Pleasing others?

[Kieron Andrew]

Something just occurred to me, reading many threads around the boards, both on the MTF side and the FTM side, that we seem to spend a great deal of our time as trans people (of whatever part of the spectrum) pleasing others rather than showing our true selfs, why do we do this? and yes i do count myself as having done this for many years in the past.....be it keeping my hair long to please my mother and grandparents (never cared what father thought), dressing in a certain way so not to offend, suppressing the boy inside that i know i am most certainly, I'm just wondering why we do this? cos there are certain other aspects of my life there would be no way id be told how to dress, how to have my hair or how to even think?......and i must admit these days i pretty much carry that over into my trans-self.......but there was a day I did things to please others, so why then and not now? Is there a certain amount of 'dont want to upset the applecart mentality' going on, i dunno?

This has a been a daily muse from Mr Kieron A Newton lol

Oh i forgot to say this is open to ALL!

[John]

I don't think I do so much, but that probably has a lot to do with the extreamly liberal way I was raised. I spent most of my childhood with short hair and an aversion to skirts.

:2c: I would say that there's so much presure put on conformancy, and it's so much a social norm, that for the most part we just go with it. It's only when the norm really isn't right for us (i.e. when we're expected to be feminin when we know we're really men) that we break out of it and do our own thing.

[Felix]

I think being brought up in a very religious family had a large part to play in my thought processes. I lived on a guilt trip and even though I fought against the norm of what society expected I still always ended up doing things to keep the peace. Hence my many years professing to be something I wasn't. When I did rebel in a big way I almost lost everything my parents and I feel I have virtually lost my eldest son. He will be 18 this year and I haven't seen him for six years. I shaved my hair for charity and liked it that much I kept it. This caused lots of problems my mother hated it and when I came out she was even worse about it. Didn't even want to walk up the street with me cos she was ashamed of me. I grew it eventually for various reasons but it's back to bein short again cos that's how I like it. Sometimes I still feel I do things to please ppl, sometimes I think I'm a freak sorry peeps :sad: I'll explain In another thread when I decide what to put. It's ridiculous really It shouldn't matter what ya hair is like it's the person inside that count's but ppl just put ya in boxes. Think I might go write that thread now xx Felix

[Kieron Andrew]

Think I might go write that thread now xx Felix
oops! i hope i havent openned a can of worms!

[Marla S]

Sometimes I think it is due to a general mentality to define oneself by others or something but not by oneself.
Parents tend to define their success of upbringing by the style of living of thier children, number of grandchilds, the career of their children.
We try to respect that and try to follow that "predetermind" path.

"You shall have a better life than me"
Usually (external) prosperity and occupanional career is ment, but not (internal) happyness and finding the Self.

It seems more important that certain (external) rules are followed than that one becomes happy with oneself.

Others define themselves by the job. Job gone --> self lost --> depressions.
Others define themselves by a sportscar. Crash --> car gone --> again Mr/Ms Nothing.
etc. etc.
You get the point.

IMO the only way to be able to define onself under all circumstances is to define yourself by yourself. You are the only "thing" that is present 24/7 from the cradle to the grave.

But we are also children of our culture and think to know or feel that being oneself is less important than going the path that is predetermind by culture, society and parents.

So we try to adapt to that path, not to compromise our family or friends.

I see it as the biggest gift of being TG, that we are forced to define ourself by ourself against a bunch of cultural rules and settings.
It's a long, sometimes hard, way to go, but once the Self is found we might know more about life than others.

Parents die, a job is done someday, the car might crash ... emptyness is left if you havn't found yourself before.

[Kieron Andrew]

Marla, what a wonderful and insightful post, thank you so much for visiting this side of the fence, it is always a pleasure to read what you have to say :)

[O2B Barbara]

I tend to avoid any kind of conflict. I do know I try to please others because of this as well as hoping for acceptance. Do want to be known as a nice person.

[Felix]

Yeah Marla I second what Kieron said, thanx for that wonderful insite xx Felix :hugs::hugs:

[Tristan]

I can relate to the pleasing others. I feel like I'm walking this thin line trying to be who I know I am and be happy yet it's hard to do things that I know will upset my mother so I try not to get too carried away for the sake of family. As I've told Aethen more then once, I feel like I should have just left and transitioned and filled them in after the fact then they could have dealed or not dealed. But mostly I don't care what other people think of me as long as they aren't personally attacking me. That's what makes family hard, they tend to attack and they know just what punches to nail you with because they know those words that sting and hurt.

[Cai]

I tend to avoid any kind of conflict. I do know I try to please others because of this as well as hoping for acceptance. Do want to be known as a nice person.

Exactly the way I am as well. I hate conflict, and I'll just go along with what's expected in order to avoid it. I don't just do that with the trans stuff either. It's a terrible habit of mine to change the way I express my opinions and to agree with people, just so they'll like me.

It's something I've been working on - not everyone has to be my friend, some people aren't going to like me, and that doesn't make them bad people.

[bi_weird]

A lot of it for me is trying to ease people in to understanding and accepting this. Rather than just coming home in full boy mode one day, I've slowly added more male atire each time I see my parents. They're cool with the clothing, though they don't understand what it means yet. Then there's just picking my battles - the extended family doesn't see my boy clothes, as that's just more effort than I want yet. I don't see them often, so it's not very important to me to feel free to dress around them.
I try to respect the people around me, though. I'm not going to change for them, but I can be less flamboyant if it'll make everybody's life easier. The eventual goal is always to be totally out to everyone, but I allow a long time scale and admit that some people, like my grandma, will probably never know.

[Adam]

for me its because i think family and freinds are importtant and i am only one person so i should not have what i want if its going to upset to many people because lets face it family are and always will be the most important in my life only resion i am going ahead with my transtion is because i am really lucky and there are fine with it :D

people that are not freinds or family i dont care what they think so alls good

[Dasein9]

Well, we are social creatures, and our identity is largely shaped by our culture and by others. Heck, we wouldn't even be trans if we didn't live in a culture with a binary conception of gender. So it makes sense that what others think is important to us. We worry about hurting our family, but we're also happy when we get sir-ed at the store. In fact, without others to recognise us, we couldn't be said to be gendered at all, since gender's just one of the ways we classify people.

That said, it's still important for us all to live our own lives too, and not live for others' sakes.

[Kate Simmons]

The way I look at it Kieron, especially now that I realize who I am and am comfortable with that, it's just easier sometimes to present with what others are expecting. In my case, I can go from Sal to Rich in a half hour's time and vice versa, so how I present is according to circumstances and what I am trying to accomplish, which is hopefully something positive. I see no reason for any unnecessary angst on the part of others and I really have no need to make any kind of statement because I'm comfortable with myself and am always the same person no matter what I appear to be, so just consider the fact that I'm in "stealth" mode sometimes.
I kind of make the analogy to "Angels" walking among humankind who look nothing like humans but assume the form to accomplish something, not so much a deception as a convenience. Now I'm no "angel" (far from it) but I think I made the point. I could care less about upsetting the "applecart" but I figure what is the point if it's not necessary to do so? I just feel there is a time and place for everything.:happy: