asking the internet for suggestions

[rax]

I have a few problems/goals I want to ask the internet for suggestions regarding. So, hi Internet! There are a jillion things I could be doing, but these particular things are taking up a bunch of space in my head, so I want to get them resolved or at least in progress so they won't do that anymore. These issues include the emotional and the

Comments

[rainfae]

It sounds like they are more interested in being perceived as awesome than actually being awesome. Or in knowing how awesome you are.

[rax]

Well, I agree, but that's a value I hold and not a value they hold? And while if they're still doing this in five years I'm not going to have the patience, I don't want to give up on cool people just because we don't share that. It's not even that they care that I'm trans --- they know and don't care --- but they don't get gender-neutral pronouns, it's outside their experience, and it's not something they were taught or believe in strongly.

[sylvanstargazer]

Among my current group of friends I'm the only one who can even somewhat consistently use gender-neutral pronouns and I still have trouble sometimes, despite working to incorporate them into my vocabulary for more than a decade. I just don't stop to think when I reach for a pronoun in every day conversation. Swapping to "they" is easy for me in a way that "zie" or other options aren't, but I know for other people it isn't. (I grew up in a place where, for some reason, people routinely used "they" as a gender-neutral third-person-singular pronoun.) However, for other people who didn't hear it used that way, it isn't going to be in the "bucket 'o pronouns" when they reach for a pronoun

[ff00ff]

Re: the first bullet point. Introduce new friends to an old friend who uses the correct pronouns. Better: Introduce new friends to someone posing as an old friend who is poised to use the correct pronouns and make a BIG DEAL about them not using the pronouns so that new friends remember that the reason they aren't able to hang out with your "old friends" anymore is because they offended them so badly by not using the correct pronouns for Rax.

[sovay]

but then Dream On Futon in Cambridge closed and it turns out all I know how to do is buy things from them that are good and buy things from Amazon that look good but are actually kind of shitty.

I don't think Dream On has closed, although their website is dead-it went down between the 10th when I ordered the futon mattress I am currently sleeping on and the 17th when I picked it up, but there was definitely a store to pick a mattress up from. And it's a fine mattress, even if I think I shouldn't have it on a terrible cheap frame with plywood. Someday I will be able to afford the platform bed that was the other half of this plan.

[spacehawk]

When you get an answer to number one, let me know, because I need that answer too. /sigh/

I recently asked someone close to me to talk to a new person about my preferred pronouns. The person dodged out and wanted me to do it. I've had similar issues in other contexts. In sum, if you have someone in your life who is willing and able to talk to new people about your preferred pronouns, you're ahead of some.

[plymouth]

Oh god pronouns, how I hate them. I really wish I had a good solution. I have no help for you. I've decided not to go for gender neutral pronouns only because a) I hate them all and b) I really don't feel like fighting an uphill battle. And it's not worth fighting an uphill battle for a thing I don't like much anyway. (Which is totally different from hating your choice so use them. I totally support that. I just can't make myself like them enough to use them on me.)

King sized beds are definitely not a stupid idea. I love ours. However, I acquired it by marrying someone who already owned it, so, again, no help. I could ask him if you care enough...

[spacehawk]

I hear you on the upward battle.

Also, on hating "the pronoun issue," though I'm trying them on now and hoping to find something that fits. But... uphill battle.