I've been pondering this question since I first read it, and I think that its a valid question about what qualities you want to emulate.  I'm not sure the gender reference is necessary, like what Miniar suggested "what kind of person do you want to be" is probably more apropos for a general audience.  For me the relevant reversal of the question -(what kind of woman do I want to be...) - has caused me to ponder the personal traits or qualities I would like to develop more, or be known for.

My list is:

Kind, graceful, well read and well spoken, intelligent, observant, gentle, assertive, fashionable, caring and nurturing, and an excellent lover who can kickass if needed.

My answer would have been simple....'The man that I am.' Though, I equate this kind of also with how a parent asks a child, what do you want to be when you grow up. However, I'm already grown and am already the man I am, there's no need to become a different kind of man, I am completely happy with the way I am..other than the body. The mind of my maleness is perfect to me

Quote from: Bones on September 08, 2010, 02:58:56 PM
My answer would have been simple....'The man that I am.' Though, I equate this kind of also with how a parent asks a child, what do you want to be when you grow up. However, I'm already grown and am already the man I am, there's no need to become a different kind of man, I am completely happy with the way I am..other than the body. The mind of my maleness is perfect to me

I agree with you here. That was what confused me. But then again, this therapist was also a lot into trap questions. And maybe it was a trap that I did not fall into as it made no sense to me at all... I don't know.

Quote from: Rayalisse on September 04, 2010, 10:56:31 PMKind, graceful, well read and well spoken, intelligent, observant, gentle, assertive, fashionable, caring and nurturing, and an excellent lover who can kickass if needed.

I'd agree with that. And I don't see this as being gendered in any way.

Quote from: Rayalisse on September 04, 2010, 10:56:31 PM
I've been pondering this question since I first read it, and I think that its a valid question about what qualities you want to emulate.  I'm not sure the gender reference is necessary, like what Miniar suggested "what kind of person do you want to be" is probably more apropos for a general audience.  For me the relevant reversal of the question -(what kind of woman do I want to be...) - has caused me to ponder the personal traits or qualities I would like to develop more, or be known for.

My list is:

Kind, graceful, well read and well spoken, intelligent, observant, gentle, assertive, fashionable, caring and nurturing, and an excellent lover who can kickass if needed.

I have also the same kind of list.

Quote from: Fencesitter on September 08, 2010, 06:10:39 PM
I agree with you here. That was what confused me. But then again, this therapist was also a lot into trap questions. And maybe it was a trap that I did not fall into as it made no sense to me at all... I don't know.

I'd agree with that. And I don't see this as being gendered in any way.

See...if he's big on traps (ie. games) I wouldn't put up with that. I like a therapist to be on the level with me instead of playing psychological games with me. I'd probably never go back to him if I had a sense that he was playing some games with me like that.

Quote from: Bones on September 08, 2010, 09:32:04 PM
See...if he's big on traps (ie. games) I wouldn't put up with that. I like a therapist to be on the level with me instead of playing psychological games with me. I'd probably never go back to him if I had a sense that he was playing some games with me like that.

Well, first of all he was known to use traps to make people "think" in general (which is good) and to check out disorders such as schizophrenia etc. (which was less suitable I think - you can tell someone is in an acute schizophrenic phase by their extremely illogical reasoning then, one of my friends has schizophrenic attacks once in a while. No need for "traps" there.) His most famous trap was to say "next meeting monday, 15th" if monday was actually 16th. That was lame, and most of his other traps were just as lame. Some of them I first thought it was because the poor guy was getting old, but other transsexuals told me the same happened to them and he had been doing this for decades... it seemed to be systematic. He also looked into his appointments book before he told this, and seemed rather satisfied when I pointed to him that monday was actually the 16th, so the others might be right there.

Plus he knew about me that I had an almost cured dissociative identity disorder (DID) at that time (like multiple personalities, just almost without black-outs. It's very difficult to find out if the DID mimicks transsexuality or if the transsexuality worsens the DID). I was actually risking to break apart again as I had both a mostly cured DID and transsexuality and couldn't cope with my body being so different from the body map in my mind. And he did not trust the "cured" aspect there. This might have made him use more traps on me than on anyone else to test out if it was just a part of me he talked to, or really the whole personality answering.

However, he was not fit enough with DID to know that these traps do not necessarily work as people with this disorder are mostly very creative and highly intelligent and so are their alters/personalities (you need both talents to develop this disorder, otherwise you won't develop it). And they are therefore easily able to trick out a psychologist unless he's very aware and clever and really knows a lot about this disorder if they want to - or he has a good instinct. Plus you have the challenge to deal with a getekeeper, which is a stressful situation. DID systems tent to suck at every-day life but to function best in stressful situations, much more than in normal ones, this is why they were developed to start with. And they get aware as hell then and prepare for these situations a lot in advance as well as they can. Therefore this makes it more probable that you won't switch personalities during the therapy hours but have your most aware and clever personality run the whole sessions and play a cat-and-mouse-game with the therapist there... be it 2 or 10 or 50 sessions. So you cannot sort out DID people trying to fool their way through the Standards of Care system with such obvious and clumsy traps. His tricks just would not have worked here, had I still been a full-blown DID system.

I actually had this conversation with a group of my friends.  Not as a question directly specifically at me, but just as a bunch of guys in our early adult lives asking ourselves and each other "what kind of man do I want to be?"  I think it was a really good question to ask ourselves, because if we are all men... or boys in so many ways really we were all 19-21's ish, and we are proud to be so then some self-evaluation of why and how we continue to be happy with what we are is valid and good.  This may make it sound like we were all mature and philosophical, but it really started bitching about things we were being resentful and bitter about from our childhood, upbringing, etc., but hey it ended with a question I ended up asking myself quite often since then.  I personally like the question.

Of course, this question was asked within a very different context from you.  In my situation I was glad to have been asked the question because it meant my friends were taking me seriously as one of the dudes and we could really share with each other what it meant personally to... well "be a man."

That's weird, Fence - using dates as a trap? Is he aware that there are plenty of smart, healthy people who don't carry around a calendar in their heads?

Aight, didn't know you were seeing him for other reasons other than GID...But if he was just a GID therapist..yeah..I'd have hit the road...

Quote from: kyril on September 09, 2010, 01:14:54 AM
That's weird, Fence - using dates as a trap? Is he aware that there are plenty of smart, healthy people who don't carry around a calendar in their heads?

He was a guy with a nice character, but he was also weird, and so was the therapy.

Quote from: Bones on September 09, 2010, 02:13:06 AM
Aight, didn't know you were seeing him for other reasons other than GID...But if he was just a GID therapist..yeah..I'd have hit the road...

Oh, I only went there for the T paper, and we didn't have anyone else in this region who did that at the time, so - no choice. It would have been nice to find a therapist specialized in both GID and DID, but that's like finding a unicorn.