Calling time on a friendship

There is no joy in a message like this.  But when a friend of many years, measured in decades, does not show up when it matters, we call time.  And so I did.

I had just been two days in a form of therapy where I practiced as much as I received and learned lots of new things about stress and the body.  This practice always stays with me for a while after, sometimes days, weeks.

Owing to the vagaries of life and the power of being a witch, I see who I see when I need to see them.  And in this case, it was two hours after my therapy work broke.  He wanted to see the football, and I wonder in retrospect that his insistence on finding a venue that was laden with “bro” was about his own need to assert himself in the face of the gender enigma that I represented for him.

When I walked in he was already there, having secured himself a seat facing the big screen.  The waitress took an immediate shine to me, as did the owner, who came over and introduced himself.  Its good for business to be inclusive.  My friend didn’t pick up on the queue.

We were friends from another country.  Quite close.  I would venture to say that in that. country, he was my closest friend, a frequent partner in crime and adventure, and partnered up with someone who fit neatly with my partner…as did our respective kids.  We had vacationed together.

Even after we moved away we were actively in touch, and I had hosted them at the family home in a popular NY beach resort area, and we had travelled around Europe together, even Africa.  But since I had come out, the messages pretty much dried up.  Even birthdays I noticed it was only me.  Messages were curt, not curious.

They were very fond of our children, and so when our kids went back to the country they lived in, they made a point of taking the kids out for dinner.

I am an optimist.  Every single one of my friends has stood by me (well, one really important one has buried me in judgement so I said ‘no more’).  But the body language from the moment I walked in was hostile.  A distant handshake.

And then some questions.  I always to answer people’s questions if they are well-intentioned.  There is so much misinformation out there about trans people that it helps to connect the misinformed to lived experience.  It is a pleasure to speak to someone who listens.  But when someone does not listen, or approaches with hostility, my own generosity leaves me.  

In a series of exchanges, I soon found that there was only hostility.

“You’re not the same person anymore,” he stated.

“I am the same person.  The differences are only cosmetic.”

“No, you are completely different.”

“Well, I am a woman now.”

“Exactly.”

I corrected his pronouns repeatedly, which was easy, as we are speaking in Spanish, which gave me many opportunities to point it out.

“If I try, it isn’t going to be easy,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“It takes getting used to.  It will take me a while.”

“It’s not hard really.  You should try being me.”

“What do you mean.”

“People deliberately misgender me almost every day.  Others just do it by accident, even if they mean well.”

“How could they?  Still?”

“Apparently lot’s of people think I will like it.”

“But you don’t look like a man anymore.”

“You keep referring to me as male.”  He smiled nervously, but didn’t correct himself.

“I know you as a man.  I know you as [deadname].  That is who you are to me.  We would have never met had I known you were trans.  There were no clues.”

“Society is not so kind to people like me.”

“How is the divorce going?”

“It’s a nightmare.”

“She would have been much happier had you just cheated on her with a woman,” he said.  He speaks from experience, having cheated on his wife with a woman and gotten caught.  “She would forgive you, but not this.”

“Why not?”

“It’s obvious.  I can’t believe you don’t see it.”

“What, because she feels less feminine?”

“Exactly.”

“She shouldn’t have married a trans person then.”

“What do you mean?”

“She knew already from the first night we slept together.  We talked about it.  She gave me lingerie, women’s shoes.  She just didn’t like certain things, like me wearing lace.  In the end, her gifts and words to me were insulting, so I shut down that part of me with her.”

“I always thought you were smart.”

“I never thought she’d leave.”

“It’s obvious.  Of course it is.”

“I may be able to cope with this, but if I am completely honest, my wife is really struggling with it.  That’s why she didn’t come.”

“What is it that you have to cope with?”

“Everything is different,” he said looking away.

“Only to a bigot,” I was starting to get pissed off.  In the end I said what was on my mind.

“I’m not asking anything of you other than to get my name right and my pronouns right.  To show basic respect.  If you think that is hard, then try being me.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t worry about my safety, face discrimination.  I’m facing it now, with you.”

“It’s different,” he said.

“How is it different?  What you are telling me is that I have become something you can no longer like.”

“No, but you have changed completely.”

“I haven’t changed at all.  What, because I have tits, you can’t be my friend?”

“No, of course it isn’t that.”

“Maybe its cultural,” offering him an easy way out, which he didn’t take me up on.  When I repeated it later, he said ‘maybe’ as he was being pushed to the edge of his own intolerance.

“I don’t need your friendship,” I said.  “I don’t need to figure this out for you.  It isn’t about me.  It is about you.  And if you can’t figure out what friendship is, and you tell me that I am the one who needs to give you time, then I don’t think you are a friend.  We have different ideas about what friendship means.  This isn’t it.”

“I have to think about it.”

“I don’t.”

We had a cordial evening.   He was grateful for his second rum.  As he said, it gave him the courage to “speak the truth”.  I wasn’t drinking.

“Why aren’t you thinking about the future?  What this does to your future?”

“I am.  I just no longer know what the future holds.”

“That isn’t the person I knew.”

“My life has changed.”

“You can’t say that your life has changed and also say that you haven’t changed.  You can ‘t have both,” he said.

“They are both true.  And much of the way my life has changed is the result of intolerant people.”

He offered to pay for pizza we shared.  For once I let him.  I realized as I walked out that I would never see him again.  It saddened me tremendously that a friendship of 20 years would go in this way.  But I am also very certain that on this basis, we were never friends in the first place.

From him I went to a private class in shibari, working with a lovely woman and teacher who said all the right things to get me out of my previous meeting and into the divine feeling of rope.  Bless the open-minded.

The next day I wrote him a note to thank him for the pizza and to say goodbye.  And that is what I did.

My own feeling on the topic, self-serving as it is, is that not many people get to call a trans woman a close and lifelong friend.  I am aware of how rich and wonderful my life is, on every level.  I am also aware that my life is not for the faint of heart, or wimps, or fair-weather friends.  So, while I shall mourn his passing, the passing of his wife, from my life, I also know that I have no interest in such people continuing to take up space or energy.

The part of me that is sad, is not as important as the investment in myself that letting him go so quickly and decisively represents.

Someone told me not so long ago who read my “fortune” using a particular modality.  He insisted that I would be a warrior for my cause, an outspoken leader.  I said “no, I don’t want that.”  But he was adamant.

His words begin to resonate with me.  Now I will find a job.  Now I will fight.