out a sigh.

“Okay. Well, that’s crazy,” she says dismissively. “If anyone made a bad first impression, it was me and my bad personality.”

I laugh. “I think your personality is great, personally.”

When we arrive at the restaurant, rain pours from above, making loud pitter-patters on the car roof. “Shit, I don’t have an umbrella,” Luna says.

“I’ve got one,” I say. “It’s kinda small, but we can make it work.” Huddling under my pink (of course) umbrella, we shuffle inside. I try to be normal about being so close to her.

I haven’t been here in a couple of years, not since the COVID days, but this place hasn’t changed a bit. There’s still a man that hobbles from behind the kitchen counter to sanitize our hands with a comically oversized spray gun. The menus are still nonexistent, requiring us to scan a QR code to see what’s on offer. There’s still the two tables meant to seat two people each, that are barely big enough for one.

A woman greets us and motions for us to sit at the bar. She gestures toward the QR code on a laminated sheet of A4 paper and says, “When you two ladies are ready to order, let me know.”

What. Is. Happening. Before today, I’d never been referred to as a woman by a stranger, and now this is the second time it’s happened today. Is someone playing a joke on me? Get the tranny to think she passes, and when she starts to believe it, the walls fall down like in Mission Impossible to reveal an audience pointing and laughing at me like this morning? Very funny.

Well, I’m not falling for it. I’m sure that woman meant well, but the only way she knew that I’m a woman was by proxy. Luna is much closer to passing than I am, and she’s wearing a skirt. It’s just context clues. But she knew. She knew.

I turn to Luna. “Did you hear that?” I ask.

“Hear what?” she says, not looking up from the menu on her phone.

“She called us ladies.”

“Hm?” She seems disinterested.

“Right before she walked off, she was like, ‘When you two ladies are ready, call me.’”

She shrugs. “Oh, huh.”

Of course she doesn’t care. It doesn’t even phase her. She’s so pretty, she probably never gets misgendered. She’s only a few months ahead of me in her transition, but so much farther in results. It’s not fair. A part of me starts to resent her and her pretty privilege, but then I look back at her and am once again enamored with her beauty. How could I ever hate something so pretty?

Over dinner, conversation flows freely. Gone are the awkward silences and discomforts of a first-time meetup. Our discussion mostly centers around our transitions, which is to be expected. There are four trans people that I know of in our area, including myself. We don’t get very many opportunities for face-to-face t4t² here.

It’s cathartic talking about these things with someone who gets it. Inevitably, anytime I talk about trans topics with a cisgender person, I’m thrust into the role of educator. While it’s good to educate people that actually there’s more than two genders and yes you can change your gender and no we don’t all have to get The Surgery and some of us don’t even want it anyway, I’m usually left feeling more alone than before. Always having to explain my existence takes its toll, but with Luna I can simply be. It’s nice.

At the same time, I don’t want to talk about being trans with Luna. That seems like the least interesting thing right now. I know about being trans. I live it every day. But I don’t know Luna. Who is she? What’s her story?

But of course, put two trans girls together and they will talk about being trans girls. It’s simply the way of things. I go along with it, hoping that we can get to the topics I actually want to discuss further down the line.

After we finish our meal—this time, my plate is spotless—we huddle under my umbrella once more and skip over to her car. I tell her she can drop me off at the train station nearby.

“You live far away, though,” she rebuts.

“Yeah, but I took the bus here,” I say. “I’ll take it back.”

“I’ll just take you home.”

“Really?” I ask. We live nowhere close to one another.

“Yeah, it’s no problem,” she chirps. “It’s pouring rain out, anyway.”

Thirty minutes later, we pull up to my local bus stop, where my bike is parked. I still have a 15 minute bike ride ahead of me.

“Fuuuuck,” I moan. “It’s still raining.”

“We can wait,” Luna says, shrugging.

“No, it’s fine. It’s already kinda late and you’ve got a long drive to get home.”

“I don’t care. I’m unemployed.” It’s true. She’s starting a new job in a few weeks.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah!”

