My heart was broken again. I wanted to ask you what’s not good enough about me. What are you looking for? Am I too kind, or am I too generous?
The first time I touched you, I felt your remarkable open heart. That instant feeling of cozy safety had never happened to me before. My impulse is to go toward you and sink as deep as I can into that goodness. My whole self wants to be close to you.
You felt my goodness too. But that doesn’t make you want to fuck me and partner with me. Why is that?
The rejection is because you see me as a nurturer and healer–like a mom, but queer and fat unlike your own mom. I have the big tit energy of nurturing, not a sexy cruelty like all your exes.
I never wanted to heal you like a Yoda. Always I wanted to be your lover and go deep with you to our sexual places, tender places, and be chosen family. I wanted to fully relax with you and be my whole self.
Am I too soft? Do I seem like I wouldn’t fuck you? You can’t really know what someone likes in bed by their everyday behavior. I wanted to be a new person with you.
now
All that was sitting in my drafts folder for months. It’s so over now, I feel embarrassed by what I wrote, asking the woman I loved why I wasn’t good enough.
It was never about whether I was good enough. I’m shining, brilliant, and adorable. The way she didn’t want to have sex with me was neutral, though I felt it as a betrayal and injustice.
It was about chemistry and preference. She didn’t want me like that, and I needed to move on. Being her closest friend, it was hard to move on. I thought the strength of our friendship would get me through.
survival
She was trying to survive in any way she could, depressed and in chronic pain. I was a warm body who loved her; I helped her feel something like safe.
In a way, she knew me. But mostly I was just in a role, meeting a need. Huge swaths of me, she never knew. She acknowledged only certain aspects of me. When I needed anything back, I was unappealing. She was the one who was allowed to have needs–the trans, disabled one.
Only I am disabled also and not really cis either. Never can I know the pain of being a non-passing transwoman in a culture where gender is so rigid and brings up dangerous hate in violent cis men.
But both people in a relationship have needs. Her pretending that she was the only disabled one when I’ve built a life from near-nothing was offensive.
roles
I’m glad to clear this draft out of my drafts folder. I vow never again to stay close to anyone who refuses to recognize that my needs matter too. I don’t exist to comfort and give in an unbalanced way–I’m so much more than a fount of support.
Over the months I brought up the lack of balance and asked for help many times. She had a blank look she would give me. Inside her cold stare, I found the question: How could I ask for anything, when she was suffering? Her suffering was what mattered, clearly, always.
Sometimes she would say we could spend time working on my projects too, but she never made that happen. It was on me to orchestrate it. But it was never about the projects–it was emotional. Meeting her needs was the default of the relationship, and my needs I had to fight for. I’m sorry I was part of creating that dynamic.
standards
I was too generous, and that was a mistake. But I’d like to be close to people who are generous too, and love is abundant. I don’t want to gravitate toward people with lots of needs, who ignore my needs so I have to fight for them. These days I vow that I’ll only do reciprocity, and I have standards.
It’s hard to walk away from a connection that feels spiritual. But I’m not going to let anyone use me anymore.
When I was a kid, I was very used sexually. As an adult, I’m used for survival-support. Either way, I’m not going to be generous at my expense ever again.
