Guest Post by Traveling Bard
Like my other narratives, to know me is to know that I live in two realities at once. This story will tell of how the split came to be. This split is not the end destination of my way out of the Man Box, but it definitely played a part in my first steps.
Empathy
My journey out of the Man Box began many years ago. The power of empathy has always intrigued me. To learn how to see the world through the eyes of another to the point achieved by Ender Wiggin from Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, has been a goal of mine for a long time. It was while I was pondering this theory that the first of a long series of trials struck me. After struggling futilely from an egocentric perspective, I threw the unofficial rule book of “how men are supposed to be men and do manly things” out the window in favor of a utilitarian method. If it worked and decreased the amount of pain I was experiencing, I adopted it regardless of what social mantras dictated at the time. I learned in time that I had to paint a thin veneer of “normalcy” over this approach for the utilitarian purpose of blending in, but I have only acquired my ability to “blend in” fairly recently.
Social and Emotional Intelligence
Social convention at the time dictated that cis females were the queens of social and emotional intelligence and by unspoken extrapolation, diplomacy as well. For a long time and even now my proportion of female identifying friends versus male identifying friends skew towards the female side. I was absolutely clueless in social environments (still am to a lesser degree) and I wanted to learn from the best so that’s who I stuck around with. Did I think many of my female friends were attractive? Yes. Did I have crushes on them at some point? Also yes, however with the social hierarchy I was living in the time I was always destined for the friendzone. I was perfectly content with the position because I still was learning a ton about social, and mental and emotional intelligence, as well as etiquette. The added bonus is that I learned most of my harder lessons in my earlier years where mistakes are less costly and the proverbial reset button is in much greater reach.
Survival
I learned much of the brutality of survival from the male side of the social spectrum. I learned of where people typically strike to create psychological and mental pain. I learned how to maneuver myself into more defensible social, emotional, and economic positions. I learned how to generate strength that would not falter despite continued psychological beatings. I also learned how to use fear for my own advantage. In summary I learned how to love like an angel from the females in my life and how to survive at all costs from the males in my life.
My Sexual Identity
This dual nature has ultimately created the role of the switch I am in my life. I have a flavor of topping that is the complete opposite of how I bottom. I will switch from top to bottom depending on the situation because of the utilitarian life I live. I am ultimately queer because I have found adaptability as being a core survival trait that I possess to a degree that it gives me a competitive edge. I call myself queer because it’s a catch all term and the only one word answer that remotely hints as to my sexuality. Feeling like I am human one moment, an organic intelligence system (something lacking any intrinsic value or humanity) the next, wanting to rut like a rabbit and then be impaled by a cock real or otherwise, all are very much context driven. Because adaptability and being utilitarian has been incredibly useful in my life, my sexual identity is a fluctuating and evolving mass that refuses to take any definitive shape not based on the context of my environment.
~Traveling Bard~