We park in a nearby parking lot. I check the weather on my phone and it says the rain will let up in about 30 minutes. Luna reiterates that she doesn’t mind waiting, and our conversation from earlier resumes.

“You’re so strong,” she says. “I wish I were like you.”

I scoff. “I’m not strong,” I say.

“Yes you are. Coming out at work–I could never do that. No way.”

I look over at her, sat there in her feminine attire. Even on a good day, I never dress so femininely. I’m not brave enough, but she thinks that I’m strong? All my friends are mentally ill, I swear.

“I don’t think I’m strong at all,” I say. “I didn’t have a choice. I was at a point where there were two paths in front of me: either I started transitioning, or I killed myself. Hardly a choice. But that’s where I was at: the end of the line. This was a last-ditch effort. I had nothing to lose. I mean, I could’ve lost my job, sure, but if the alternative was to kill myself, then it doesn’t really matter. You know?”

She nods softly.

“I didn’t want to come out at work. Or to anyone, really. I hate transitioning in front of everyone. It feels, I dunno, violating. It’s the most personal experience of my life—there’s almost a spiritual element to it and I’m not a spiritual person at all—yet I have to do this in front of everyone. The whole world is witness to me as I change. I wish I could go away for a few years, like off in the mountains or something, and transition and then come down from the mountain, a new woman.”

She smiles. “Like I’m about to?” Luna’s new job is far away in the mountains.

I laugh. “Yeah, like you’re about to do, I suppose.”

I look out the window. The rain has stopped and it’s past ten. I have work in the morning. I tell Luna I should probably head home. Just as I’m about to open the passenger door, she stops me.

“Hey, so, um,” she starts, then briefly pauses. “If you still wanna meet up to tutor again, let me know.”

“Yeah, for s-“ I begin.

“And we should definitely get dinner again,” she says, smiling at me. “I had a really good time.”

My cheeks feel warm and I beam back at her. “Absolutely.”

I bike home, throw myself onto my futon, and stare at the ceiling with a dumb smile stretched across my face. I haven’t felt these feelings in a very long time, but it’s nice to feel them again.

Wednesday

The barista hands me a latte and I saunter over to a small table snugly tucked into a nook at the back of the coffee shop. I nearly scald my tongue on the coffee as I absentmindedly scroll on my phone while I wait for Luna to arrive for our tutoring session. After about ten minutes, I spy a woman dressed in black approach my table. Bingo.

“Hey,” she says with a smile.

“Hey,” I say, smiling back at her.

We get to work. I ask her about some grammar rules and she explains them. I take notes and inquire further. She continues to explain, but I notice that she seems a little frustrated by my string of questioning.

Right. I’ve made my first mistake of the night. People don’t like it when they’re asked too many questions, especially if they’re asked a bunch of questions about the same thing. They start to think that they’re being fucked with, or maybe the person asking is just plain stupid. I don’t want Luna thinking either of these things about me.

“Sorry. I understand what you’re saying, but I’m just trying to make sure I get it exactly right,” I clarify. “Japanese grammar is kinda difficult sometimes, y’know? When I studied it back in uni, I didn’t feel like I really learned the rules around any of the grammar. I just kinda operated on vibes, which probably isn’t ideal. Like, our classes were full-immersion from the very beginning, so if you didn’t understand something you were kind of fucked because you had to ask in Japanese, but none of our Japanese abilities were at a level where we could ask for clarification, y’know? So anyway, I’m not trying to be difficult. I think I understand this stuff, but I want to make sure.”

A long-winded apology for something that I shouldn’t be apologizing for in the first place—classic Sage.

“I think maybe I’m just not explaining it well,” she says, looking defeated.

Great, now I made the cute girl sad.

“No, not at all!” I cry. “Your explanations make sense. Some more examples would useful, though.”

She resumes her explanation, and I watch her intently so she knows I’m paying close attention. Despite her frustration, I can tell she’s passionate about this stuff from the way her eyes light up, the way her curls bounce as she moves, how her lips move as she speaks… Suddenly, I’m in a house—our house—in the kitchen with Luna. She smiles at me and whispers something in my ear. I lean over and kiss her cheek, then she pulls me close and-

Christ, Sage. This is pathetic. Focus.

