It Just Is

A couple of weeks ago a white supremacist, amatonormative Incident™ happened and it stressed me the heck out. I don’t want to go into the specifics of the Incident™, though I will share that it made me feel dejected, weary of my relational boundaries, and somewhat hopeless. Ugh, I can’t believe I worked so hard to get a tenure-track job, got the tenure-track job, got a part-time job on top of the tenure-track job, and then life still smacked in the face with this bs, I thought to myself. Who knew you can’t girlboss/nonbinaryboss your way out of systems of oppression??

To eschew self-destructive and unhealthful coping, I practiced these three strategies:

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Wanting

A desire I felt ashamed of: I had wanted my first long-term therapist L to attend my college graduation. When I stood on the auditorium stage receiving an award in 2017, I thought less about the work I had put into my academics over the past few years and more about the effort I had spent in my therapy with him. I felt fine that L had not attended, though I had always perceived my desire to see him there as too needy or too much in some way.

“I totally get why he couldn’t attend, because of ethics and stuff,” I said to my current therapist over Zoom a few weeks ago. I had never told anyone about wanting to see L at my college graduation before this. “I feel some shame though that I had wanted him there at all.”

“Thomas, it’s completely normal and makes sense that you wanted L to be there,” she said. “You two really cared for each other.”

When my therapist shared this, I started to tear up a bit.

I Thought You Would Care

A few weeks ago I started messaging this cute Filipino guy on a d*ting a**. He told me that he grew up in “the boonies of California” and I liked him because of his sense of humor, his weirdness, and our perceived sexual compatibility. At one point in our text conversation he said “I’m 5’8”, kinda average, what about you?” I told him my height, 5’6”, and I asked him if he cares about guys’ heights.

“No I don’t,” he texted back, “I thought you would care.”

“I feel like height is pretty superficial tbh,” I wrote. “Like I’ve met a bunch of guys who are tall and also lack emotional availability and/or basic active listening skills.”

“If you have a face to [REDACTED],” I added, “you have a face to [REDACTED].”

“:) Where have you been all my life,” he sent.

Damn, I thought to myself. The bar is truly below the ground and on its way to the earth’s molten core.

–

This exchange triggered some feelings of sadness and anger within me because I have come across so many men who do care about the height of their potential sexual and romantic partners.

Dynamic

I love my closest friends just as much, if not more than I love Jeni’s ice cream, “Lovesick Girls” by Blackpink, sashaying away from mediocre white men, “Feel Special” by Twice, and celebrating the joy and empowerment of femme people of color combined. Thus, I feel annoyed when I see social media posts like this one:

On one hand, I get it. I do have friends, who I care about and respect and appreciate, who I see or talk with on an infrequent basis, maybe once a month, every few months, or a year. These friends share similar values to me in relation to social justice and compassion for other people. I like the flexibility of checking in with them on a nonrigid timeline, and I recognize the benefits of having casual, yet still meaningful social support in addition to my relationship with myself and my relationships with my two best friends.

At the same time, I feel angry and sad about the notion that we should never have expectations of our friends, especially our closer friends.

The New Era

A few nights ago, I had a dream in which I laughed with my old therapist, L. I laughed with him about my messy situationships with men and the mediocre dates I’ve went on since we last saw each other back in 2017. When I woke up, I reached over and wrote about the dream on the piece of paper I keep atop my bedside drawer. I felt gratitude and nostalgia both for L and for my current therapist, who I may stop seeing if I move in 2022 for the final year of my PhD program.

This dream made sense because L acted as one of the first people I ever talked to about more seriously dating men.

More Love Left

I turn 26 in a little over a month and am unsure about whether I want to raise any kids in the future. While I feel okay about not knowing, at this point I lean toward not having kids so that I can maintain my independence, a core value of mine. What frustrates me more than not knowing whether I want kids: the stigma against those who do not have kids, as well as the glorification of those who do have them.

Flash backward to a conversation I had with one of my ex-friends about two and a half years ago.

Men are Irrelevant

To take a break from engaging with the anti-Asian hate going on in the United States, I wanted to write a blog post about my gender identity and men’s irrelevance. Over the past several months, I have started to go by any and all pronouns. This change does not feel major to me because while I have always felt comfortable in my male body, I have also always had a femme side which I cherish a lot. However, I have caught myself thinking at times: will men feel less attracted to me if I go by any/all pronouns instead of only he/him pronouns?

Whenever I notice this thought, I remind myself: I literally do not care what any man thinks of me and never will.

Determined

Sometimes I forget that in addition to having beautiful pink hair and listening to BlackPink, I also do research. A few weeks ago, a somewhat prestigious academic journal invited me to review a manuscript about sexual assault against men. Last Monday I got invited to revise and resubmit my Master’s thesis to one of the top journals in addiction science. About a week ago one of my former students got her independent project on LGBTQ+ Asian Americans and Kpop published in a reputable queer journal. While I wish I could feel only positive about these accomplishments, a part of me also feels dread: dread about owning my identity as a social scientist.

After engaging in a lot of introspection because I introspect instead of learning how to cook or put together furniture, I realized that I feel reluctant to own my identity as a social scientist because of the trauma and adversity I have witnessed and experienced within academia.

Two Conditions

My romantic attraction to men often makes me feel trapped. Because I grew up with an abusive, unpredictable mother and because my personality leans toward independence in and of itself, I like feeling in control, like I have the autonomy to shape my surroundings without anyone else interfering. Feeling attracted to men makes me feel trapped because my friends and I have encountered so many mediocre men. I also feel trapped because we live in an amatonormative society that prioritizes romantic love above all else.

Over the past week and a half, I have spent a lot of time and energy reflecting on my romantic attraction to men and my dislike of it. While listening to BlackPink’s song “Lovesick Girls” on repeat nonstop, I started to wonder: wait, what if the issue here is not my romantic attraction to men itself, rather, what if it’s the way we socialize men as well as the way the state and related media glorifies romantic love (e.g., people in marriages get tangible financial and other benefits while people who are not married do not)?

Defining Myself for Myself

A couple weeks ago I joined a collective of radical leftist Asian/Pacific Islanders in the DC area, to plug into a community of fellow APIs and can contribute to social justice. Though I feel unsure about how much time I will invest in this specific group with everything else I have going on, I like the unapologetically leftist energy I have encountered so far. In particular, I appreciate sharing space with and witnessing Asian Americans who care about and take action to promote social justice. I feel rejuvenated taking part in this group after growing up in a high school with a lot of Asian Americans who internalized the model minority myth and focused more on grades than dismantling systems of oppression, myself included.

In this space though, I sometimes think about a former crush of mine and feel concerned. This guy, on paper at least, had organized for leftist causes and taken direct action to promote social justice. At the same time, he really hurt my feelings and from what I can discern the feelings of at least a few others as well. In my first group video chat with this new organization, I could not help but wonder to myself: who of you act to promote radical social justice yet hurt the people you engage with on an interpersonal level? And if I engage further with this organization, will you somehow hurt me?