This is complicated and possibly neurotic to worry about, but I did not expect it at all.
I've come to a point where I pass, consistently enough to be stealth. This is what I wanted. Nobody reads me as anything but male, and that made me very happy--at first. But I notice that, while I'm seen as a guy, I'm seen as a weird guy. I know that I am an eccentric person, not the most socially adept person on earth either, but somehow it rattled me that people still think I'm odd when I'm a man. And I get all guilty and defensive about it, as though I've failed on some level.
Rationally, I know it's possible to be a person who stands out as unusual in ways that have nothing to do with gendered behavior or appearance. Somewhere along the line I started chalking my strangeness up to masculine behavior, in part because other people expected--sometimes demanded--that I would seem completely typical and average once I passed. I didn't think it was possible to pass as male if people saw me as odd, yet it's happening.
What is this about? Is it a cause for concern? Am I doing something wrong? How does one reconcile fitting in as male, but not fitting in as socially average/normal (whatever that means?) Is this even possible?