I return to the coffee shop just as she’s finishing her explanation, which I realize I didn’t hear a bit of. Luna asks me if I understand, and I smile and nod.

“Yeah, I think I really get it now,” I lie cheerfully. “Thank you!” Idiot.

Soon, our session comes to an end. “Shall we get dinner?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she replies. “Where do you want to go?”

“Dunno,” I respond coyly. “Whatever sounds good to you.”

“Hmm. I’m actually not all that hungry.”

My heart sinks. Was it the questions? Did I really ask too many?

“But…” she says, and her voice trails off. “We could just go back to my place and watch a movie, or something? We could stop and get some food at a konbini along the way.”

Oh my god. Am I blushing? I’m definitely blushing right now.

“Yeah, that sounds perfect!” I say, trying to keep my cool.

“Okay,” she whispers.

Luna lives a little over 30 minutes away, and our car ride is strangely silent. I try a few conversation topics but she doesn’t seem interested in talking. It’s odd. I thought after our last encounter we had finally broken the ice.

She stops at a konbini and we grab some food, then we arrive at her place. It’s mostly empty because she’s moving in a few days.

We eat dinner on a tiny table in her otherwise empty living room. It might feel warm and intimate if we weren’t completely silent. Instead, it’s so awkward it’s almost painful.

I know what to do. I prepared a line for just this sort of situation. It’s sure to lead us to a night filled of rich conversation.

“So, I know Luna the trans girl,” I say, nearly startled at the sound of my voice cutting through the silence. “But I don’t know Luna.”

Admittedly, this sounded much better in my head. Hearing it aloud, it sounds like one of the dumbest things to have ever come out of my mouth—and that’s no easy feat.

“I… don’t know what that means,” she says slowly, staring into her bowl of ramen.

I start to sweat. “I mean, we’ve talked a lot about our transitions and all of that. But I don’t know much about you, who you are, what makes you tick.”

“I… I dunno,” she mumbles, shrugging as she slurps a noodle.

Normally, this works. At least, this works with my other friends. I can be direct with them and we get along swimmingly. Then again, I’m pretty sure all of my friends are neurodivergent in some capacity, and my Autism radar isn’t picking anything up on Luna. I regret to say it, but I think she might be neurotypical.

If she is neurotypical, there’s almost certainly no hope for us. We’re forever doomed to never truly understand one another. My fantasies of us start to crack and crumble. The inherent understanding we had in our shared transness is now limited by my neurodivergence.

Maybe I’m wrong, though. I cling to this hope as we finish dinner and move upstairs to watch a movie. As I start to climb the stairs, Luna turns to me and motions toward the bag of popcorn in my hand. “So, actually, I don’t want you to eat anything up here because it’s washitsu,” she says. “It’s got tatami mats on the floor.”

Okay. This is somewhat understandable because tatami is difficult to clean and she’s just about to move out. Although, this is more than a little odd because I offered to share my popcorn with her at the konbini and she just nodded. But fine, it’s her house.

“Oh, yeah, no worries,” I say. I leave the popcorn on the table.

She continues up the stairs, then turns toward me again. “Oh, and I don’t want you drinking anything up there, either,” she says flatly.

I look down at the Coke bottle in my hand. Damn, we can’t have anything in this house! What kind of place is this?

“Right. Yeah, no problem,” I reply, trying to mask my frustration. “Can I put my Coke in your fridge, then?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” she says. “Just don’t forget it when you leave.”

What the fuck? Did I do something? Did I say something? I can accept that I might’ve said or did something a little strange, but I can’t think of anything that would lead her to suddenly treat me so coldly. This Luna is different from the one I met with before. Maybe she’s stressed with the move, but she seemed fine earlier. Come to think of it, she started acting strangely as soon as I accepted her invitation over here.

We spend the next two hours watching a movie in near total silence. She sits me on one end of the room, while she lays down on the other, behind a table set between us so that I can’t see any part of her. Any ideas I might’ve had of something akin to Netflix and chill are swiftly put to rest.

