Do you CARE?

[Frédérique]

“I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care, etc...” (Kurt Cobain)

Do you care, or are you one of these people who say, “I don’t care...” every chance you get? If you’re the former, I’d like to meet you, but if you’re the latter I’ll skip the meeting, thank you...

I imagine Kurt Cobain was justified when he screamed “I don’t care,” (x5) at maximum volume no less, but what about the MtF crossdresser, a person, male by birth, who is trying to incorporate feminine appearance, as well as feminine perceptions and feminine feelings? Doesn’t SHE care? For that reason, I get very confused when I see the phrase “I don’t care” in this particular part of this particular discussion forum. Maybe the individual in question is having a bad day, or a bad week, or a bad life, so they will carelessly scatter their disdain in your general direction, but, if that’s the case, why bother actually doing it? It seems to me that if you have feelings, you would CARE about things. It’s a cruel world, but does it have to be? Why not just pass things by?

I should explain. Many years ago I had a girlfriend who would say “I don’t care” all the time, almost like a form of personal punctuation. I’ll give you a few examples. Me: “Would you like a hot dog?” She: “I don’t care.” Me: “Would you like to go for a walk in the woods?” She: “I don’t care.” Me: “What say we take off all our clothes and do the nasty?!” She: “I don’t care.” I suppose she had been marinated in lifelong apathy via genetic inheritance, according to what she told me one fine day, but she could be a caring person if the need arose. I gained a better understanding of caring, and a permanent dislike of this “I don’t care” pronouncement from the woman I loved. The latter is still like an open wound...

I had another girlfriend who would say, “Take care” every time we parted company, either in person or on the phone. I think she cared about me, otherwise why would she say such a thing? She loved me, and she wanted me to take care of myself, until the time we would meet again. After so many years of hearing, “I don’t care,” it was positively refreshing to hear “Take care.” Aren’t women supposed to be the caregivers in this human gender play we are privy to? Isn’t that at least one of their traditional roles in society? If it is, I would expect a little caring to come with the female clothing, comportment, and alleged feelings we CD’ers are coming in contact with on a daily basis. Under the queer circumstances, how can a MtF crossdresser, TG or not, possibly say something like “I don’t care?” I don’t get it...

I can understand someone not caring about something I (or someone else) wrote, but why make the effort to express that in writing? It tells me that you, the MtF crossdresser, my fellow peer, a person who has a lot in common with me, and possibly imbued with sensitivities akin to mine, is going out of their way to hurt MY feelings. I would expect better from a “sister,” but I guess I’m too naïve to be amongst you all. I mean, this may not be the most noble of human endeavors, but it is certainly valid and thus worthy of respect. When someone says (or writes) “I don’t care,” it has the same effect as pulling the rug out from under my feet, or throwing a bucket of cold water on the fire, the fire being any euphoria I’m trying to feel. Does it make YOU happy when you hurt someone? I mean, I came here to CARE, or express caring, somewhat against my birth gender, and meet others who are equally solicitous...

I care about other MtF crossdressers, because I happen to be one of them. They say that care belongs primarily to the intellect, and here, in this secluded forbidden oasis, our intellects do the meeting and greeting. Since I care about YOU, I will choose my words very carefully. I have high regard for you, my sisters, for we are inclined to DO something largely inexplicable, namely crossdress. Since what we undertake is NOT easy, and never has been easy, we need to care about each other – I can’t see you, I can’t touch you, but I can communicate my caring feelings by way of words. I have special regard for your feelings, and I attribute this to my crossdressing – something comes along with the dressing, or the act of dressing unleashes certain GOOD feelings that I welcome. I wanted this to happen, and it did...

I don’t know, maybe I’m just overly sensitive. I didn’t expect other crossdressers to be apathetic about the feelings of others – why dress if you’re not going to at least acknowledge something beyond the feminine trappings you admire? It seems logical to me, but apathy may exist in large quantities, disproportionate to the feelings of caring that one may wish to take on. I suppose I come here because I’m concerned about my crossdressing sisters, much like I care for my own beloved sister in this very house – she is a caregiver (a nurse), and I admire her. I want her to be happy, of course, and on this site I strive to influence others like myself, using the happiness I feel as a catalyst. I hope I come across that way. I won’t say “I don’t care,” and I won’t write it, either. I might say, “Who cares?” on occasion, but only as a decent probing question, and not a wanton declaration of negativity. No, I will not and shall not go out of my way to hurt YOUR feelings – the day I stop crossdressing will be the day I stop caring, and the day I stop caring will be the day I stop living. After that, I shall cease to care...

