Dating Myself

 This post goes back to my intensely lonely days following the loss of my second wife and several dear friends. Throughout my life I had plenty of acquaintances but very few people I could call friends. Perhaps it was because deep down inside I did not want very many people close to me in case someday I would follow my dream and come out as a transgender woman. I just didn't feel many of my friends would remain with me, or would I want them to as I went through such an extreme lifestyle change such as changing a gender. Personally, I knew of all the stress and tension caused by crossing the gender frontier myself and couldn't imagine anyone else understanding. As it turned out, this wasn't the first time in my life I decided to go it alone (so to speak) when I was attempting a major life change. The same thing happened when I had to go away and serve my military duty. When the time came to go away to basic, I had done away with any possible serious girlfriends and barely communicated with anyone at all. The only mail I received came from my Mom. 

Early Acquaintance on Right
from the Jessie Hart Collection 

So, all in all, I had experience dealing with extreme loneliness but I didn't really want to face it again. What happened was I ended up falling back on my inner feminine self for comfort. It turned out in times of extreme duress, she was the strong one who comforted me and kept me going. It was no different as I entered yet another lonely period of my life. This one totally unexpected when my wife passed away with no warning suddenly at the age of fifty. 

Rather than stay at home every night with my dogs, I packed them up and headed out to one of my favorite venues, dressed as my feminine self. My problem was I knew I would be attracting attention as a single woman where I went so I had to be careful. I was not in anyway trying to pick anyone up. On the other hand, I did not want to be ridiculed. Ironically the venues I chose to go to I had gone to as a guy to check out to see if my feminine self would be safe. Once I decided they were, I started dating my new self there, 

As it turned out, I couldn't stay by myself long. I started to interact with other people if I wanted to or not. First I had to learn how to communicate with the world as my authentic self. It was quite the growing process but surprisingly an easy one. Because it felt so natural. I wondered why it took me so long to do it. I fortunately became on speaking terms with one of the bar tenders at a venue I was going to. In turn she introduced me to her Mother (lesbian) and we hit it off. Then, there was the night another woman came into and ordered a to go order and in the meantime slid me a note down the bar showing interest in me. Over a relatively short space of time, the three of us became party buddies and I didn't have to worry about spending nights alone. What happened was, once I finally freed up my inner girl, she established herself in the world fairly quickly. 

Dating myself proved to be a process which taught me a lot in a short period of time. But again I have several other women to thank for my journey. I learned so much from Liz, Kim, Nikki and Hope on how to socialize myself successfully as a woman. In all of their own ways, they were strong, successful women in their own rights. By allowing me to tag along, I learned so much about my true self. Most importantly, they looked past my gender issues and saw the real me. They built me into the woman I am today. So much so, I can't imagine dating myself ever again.