I moved away recently and the main social thing I'm doing is as part of a drama club (we're doing a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yay Shakespeare)! I got cast as one of the fairies, and the rest of them are all girls. It was an odd experience for me, because I haven't hung out in groups of only girls for so long, I'm really not used to it! (Due to a negative experience of all-girl friendship groups plus a load of internalised sexism from chauvanist bullying in my second high school, I basically avoided groups of girls like the plague thereafter.
That was just how I coped with it, but I think I'm over that now.)
So yeah, I have ended up spending a lot of time with this group devising balletish fairy dances (we have an ambitious director
) and you know what? It's not that bad. A few years ago I would have felt totally emasculated and unable to cope with it, but now? I guess I've become a lot more secure in myself. (:
That being said, I visited home and saw some of my friends, so I was going out in all-guy groups, where we were as usual each addressing the rest of the collective as 'fellas', playing video games and there was a nice discussion about how we all wished we could grow proper beards.
Which felt amazing, you have no idea how long it's been since people have viewed me as not a girl! Here I've been toning it down a bit to try and make friends because I don't quite feel comfortable yet, the people here are still new to me and I don't want to scare them! Terrible philosophy, but once I get a stable friend base going I'll relax more.
So yeah! Between the two extremes I have bit of a balance happening. It's good. Just thought I'd share that with you people!