As the movie plays, I replay the past two hours in my mind. If I did something, I can’t think of what it could be. I’m supposed to be the awkward one, but it seems the other way around tonight. I’m rather peeved. I had really been looking forward to tonight, but this whole experience is simply uncomfortable. I feel like I’m intruding, like I’m bothering her, like she doesn’t like me, but she was the one who invited me over in the first place. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home.

After the film ends, Luna starts to warm back up. She’s more chatty now but I’m over it. I don’t understand what is going on with her, but I’m keenly aware that I have spent my entire night on whatever this is. It’s also quite late, I still have to get home, and I have work in the morning. I don’t want to be a bitch, though. I decide to give Luna one last shot. I play along with her game for now.

She asks me about a personality test and I tell her my type: I’m an “Architect,” which reads like a long-winded description of a high-masking Autistic person. I ask her personality type and pull up its description on my phone. I read some of the highlights aloud, lightly poking fun at its claims. Personality tests are nonsense, right?

Luna sits up and looks at me. “You have to be careful how you word things around me,” she says sternly, “because I will intentionally take it in the worst way possible.”

Well, shit. I guess I really fucked this one. She gets quiet and I reciprocate. I’m not even sure what was offensive about what I said. In fact, I was so convinced of its inoffensive nature that I can’t even recall what I said. Luna has never given me the impression that she’s sensitive in this way. She’s a trans woman, and sure, we’re all sensitive to a certain extent, but Luna never seemed like someone I needed to be careful around.

I ruminate on this for a while as we sit in silence. After a while, I say I should probably get home and we go downstairs to her car. She compliments my shoes on the way, which confuses me. I’m wearing black slip-on Vans, and who the hell is impressed by those? She may as well have complimented me for liking vanilla ice cream.

In the car, Luna streams punk music from her phone. The familiar midwestern emo vocals remind me of times I’d rather forget. She’s loudly singing along. It’s awkward, but at least we aren’t withering away in silence.

“Hey, listen,” I say in a gentle voice, and Luna lowers the volume. “I’m sorry if I said something that really upset you. That wasn’t my intention, like at all, and-“

“What are you talking about?” she interrupts.

“Well, you said I have to be careful about the way I word things around you-”

“Oh my god, no, no, no…”

“-and I mean, I thought I said something that upset you. I know I can come off kinda strong sometimes, and I’ve had problems like this before in the past, and like, I struggle with my tone because I’m Autistic, but I don’t want you to feel-”

“Did you listen to everything I said?”

“What? Um…” I’m confused.

“I said after that, that I’d intentionally take it in the worst way possible,” she says, as if this is supposed to mean something to me.

“Yeah, so…?”

“Girl, I was joking! I said I would intentionally take it the worst way. I was joking! Oh my god, Sage.”

I don’t understand the joke. I have friends with whom I must be cautious how I word my statements around because they actually will take everything as criticism. How am I supposed to know this was a joke? I was genuinely concerned. I thought I hurt her, but she’s acting like I’m being dumb and dramatic. I feel stupid: stupid for caring, stupid for apologizing, and stupid for ever crushing over this girl.

“Fine,” I spit. “I take it back. I’m not sorry.” I try to play this off with a playful energy, but inside I’m seething.

She laughs and says, “Sage, I think you’re too normal for me.”

That’s a first. I’ve been building a long list of interpersonal issues over the years, and I’ve been called many things but never “normal.” I’m starting to think maybe this girl isn’t so normal herself.

I laugh bitterly. “Yeah, you know, I think you might be right,” I say as I look out the window.

I know what she means. She means boring. She’s trying to be nice about it, maybe, but she’s calling me boring. Years of being made fun of but never realizing it until weeks or months or years later has trained me to recognize when someone is saying one thing but meaning something entirely different. This, presumably, is the reason for all the weirdness tonight: I’m boring.

I count down the minutes until we arrive at my place while she continues belting out emo lyrics. What a waste of a perfectly good night. This crush is definitely over.