Do you care about others? Do you care about yourself? Do you care about anything? :idontknow:

PS - This was inspired by an anonymous, yet careless, member. Take care... :battingeyelashes:

[Barbara Ella]

I sincerely care about others. I deeply care about my family, and that includes my sisters here. I don't care a fig for other's opinions on my choices for my life. I do care about opinions here about what we all share. I really don't care what color panties I have on right now as long as they are doing what they are supposed to. I really do care about less fortunate.

So I guess you could say I am a conflicted I don't care person, but I really don't care about that,

I seldom use the phrase I don't care, but I do use It doesn't mater quite a bit, but always add a comment about the choices and what their opinion is about the choices, and potential outcomes.

Hope I am not the careless member, but if quilty, I don't care.

Barbara

[SarahMarie42]

Typically, I take the outright, directed expression of apathy to be more indicative of annoyance than a lack of interest. A lack of interest implies a lack of motivation, and a lack of motivation implies a lack of action -- the direct expression of apathy is an action. Anyone so easily annoyed to have to do that on here, though, I'd pity. People need to stop imposing their will upon others in every possible way. I don't care if someone "doesn't care" -- to hell with them. But I do care about people with legitimate feelings in legitimately troubling circumstances, and if others don't, well . . . I suppose they can enjoy being half a person. However, people generally are self-interested and generally don't care -- strong empathy is more a treasured virtue than a universal characteristic.

[KellyJameson]

Caring comes with a cost Freddy that many are not yet ready or able to carry. The cost is measured in the consequences of caring that brings suffering.

Wisdom is learned and earned through the suffering that avoiding caring brings so in time you realize that not caring actually hurts more than caring.

You change your relationship to pain so your stance on life changes and you go "into caring" because not caring hurts to much.

Caring, like much of life, comes from the relationship we have inside our own minds that we experience by how we live life.

We talk about the responsibility we have to care for each other, putting the burden on the individual to "do the right thing" for others but this confuses the mind that looks for reasons that corresponds to self interest because we are designed to avoid pain and pursue pleasure and in this design we design the beliefs that we thnk are in our own self interest to follow.

Enlightened self interest is breaking free from the constraits of pain and pleasure so you live beyond the box that pain and pleasure originally enclosed you in.

All human expression comes from the persons relationship to the suffering they are trying to avoid until that time when the value of suffering is learned so not avoided, taking the person deeper into and eventually out of suffering where they transcend self as "attachment to pain"

Caring can be a false act to avoid suffering or a geniune act from the acceptance of suffering because suffering is no longer feared but accepted as necessary to life and it is in this acceptance that genuine caring becomes possible.

Pleasure does little to help us grow, but it is in pain where the true metamorphosis takes place so the more we avoid being hurt by caring the less we grow so never "care"

Caring is the result of the courage to not run from the self "as pain".

Most of what is worth having in life is paid for in pain.

[Miriam-J]

I also cringe when I hear the phrase 'I don't care', Freddy. In the 20+ years of my first marriage, it was said with more and more frequency through the years as she lost her way in our hopeless shambles of a relationship. I now interpret 'I don't care' as either 'You don't matter enough to me for me to think hard enough about it' or 'I don't trust you with my real opinion'.

I can see how it might creep into writing on this forum since few of us really know others - at least not in a deep personal way. But I have to wonder: if you don't care, why say anything at all? If I'm going to take the trouble to actually post my thoughts here, it's because it really matters to me and I hope it matters to someone else. Except for the quick fun posts, I've thought long and hard about it before posting and share what I hope others will actually care about. If I can't do this, I'll remain silent - as I do too much of the time now.

One of the things I like most about your posts, Freddy, is that I can tell you rarely post with serious thought about what will matter to others. Thanks again.

Miriam

[LaraPeterson]

Dear Freddy, my gilded and sometimes caustic and sarcastic nature (that I inherited from a very uncaring father) makes me want to say to you, "Don't get you panties in a wad." After all, who cares really about what others think about us. Maybe you are a bit oversensitive but, either way, I think I understand a little of how that statement makes you feel.

As I notice people who seem to be uncaring, I don't believe it has much to do with pain and suffering on their part nor a lack of interest as has been stated in some of the replies (no disrespect intended, ladies). In my experience, people who use that byphrase are simply selfish. They are self-absorbed and more focused on themselves than on anything or anyone else. So, they write off what you or I say with "I don't care."

Another possibility that comes to my mind is the occasional use of that slang phrase that might indicate fatigue. I've said it before not meaning "I don't care," but meaning "I'm too tired to give you an honest, meaningful answer."

At the end of the day, caring, like almost every other human traits is learned, not the result of our gender or gender identity. I'm glad you brought up the subject, though. I came here a few months ago because I do care. I care about me because I don't want to screw up in life any worse than I already have. I care about others not because I'm expected to but because others have cared about me and taught me how to care.

