Having a Secret Life

[SaraLin]

Sometimes I long for a friendship with an actual person or people who I could be with as a regular person, but who knew, understood, and shared my secret.

Well, I DO have a friend who knows and seems to understand, but he doesn't SHARE my secret. He has no interest himself in dressing, but has no problem with me being myself. We have been out in public before and I was treated as just a "regular person" all the time. I was just a lady friend of him and his wife - not a CD'er or a Trans person. I was simply Sara.

I have to say that these were some of the most precious memories I have from before the enforced back-in-the-closet that I'm now in.
The simple ordinary-ness of these times, the fact that I could just be me, the relief I got from the constant dysphoria - to have all this while being out and about with a friend in everyday life - was wonderful. The fact that this friend is a man was icing on the cake.

NancyJ, I hope you somehow can find such a friend for yourself. They're worth more than their weight in gold.

[OrdinaryAverageGuy]

I shouldn't complain, as my wife knows (most, anyway) and doesn't mind me dressing "comfortably" as I call it. But I also wish I had a friend besides my wife that I could talk to about this side of me. I have some amazing friends, but they wouldn't be cool with this, and definitely not understanding, forget about joining me in the Dark Side.

Even if I brought cookies.

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Another thought, as much as I'd love to have a local friend to share this weirdness with, my politics and religious beliefs (I think) don't align with the majority on here. Please, Mods, don't kill this, I don't want to talk about the details, but it's a fact that such views and beliefs can cause problems, especially now that the country has become so ridiculously polarized. I don't know how to overcome this, I don't know how to filter this, so I just repress it. For the record, I have MANY friends that don't agree with me on many P and R issues, and I've dumped no one. The reverse is unfortunately not true.