The day after

“So I’m like, what the fuck did I do?” I exclaim a little too loudly. Now the shop owners can tell their friends about the weird femboy who shouted expletives in their yogurt shop. You’re welcome for the story, I guess.

Michelle pokes at her yogurt bowl with a spoon. “Yeah…” she starts, her voice trailing off. Her face is scrunched up, like she can’t quite make sense of what I just told her. At least I’m not the only one that seems confused by whatever that was last night. “The only thing I can think of is maybe she got nervous after she invited you over?”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, grow up, bitch!” I blurt out and Michelle laughs. “Don’t invite someone over if you’re gonna get weird about it. She was totally fine up until she invited me!”

“Maybe it just hit her all at once, y’know?” Michelle shrugs. “I dunno. I can’t really say because I don’t know her.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

I sigh and turn to the window behind me. Raindrops streak down the glass as people strut by under umbrellas. Strange. I think I just caught a faint scent of pad thai.

I turn back to Michelle. “Honestly, I’m not that upset,” I say. “I’m more disappointed than upset. I can accept that maybe I missed a social cue or something. It happens. I’m used to it. I’m Autistic, y’know? It’s part of the deal.” I pause and scoop some yogurt into my mouth. “Maybe I misread the situation and she was never into me like I thought she was, but I would’ve been happy to just be friends, too. Sure, I was hoping for more than that, but I’m a big girl. I can settle for friendship, but last night wasn’t good for anyone, regardless of what they were hoping for. It was just… uncomfortable. Bad vibes.”

“I’m sorry, Sage,” Michelle says. “I know you really liked her.”

“Yeah, I did,” I mutter, and turn back toward the window. “I really did.”

Admittedly, I was a little angry last night. I felt led-on, insulted, and humiliated for ever thinking that maybe there was a deeper subtext to Luna and I’s meetings; that maybe she was looking for something a little more than just a casual meetup; that maybe, just maybe, someone else found me pretty. In hindsight, that was a ridiculous notion, especially considering Luna’s caliber. She’s so pretty. Too pretty for someone like me.

I’m spiraling and I know it, and the fact that last night was trigging for me only plunges me deeper into my psyche. Yes, I had a bad night, but it was just that: a bad night. Am I really so weak that I can’t handle one bad night? What’s wrong with me?

The clouds darken and plunge the street into early darkness, as the rain pours with an increased intensity. The passing cars’ headlights illuminate the rain streaking across the window, creating globs like misshapen Christmas lights. Another bite of yogurt and my stomach churns: I know what my problem is, but I don’t want to admit it. I fear that by directly acknowledging it, the issue will grow and fester completely beyond my control. But the jig is up. The attempted hoodwinking of my own psyche has been laid bare. There’s nothing left to do but admit to it.

Okay, here goes. This is the truth:

I believe that I am shit. My perspective and my experiences are not worthy of anyone’s time. My struggles do not matter because I do not matter. I am shit. I’ve never been happy because someone like me doesn’t deserve happiness. I am shit.

I struggle to see myself as pretty because I can’t see past the veneer of transness that coats my body. The harsh angles that define my face, the brow line that juts out from my skull, the facial hair that refuses to leave, the extremities that are unnaturally large for a woman—I see these things and feel like a monster. Luna possesses a similar veneer, albeit to a much lesser degree, yet I don’t struggle to see her as beautiful because she isn’t me. The rules are different for me. I am not kind to myself because I am not enough. I am shit.

I struggle with conversation because I refuse to talk about myself, leaving conversations one-sided. I am perceived as not interested in others because I close myself off from them. This isn’t because of Autism, not really. Autism certainly shapes and informs the way that I interact with others and the world at large, but the true reason I struggle to interact with others is because I cannot reconcile with the idea that anyone could possibly be interested in me. In a world inhabited by over 8 billion people, why the hell would anyone choose me? I am boring. I am shit.