I'd love to come to Kansas someday, meet you face to face, offer you big smile, and give you a big hug. I hope I'd do that for anyone of any gender identity who was happy or hurting, up or down, living out loud or facing death. . .because, like you, I care.

[Ann Louise]

Thank you for another remarkable post Freddy. I've only been here on the order of several weeks and I've really come to look forward to each of your postings.

To me the essence of "caring" is lowering my personal barriers and exposing my heart's tenderness and vulnerability long enough to think about the lives of others, and the causes and conditions that have led them to where they happen to be at that time.

The biggest barrier that I'm continually dismantling in order to "care" about others is to stop dwelling on myself all the time, and rehashing my past events, my conversations, my actions, and making up fantasies about my future, the long stream-of-conscious "what if's" that sweep me away (as an exercise to demonstrate how out-of-control this might be for you, try taking a shower and only think about the shower, just the water, soap, steam, your feet on the floor, etc., and Nothing Else but right then, there in the shower. I was good for 10 seconds, tops, at first, before I was "lost in thought" again).

For the last few years I've been engaged in a conscious effort to peel back and expose my tenderness and vulnerability, to care for others, extending them "lovingkindness" (my username here). My method is very simple: I repeatedly release my thoughts about the past, and the fantasies I might generate about future courses of events. I let them go.

Please note that this doesn't mean I forgot my panty size (heavens no)! Solid practical thinking about life goes on. But the useless, essentially meaningless thoughts do not remain with me as long, and the marvelous result of this approach is that my sense of compassion and caring for others is automatically springing out from my heart in direct proportion to the degree to which I expose my inner tenderness and vulnerability to others in real time. I never knew this was possible, and so simply, too! We all have this compassion and caring within us, waiting to be released. I'm convinced of it.

Again, thank you for such a thought-provoking topic Freddy, Elfin

[GaleWarning]

I will venture to say that the concept of caring is becoming more and more foreign to a generation who are taught to have an I, Me, Mine attitude.

What disturbs me most when reading too many posts on this forum from crossdressers who are having marital or other relationship problems, is the way they lament their spouse's or SO's lack of support, as if they have a right to expect acceptance, whilst offering nothing in return.

The path of life is a two-way street puntuated with forks in the road, and the choices we make determine how our own lives turn out. Caring about others at these times can lead to a meaningful, communal life or one which is extremely lonely and isolated.

[Beverley Sims]

Frédérique,
I quite often say"tell someone who cares." I read your posts and put a little levity in my replies sometimes, but whether I agree or disagree with what you say I realise that you have written the post with sincerity. When I read whatever you have to say a lot of silly thoughts do go through my mind as I see a different side to the problems you illustrate.
Yes I do care because to reply to your posts a person has to be of a caring nature.
As for apathy, it does creep in sometimes as does the truth about something I perceive as selfish. I will lambast someone and tell them to wake up and be real
So keep over thinking, find obscure subjects etc. and keep life interesting for the rest of us.
I do mean that without any denigration as I do care.
Cheers,
Beverley.

[ReluctantDebutant]

Caring is just one of those incremental things. There is only so much of one's heart to go around. It is up to the person to judiciously pick what they want to care about and how much they want to care about it. The phrase "I don't care" can also mean "so what" or "it doesn't concern me". And aren't these the things we would like to hear as cross-dressers from a society that is so concerned with a man wearing women's clothing. Doesn't every cross-dresser going out in public and hears some guy point out "hey look it's a man in a dress", want to hear a chorus of voices reply "I don't care"? Look at all the good that comes from the phrase I don't care: "Hey a multiracial couple just moved into the neighborhood" "I don't care". "They just hired a woman as the chief executive officer" "I don't care". "They're allowing gays in the military now" "I don't care".

[Danni Renee]

I have found that most people who say they "don't care" are typically the people who care the most. Then again, maybe that is just me. I tend to say "I don't care" to hide the fact that I do truly care but I don't want someone to know I am vulnerable and I don't want to get hurt.

Danni

[SandraInHose]

Although I'm guilty of using that phrase from time to time, when I do say it it's usually when someone at work suggests a certain restaurant for lunch, or something that isn't exactly life-changing. Because whether we eat at Wendy's or Arby's or Panda...well, I really don't care!

But when I ask someone a question and get the apathetic 'I don't care' response, I often will remind them them that I didn't ask them 'if they cared', and that a definitive answer would be appreciated. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

[Karren H]

My level caring is totally dependent on the level of caring to whom the caring would be given to.... I don't care about people who don't care....

[Marleena]

I use to care too much about others until I found out they didn't care if I cared. So who cares?

[Kate Simmons]

If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother coming on the Forum Freddy.:battingeyelashes::)