Reversion into denial?

[Tori08]

   Ok...so here's the deal.  I came out to my best friend a few days ago (Tuesday?), and she took it way better than I was expecting, she even told me she had pretty much guessed.  And to my surprise she even invited me to go shopping with her the next day and helped me pick out some cute girlie clothes, I even showed her my entire wardrobe!
  But now (a few days later) she's hardly speaking to me and telling me that she's uncomfortable and needs to sort things out and that we should slow things down...now, I'm pretty much at a loss of what to do.  Should I just give her space, should I try to talk things through with her? I invited her to join me when I went to a group I go to, but she seemed leery.  So, yeah...that's about it, sorry about the length.  Any advice or similar occurrences would be great, thanks.

tl;dr: Best friend was accepting then reverted to denial? Idk, advice?

~Tori

[Osiris]

I hate it when people seem fine with things then next thing you know they're freaked out. But that seems to happen often.

Maybe you can talk to her and see what changed. If she doesn't want to talk about it then the next option is giving her space.

Hope everything works out.

[tekla]

I think a lot of times when we get a bit of acceptance we then go overboard and sort of unleash the floodgates and its a bit much all at once.

[Tori08]

Thanks for the replies folks, and that definitely might have happened tekla, any ideas where I should go from here? This is all new to me, and she's pretty much the first one to accept me for who I am...

[Chrissty]

I also think Tekla is right, I've had a number of girls buy clothing with me, and for me when I was dating, but they really saw it as fun and did not condsider the implications.

Probably the wardrobe made her question her motives, and the reality of an invite to the group session would have nailed it.

Best I can suggest is to drop the subject with her for a little while, in the hope that she will sort out where she stands, and she raises the subject again with you.

If she doesn't do this within a couple of weeks and you are still seeing each other, you will need to ask her how she feels now she has had time to think things through. Otherwise it will destroy your relationship.

Just be careful of those flood gates....



Chrissty

[Kim6]

That sounds normal and familiar to me.  My experience is that people try to be polite at first and are sometimes in a state of shock but then later after they have time to think about it or especially after SEEING rather than hearing about it... they tend to freak or they need to mentally sort it out alone.  I would advise against pressuring her or anyone, that just seems to make things worse.

[tekla]

There is an old gag that runs, if you toss a frog into boiling water it will get out, but if you put the frog into the water and slowly turn up the heat, it will not notice and let itself be cooked.  (I in no way endorse trying this with frogs.  Use real people, much harder to get attached to than frogs.)  The point being you gradually move it rather than deluge it.

I would have gone shopping, but only bought one thing, and I sure would not have laid out the entire wardrobe (in the beginning, before you start going out and really thinking about it in that context of being public the 'entire wardrobe' deal has stuff in it that screams 'FETISH") for her to see either.

Once I'm telling someone about it, talking to them about it, my next step is to dress up and meet them someplace casual in very casual clothes, like going out for coffee or something like that.  Little by little, bit by bit.

And what kind of group session?  That one seems real weird.

[Tori08]

Thanks for the replies again, folks.  And yeah I guess I got carried away and threw her in head first rather than taking it easy.  I just got overwhelmed with the fact that someone was actually curious and accepting of me to an extent, and I over did it. 

And what kind of group session?  That one seems real weird.

And as for the group tekla, its just a local support group of trans folks that meets once a month. I thought it would help to introduce her to some others that were in various stages of transition, just to show her that I wasn't alone and there were others out there...

Anyways, thanks for all the answers and advice, hopefully it should help me smooth things over. 

[tekla]

That's kind of what I was afraid of.  If someone asked me to go to a support group with them, I'd be leery, and I'd bend over backwards not to go.

I'd try to pick something either very normal, e.i. coffee, or fun, like ->-bleeped-<-shack or dancing.  I know that support groups come in many different flavors, but to the outsider, its always seems like therapy.