In the few relationships I do have, I struggle with ever seeing myself as worthy of them. I am distrustful of anyone who acts as if they like me. No one could possibly like me; therefore they must be up to something. They want something from me, or they’re making fun of me—whatever it is they are plotting, it surely must be nefarious because there is no way that anyone would ever want to include me in their lives. I am worthless. I am shit.

When I am disregarded, ignored, invalidated, or abused I become angry, but ultimately accept that I deserve these things happening to me because I am shit. Above all, there is one fundamental truth that lies at the core of my world view: I am undeserving of love or respect.

I believe these things because I have been conditioned to believe them. I see myself as a monster because that is what I’ve been told trans women are. I see myself as boring and difficult because that is how Autistic people are portrayed.

People like me are made to feel like mentally ill abominations, good for nothing but sucking air and taking up precious space. We’re told we are confused, incapable of deciding for ourselves who we are; that we’re predators, that we’ve fallen from the graces of God and therefore we are irredeemable. We’re called slurs by those even in the upper echelons of our governments. We’re told we’ll never amount to anything worthwhile; that we’re an embarrassment; that we’re wrong, inherently, and that we must be fixed. And if we can’t be fixed, then we should be eradicated entirely.

I have held these beliefs for as long as I can remember. Logically, I know they are incorrect but my heart does not operate on logic.

It’s no wonder Luna declared me “normal.” These beliefs have whitewashed my personality: I am boring, not fundamentally, but by choice. Boring is inoffensive. It’s safe.

I am so entrenched in my own self-hatred that I can’t see two feet in front of me. How can I ever expect anyone to love me if I am unable to love myself? How can I ever expect to love myself if I spend all my time degrading myself?

Suicide has been at the forefront of my mind since before I even knew what that word meant. I remember taking walks around the neighborhood with my mother when I was in elementary school, and the whole time I would think about not existing; not having a body, or even a brain. To simply fade away into nothingness. To be free. I desired this more than anything in the world.

Fantasies of death have drifted about in my mind in the years since, and I would be lying if I said their promises of release aren’t enticing. To be free of all the stress, despair, transphobia, sensory overwhelm, social difficulties—to be free of the violence I inflict upon myself would be the ultimate liberation. In oblivion, I would be neither worthless nor have any worth. Serenity via nonexistence.

For my entire adult life, I have viewed suicide not as a possibility but as an inevitability. As the years have wasted away, I have felt myself creeping closer and closer to the edge. Last year, I realized I had very little time left. I was at a crossroads, a point of no return. Two choices presented themselves to me: I could continue as I had been and die, or I could choose to start anew as the woman I knew I truly was. For one of the very few times in my life, I chose myself. I chose life.

Yet here I am spiraling in this yogurt shop after having one not-actually-that-bad night. Here I am being so incredibly unkind and disrespectful to myself. Here I am pissing all over that defining choice I made last year. If this is the way I’m going to treat myself, I may as well just off myself now and save myself all the future heartache.

This has to stop. I literally cannot continue to live in this way. Sage will never be allowed air if I continue to abuse her like this. She’ll wither before she ever had a chance to bloom. I’m killing her slowly. Enough.

I don’t know what happened last night. Maybe Michelle was right and Luna got nervous when she realized things were moving along, or maybe she was never interested in me to begin with. Maybe I said something that made her uncomfortable, or maybe I annoyed her with all my questions. It doesn’t matter. Sometimes things don’t work out and it’s no one’s fault, really. That’s just life.

Life. That word echoes around in my brain. One year ago, I was a walking corpse but look at me now! I’m in a yogurt shop bitching with my girlfriend about some cute girl I met. Sure, maybe things didn’t work out how I’d hoped, but this is life! This is living. I am alive right now.

The shopkeeper approaches our table and politely informs us the store is closing in five minutes. I take one last bite of my yogurt and look at Michelle. “Shall we go?” I ask. She nods.

We exit the shop and emerge onto the street. The air smells earthy, the pavement is dark and damp, but the street isn’t so gloomy anymore. I look toward the sky and glimpse the Sun peeking over some murky clouds in the distance. The rain is gone.

I smile to myself. I am alive right now. I am a woman and I am alive right now.

---