Gender confusion and social awkwardness

[dalebert]

This person started talking to me. I introduced myself and he (I'll use male pronouns for now but therein lies the point of this post) introduced himself to me with a name that sounded masculine. He was presenting as mostly male but I would say not passing particularly well right now, but I took the name and presentation as a queue that he identified male. I'm not actually going to say the name for privacy reasons. But suffice to say I was led to believe he identified male.

He asked me to follow him inside and bought me a drink. I wasn't really planning to drink anymore but I kind of let him talk me into it and decided I was having a good time and didn't want to leave for a while. There was another guy hanging with us and this person introduced to him with a different name, this time a woman's name.

All of this is complicated by the fact that the bar was noisy and he didn't talk very loudly. I was leaning in close to hear better but it was still difficult. What I was able to get though, is the masculine name (what he told me) was his last name and the feminine name (what he told the other guy) was his first name. I asked which he preferred to go by and he starting waffling. I heard something about binary this or that and it sounded like maybe he was trying to explain about the gender spectrum or something. Very hard to understand. I said something like how I would respect whatever he wanted me to call him. Then another guy who I'd been hanging out with a lot last night interrupted and kind of changed the subject. (Boy was he was a chatty Kathy!) At that point it kind of never got addressed. On a sidenote "Chatty Kathy" and I had been getting increasingly flirty with each other as the night went on. I was meeting a lot of friendly people last night.

I appreciated that this (possibly trans man) seemed interested and we exchanged numbers at his request. I'm a gay man. He probably figured that. After all, this was in a gay bar that was like 97% male.

It's a little awkward for me. He might be kind of flirting with me. He may just be being friendly and maybe I'm reading too much into it. He initiated everything--buying me a drink and swapping numbers. I don't know if he is currently pre T or early T or maybe non T, or maybe identifies andro. I'm still fairly clueless. I do know that he is not my type right now but I definitely don't want to burn any bridges. It's possible I would start finding him very attractive if he transitions. I don't even know if he plans to. I wish I didn't care about that but I can't help it. I'm strongly gay on the Kinsey scale.

Any suggestions how to approach this? Maybe someone here has been on the other side of my dilemma and can help me be respectful and tactful about this.

[justmeinoz]

If you are fairly relaxed about things you could just start as friends and find out a bit more about each other.
Maybe use the line, "I'm not really ready for another relationship again, but would like to get to know you better" or similar.  I still have very little idea of how to approach women, as a woman, so can appreciate how you are feeling.

Hope something works out.

Karen.

[Jennifer.L]

Well it's hard to say.  But it's a maybe   I for sure go to gay bars looking for lesbians   Not much luck but I'm damn shy in person.

[dalebert]

I guess I'm in this weird place, kind of on the fence... On the one hand, I don't want to lead this person on because I'm honestly not physically attracted... yet. On the other hand, if this person has plans to transition, I might very well become attracted later, but that's a definite "if". I have no idea what this person's plans are.

What I don't want to do is convey any sort of impression that him being (possibly) trans is an issue in and of itself. It's not. I've lost count of how many trans men I've been quite attracted to.

I'm very uncomfortable with even "little white lies" though. I don't want to imply it's about me not ready for a relationship when that's not really true and it's something else. I am of the belief that even small, well meant lies tend to come back and bite you in the ass sooner or later. After all, I'm sure this person saw lots of flirtations going on with other guys there, one person in particular. It would come across disingenuous.

[Amazon D]

Be their friend they may need it and you may need one some day too..

[dalebert]

Be their friend they may need it and you may need one some day too..

I agree, and I intend to. I just have to figure out how to walk that line without leading him on.

[eli77]

I think you may be over thinking this a bit. I'm sure you've been hit on by guys that you thought were cool but weren't attracted to before. How did you respond? Something along the lines of "I'd like to hang out with you, but I'm not interested in more than friends" right? Try that.

What his body may or may not look like in the future is a) no guarantee that you will then be attracted to him and b) not really your business at this point.

If he asks why, you say "I'm just not attracted to you." If he asks if it's because he's trans, you say, truthfully, "no." Though really, I doubt he'd ask either of those questions. People usually don't. 'Cause then they get, you know, answers.

Being truthful and honest doesn't mean volunteering massive swaths of information. It just means not lying to him, and not leading him on. If the situation changes in the future and he becomes attractive to you for whatever reason, you can deal with that then.

[Adam (birkin)]

What his body may or may not look like in the future is a) no guarantee that you will then be attracted to him and b) not really your business at this point.

If the situation changes in the future and he becomes attractive to you for whatever reason, you can deal with that then.

I agree with Sarah, particularly these points. I think it's best to focus on the present, and if the present case is that you're not that attracted to him, it might just be best to leave it at that instead of thinking of what may happen.

[dalebert]

Very sensible advice. Thx.