Boundaries, my need to feel attractive, thoughts about being more stealth

So I've been in a bit of a bad mood for the last week or so (possibly due to the days on end of overcast weather). Long story short: I'm lonely.

I haven't really dated much. It isn't that I haven't wanted to, it's--I don't exactly know why, I've never really been good at getting myself into a relationship. I'm thirty-two, which I know isn't old, but I am closer to forty than I am to twenty and I'm really worried that maybe I'm just not the type of person people want to date. I have to admit that a thought running through my head a lot recently is: "What the hell is wrong with me!"

For one I have very strict boundaries, stricter than most people. I learned recently that the best way to deal with someone who is bipolar is to have strict boundaries with them, which I'm glad I learned, because it really helps me make sense to myself. My mother, and my younger brother both are severe bipolars. Also, I have the body that I have.

Okay, about that, I think the issue is more my own than anyone else's, but still it is an issue.

Basically, I like my body. I can truly say that, and considering I am trans* I'm very lucky in that regard. I'm fairly curvy--I mean I wouldn't call myself a curvy girl but I'm not boy shaped--I have big breasts, dainty hands(yes dainty--I tell people this and they don't believe me until we actually compare hand sizes--they are definitely no man sized), and really I'm fairly well within female averages (well except my breasts are actually bigger than average). I mean, there are definitely times when I don't like how I look, times when I think I look particularly trans, but if I look at myself objectively (which is admittedly much harder to do now than in was before I transitioned) I look fine. Actually I look good--no need to be humble here--I'm rather beautiful.

Still, there's that unseen thing down below...I can't enjoy it. Masturbating alone I do my best to imagine it as a vagina (always have actually) and it's disappointing at best. With someone else--well I just couldn't. The thought of it makes my skin crawl. I mean for someone to see it and treat it like a penis would be for me absolutely horrible, like really horrible.

So before I could consider physical intimacy with anyone I need to make sure that they would absolutely respect that...and that is something that most people don't even understand. I don't think people can understand how someone can be a sexual person and absolutely hate their sex organs. And having dated a lesbian who actually wanted to me to expose that to her...I have some trust issues, or anyway, I need to know someone well enough to know they wouldn't do that to me.

So I'm standoffish, and then when someone does seem to be interested in me they usually lose interest after a while because it takes me a long time to both open up and get to know them well enough that I am comfortable being attracted to them.

The girl I dated before I transitioned and I had a very not intimate relationship, as in she was very clear that she didn't love me and didn't want me to love her. Honestly I was fine with that, and even now I'm not particularly resentful. I hadn't dated anyone before her and I just needed to feel attractive. I was willing to do the whole heterosexual guy thing just for that. I was younger then, and still deeply closeted.

I'm kind of at that place again. I mean, I am much more clear in what I am willing to do. Anything involving my penis* (as such) would not make me feel attractive. Anything but actually, like skin crawling. But I really need to feel attractive.

Like, I know I'm beautiful, but that is such an abstract thing. I need to feel wanted and desirable as myself.

And I guess that's it. Really, I would like (for once in my life) to have a somewhat serious relationship. I would really like to (mutually) fall in love with someone (something that I've never experienced) but honestly...

Just someone I like, respect, and am attracted to. Just so I know that there is someone out there who finds me desirable.

I really need that right now.

On that end, I was thinking this morning about how maybe it is time for me to leave the trans* label behind. I've written before that I'm not really transgender (because there isn't anything trans about my gender). There is a physical reality about my body and the pills I have to take. There is also the reality of my past, though I think especially recently I'm letting it go--it isn't me any more. And I think there are lesbians who can accept those realities. I think most people, if they really think about it and soul search, aren't attracted to women as walking vaginas. I think for most people, it's other things: someone's smile, her laugh, her hair, breasts, the way she does her make-up (or doesn't) how girly (or not girly) she is. I think the majority of people are really attracted to all the other things that make a woman, not the idea (because let's face it in most social situations we don't walk around naked) that she has a vagina. But, in being as out as I have been, I haven't just been asking for that. There's the social stigma that comes along with dating an out trans*woman even (if not especially in) the LGBT community, e.g. "So are you still gay? Are you into that type of thing? Do you like penis now?" and though I can't condone someone for not being willing to go through that for the sake of a relationship, but (since most relationships don't work out anyway) I can't condemn it either.

I think it's bull that things are like that, and it's why I have been as out as I have been, but honestly at the cost of never dating (or having chasers as my only option)?

I don't know.

In the short-term, I need to get certified for substance abuse counseling so I can get a better paying career. Once that has happened maybe I should move elsewhere, somewhere where no one knows I'm trans* and I could pick and choose who I told. Or maybe I should step back from it, maybe people will start to forget.

And then thinking about all this I stood in line at the grocery store behind an obviously trans* woman. It was the checkout girl's first day. She was very polite and I didn't get the impression was judging the trans*woman, but I could also tell her perception of the woman in front of me in line was completely different than her perception of me. I was the normal one. She smiled at me differently. I had to check my privilege. It made me feel better, not that I'm proud of that.

Stealth for me is an option, and honestly outside of my small section of RVA's queer community, I am. A lot of trans* people don't have that option.

Being stealth is really a complicated thing. You know, outside of my small section of RVA's queer community (and even to an extent within in) people don't know I'm gay either. Is it my responsibility to tell everyone?