Help rebuilding a relationship

[mr_smiley]

My closest friend is FTM; he began his transition in June and has been living his proper gender since. I've been universally supportive and have loved him as a brother. I've known him for years before he transitioned, even dated him during a period a few years ago in which he was trying to piece his identity together and decided to give being a straight female one last go (needless to say, it failed). I'm on wonderful terms with his family, and I really see him as the brother I never had. The problem is me; when we hang out, I'm prone to the same unconscious late-teenage-years male bull->-bleeped-<- that I do with all my other male friends. That is, I goof around the same way I do with my biologically male friends, but the macho male posturing that I'm accustomed to giving and receiving with others fails miserably because it just makes him feel awful and put down because of his status as a transitioning FTM. I'm never aware of it at the time, and find out days later through an angry phone call or something; he never shows indications that I'm hurting him at the time. So, recently was the straw that broke the camel's back, and despite years of incredibly close friendship, he's decided he wants little more to do with me. I feel guilty and horrible and like a complete ass. We've gone long periods of time without speaking before, and have come back from that closer than ever, but now I feel like I've lost a family member. This is not the first time I've done this (and it is always without meaning to, obviously) and I'm really not sure how I would handle myself were this bridge to burn. So, I guess I'm seeking some outside opinions, advice on how to help build back our friendship...basically anything but more reminders of how awful I've been. This has been as much a plea for help as just a place to state my problem. Any (positive) feedback would be appreciated.



Also, mods, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. I'm new here; be gentle.

[Renate]

Hi Mr. Smiley:

I think that you put your case forward pretty clearly.
Have you thought of mailing him just what you wrote?

And quit being such a jackass around him?

[Cindy]

Hi Agree with Renate,

But also, I'm not sure what you mean by goofing around and treating him as one of the guys. Why is he getting upset? If you are treating him as his biological gender, no matter what his physical gender is at the moment he should be fine. Maybe I've misunderstood your post. He's upset because you are treating him as a guy, or upset 'cos you aren't?

BTW he is lucky to have a friend who supports him so well.
Feel free if you wish to show him my post.

And let me know if I've got the story all wrong, wouldn't be the first time.

Cindy JAmes

[Nero]

Some guys aren't used to that having been raised female. Depends on his personality, background, etc. He may have never encountered that before and think you're making fun of him.

Depends what you're saying too. Any joking around about his body is probably going to piss him off. Not saying you're joking about that, but some ftms don't handle mini-meat or manboobs jokes too well.

[mr_smiley]

Nero, that's pretty much it. I haven't been so explicit in making fun of him (nothing like "nyah-hah, your body is different"), but it's the kind of little jabs at one another that I'll trade with other friends without even thinking about it, even things I'm not aware of at the time. I think it's ultimately that I'm treating him exactly the same as my other male friends, forgetting that some of the things I say could hit him exactly where he's insecure.

I've talked to him, explained to him what I've told everyone here, and he didn't seem to care much. Granted, that was the heat of the moment, so he may have cooled off a bit in the few days since this happened, but I don't think so. It's rough. 

[Starr]

The fact that you came here asking for help to fix the relationship speaks volumes for your sincere friendship. Try to make him see that.

Did he think this incident was worse than usual or just that it had been too many? I used to work in a totally male-dominated atmosphere (a police department), so I think I've seen the kind of thing you're talking about. I can see why your friend might not take it well.

Promise him that you will work harder at filtering what you say to him, and make a conscious effort to do so. Ask him to give you just one more chance. You obviously care about him and don't intend to hurt him. It's good that you treat him like any other guy, but his history is completely different than yours and some things just won't be taken the same way.

Good luck. I hope you can work it out.

[mr_smiley]

Starr, you hit the nail on the head. This wasn't any worse than any other time, but it has happened a few times before. I've been working on filtering myself more, but I just forget about his history. I would never hurt him. I couldn't hurt him. Thanks so much for your help, everyone. I'm going to give him some more time to cool down, then try talking to him again.

[mina.magpie]

I think the problem is that, in treating him exactly as you do your other friends, you're drawing attention to some of the stuff he really would feel insecure about, like, well ... you know, along with other stuff like size or height and such, and I know that that's how guys interact with one another, but imagine if you had to have an accident of some kind that rendered you blind or something - It would be considered pretty bad form for your friends to joke around about your blindness unless you had indicated that you were okay with it, where-as other stuff may be fair game. I never understood the interaction when I was pretending to be a boy, but it always seemed to me that there were unspoken lines that weren't crossed, raw wounds that you just didn't bring up. I mean, it might be perfectly fine to take digs at a guy's inability to find the right girl, but you're not gonna run those jokes after he's just broken up with somebody.

So yeah, IDK, maybe just keep in mind that, to your friend, things that might be easy targets otherwise are really major, and try to keep them in mind as wounds/injuries he's still dealing with rather than just forgetting them completely.

Hope there was something in there that helped, and good luck. 

Mina.

[Dennis]

It took me a while to get used to guy interaction. I think it's great that you're interacting with him in that way. But I do know some FtM guys are a bit sensitive about that stuff. I don't think you're doing anything wrong tbh, he needs to toughen up a bit, but you're not the right person to tell him that

But yeah, maybe be a bit easier on him while he catches up. I don't know how you can rebuild the bridges at this point except maybe send him an email explaining what you told us, or direct him here.

I'm probably lucky cause one of my bio male buds is an inch shorter than me, so when he digs at me, I can get him back and we both laugh.

In the meantime, you wanna trade insults and nasty jokes, I'm down

Dennis