So I'm in my last semester of college and my plans after I get a job are to buy a house and have my best friend move in with me. The past seven years with my best friend have seemed very long and we've had a lot of stuff to deal with. About four years ago he told me he was transgender (He is female to male) in the beginning it was difficult to get comfortable with the idea but after awhile I got better at remembering the pronoun and for the most part nothing changed, we still did the same things we always did I just called him "he" now. I was perfectly fine with that until someone told me that it wasn't enough to just call him a he if nothing about the way I treated him or interacted with him changed. I was a little confused about that, I'd never taken his gender into consideration when he was a "she" but all of a sudden it was supposed to affect the way I thought of him and acted around him. For a brief time I tried to act the same way around him as I would any guy, but the problem with that was that it made me feel distant to take so much consideration into his gender. I don't see him as a girl, I see him as a male and the changes he made in his life after moving away from his family made that a lot easier for me. But I can't just completely re-write my perception of him, he's my best friend and he's still the person I love. That doesn't change with his gender, and yeah I know, technically he was always a male and I just didn't realize it. I think a lot of it was that I was thrown off by the make-up, the long hair and the boyfriend, not to say men don't have those I just don't immediately associate them with males, for the most part when I met him he was acting like a normal female and the little things that might have tipped me off otherwise didn't, like the fact that he favored writing from the male perspective. I do that too so I didn't take it to mean anything. After a few years of hindsight I realize that his "Female" behaviors were likely due to him trying to behave as was normal for the sake of his family and because at the time I don't think he was aware that he was transgendered. (His family sucks, just take my word for it). Once he left his family he was able to express himself much more clearly and everything was a lot easier to see.
I had thought in the beginning that his being transgender wouldn't really affect me beyond changing pronouns since he's still the same person as always as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately I was wrong, I still haven't told my family that he's a male because I want him to be there to explain his side of things. Some of my more conservative friends have left me and I don't really miss them. And other people aside I still have times where I feel sort of confused about all of it, I don't really have a good grasp of what gender even is as I've always just identified by my sex so I can't really understand what he explains. I can follow the logic but I can never relate to it. I have a lot of doubts and fears for him, "what if something goes wrong?" "what if he can't get his treatments?" "what if he can't come and live with me because it would be easier for him to live as a trans male where he is?" all kinds of questions. Then there's the selfish aspect, "What in my life will have to change to make allowances for this?" being so involved with a trans individual had a lot more impact on me than I ever thought it would. I was certain that I could just breeze through that as easily as "you're a dude? Ok cool, man" but I've found that there's a lot of stress and pressure even when I'm perfectly fine with it. For some time I didn't know how to act around my best friend, it was so agonizing to always have to wonder if I was right or wrong or if something was going to upset him, I didn't know what was the right thing to do, if he said he was ok with something then I took his word on it. But with him it's so hard to tell if he's really happy. He's so infuriatingly quiet and ambiguous and it's frustrating to try and get a serious and in depth answer out of him about his thoughts or feelings sometimes, often times I'll ask him a question and get a "meh" or a "neh" or a "you should know how I work by now" so I kinda just stop asking and let things go or try to guess what the right approach is.
The worst part is that I have no idea who to talk to about any of this, I don't belong with LGBT, I'm a straight, cisgendered female so I can't exactly join any kind of forum related to that. I suppose I could talk to him but I don't expect there's anything he can do. I feel like I need some sort of support but I have no idea who to ask, or who to talk to or even totally what to talk about some of the problems aren't even related to him being trans so much as they are just not always knowing how to approach or deal with him, these moments where he suddenly won't share his thoughts or express his feelings just throw me for such a loop. I know he doesn't do it on purpose or to be mean, that's just how he is. But dammit, sometimes it's so frustrating, I get the impression that something's going on in his head or that he's considering something, he has feelings about things but getting an in-depth answer is almost impossible if he feels even a little uncomfortable and I don't want to push, so I just keep it in and don't bother pursuing. Sometimes I think it's me, that I do something to make him uncomfortable but I don't know what it is so I can't change it. It's weird and kind of sad, my friend and I are closer than ever, but as recent events go, I've never really felt so alone. He feels farther away than ever today and maybe it's because while he was with me visiting me everything was fine (for the most part) but now he's back up north and I feel empty. It's like I'm missing my right arm and I don't know how to properly function through my hectic life without it.
