This thread may have devolved into pointless rambling.
I'm not even sure if I got my feelings across, or if anyone can relate to what I wrote.

It may not be worth sharing if you think about it.

But it is.

Because I want to share it.
And that alone makes it worth sharing.
Thank you for reading. 💜

I have a lot of work to do, a lot to learn, and a lot to make peace with.

Without much exaggeration, I have to change everything about how I've been living my life and making choices.

And thankfully, I have my ever supportive wife, my friends and my psychologist to guide my way.

I have adopted the label of being a trans-person, of being pansexual leaning on neptunic.

And still, I fear bothering others with my queerness so much that I feel the need to stay away from said queerness to further convince them that I am not a threat, nothing to be bothered by.

I fall in line.

Shouldn't me saying it, and standing by it be enough proof?
It will for some people, and for some people it won't, and that's fine.
I'm learning that that's fine.

And by having this emotional moment from this manga, I have also learned that I haven't allowed myself to explore my own queerness.

Then it hit me.

I don't know much about this world.

About identity, queerness, heck, not even about standing by your ideals.
In my eyes, if someone says I'm not acting according to expectations, my immediate action is to redouble efforts to try and convince them that I am what I say I am.

...why?

And it sounds so simple, doesn't it? Narratively obvious?

Manga like these highschool "discovering yourself" dramas often make these points extremely simple and easy to understand. Because the target demographic is usually teens that don't know much about the world.

This is no different, is it?

Well, no.
It's about feelings, tendencies and not about 100% accuracy. It's so deeply personal.
People may scrutinize, but as long as this is still how you feel, no one can take that away from you.

And I've never felt so seen before.
They even make the point of "fear of judgement and expectations"

There's even this one volume about how sexual identities aren't really 100% set in stone. The lead felt romantically attracted to a fictional character, but they're still asexual.
One of them is gay, but he still has fallen for a girl or two. Wouldn't that make them bi?

It's your typical expected plot about "discovering oneself". I felt like it could be interesting to see how they handle this, and if they'd even mention Demis or just stop at "asexuals exist".

Thankfully, they do go beyond my expectations of it. I'm surprised at how much I'm learning!!

I'm working this through my psychologist these past few days. But tonight I came upon a funny feeling I had to share.

I'm reading through a manga called "Is love the answer?" By Uta Izaki.
It's a nice manga exploring your thoughts and feelings of queerness through an asexual person.

I've very recently become aware of how strongly I feel about what other people think of me.

Not that I can't roll with the hits, but rather, that I have built my life around minimizing the risk of me bothering anyone.

I'm less afraid of being hurt and more afraid of bothering others with myself.

You were looking so gosh darn beautiful today 💕💕💕