Straight dude with a t-girl friend needs advice

[noble1337]

you can always be a best friend to her, but the fact that she's not guy anymore will change the chemistry. dont avoid that fact, accept it. Hang outs are gonna be a lot different from here on out. not worse, just different.
but you know more about this subject than i do though haha...

[racquel]

It sounds like you're being about as good a friend as you possibly can. Feel free to be honest that she's making you uncomfortable. If one of your other female friends was just a good friend to you and you didn't see any possibility of a relationship with her, you would be a little uncomfortable with her flirting with you and trying to cuddle up with you. And no matter what your relationship status, it's pretty inappropriate for a woman to come to a man and start asking his opinion about her crotch.

I think she's more confused by your relationship than you are. You're friends, and she's going to ruin that friendship if she behaves in some bizarre sexual manner around you.

If she's only recently started taking hormones, though, she's going to be a little flaky. It's like all your emotions are amplified and you can experience levels of attachment, loneliness and resentment that you never had before. It can be overwhelming.

Like Ila said, it would help her to find other trans women to talk to about stuff and not harrass her best friend with uncomfortable questions about her cock. I mean, OMFG.

[rawr1313]

Ila is right, I used the wrong word. She isn't asking my advice but my opinion. I'm just not prepared for this type of thing. I know diddly squat about what it's like to be a "woman trapped in a mans body" or what it's like to go through a physical change like this. I've seen some crazy stuff in my life, and I'm not grossed out about questions about genitalia, but a question like that caught me totally off guard and I have no experience to even try to give an opinion based on anything.

I've spent a couple months reading a lot of the boards before I decided to post, in an attempt to get an idea of what my friend is going through and how to help her settle into her life. I knew it would be difficult for her explaining to her family and then going through with a fair amount of surgery and hormone therapy, I was just not expecting the friendship and the chemistry to change.

When we were just 2 kids I always knew what he was thinkin. As we got older I realized pretty quick he was very feminine and was like a girl, but our friendship was always the same as any 2 guys. Now after it all, she wants to be a girl and just a girl. Not someone who went M2F, just a girl. I think sometimes she wants to just pretend everything before the surgery and the hormones never happened and if that's the case I can understand that.

I try my best but sometimes I slip when I'm just hangin out and not thinkin. She gets angry when I call her by her birth name for example. I don't mean to, but it's difficult when you call someone by a name for 14 years and then they have a different name. It's like come january 1st and you accidentally write 2009 on the check book. Force of habit.

She wants to be treated like a girl, because she feels that she is and has always been one and I feel like since I'm the person who's in her life the most, it's my job to secure that. I feel like I'm failing at it. Moments like the ones mentioned, happen a lot and I hide my discomfort in the hopes I'll just get over it.

I don't plan on bailing on her though, and I'll do whatever I can to not let her down because I know she needs me. I was just looking for some insight to others who may have been in my position, or have been in her position making a transition and seeing how the people around them respond to it.

I just wanted an outside opinion from others like her or myself on whether or not I am being a bad friend or not. It bothers me a lot when I feel uncomfortable around the one person on the planet I trust and care for more than anyone else.

Thank you for the insight and awesome feedback, and here is to me figuring this all out...

[WudLuv2try]

Your friend... she's lucky to have a friend like you.

Do you feel sexually attracted to her?

[noble1337]

if youve read any of what he wrote, youll know that hes not.

stop tryin to make somethin out of it...

No doubt some honesty will serve you well , if you need some space ,just say so and keep in contact in a way that suits you both , occasional coffee/email ??

[Bionca]

It seems like you are being a fine friend, and there is little you really need to figure out. Your friend is changing, yet remaining exactly the same.

From my experience, the friends who remained with me through my transition are given lots of room to "mess up". They knew me with a different name, a different body, and in some ways a different life. The challenge for me was integrating the past and the lies and even the shame with who I was and who was becoming.

For my friends, this was sometimes hard and often confusing. It didn't help that for the first couple years I was a total wreck as my body adjusted to the hormones and I began to be solidly treated as a women (not as much fun all the time as one may suspect). They related to me as "a buddy" sharing the things that buds share, even if they understood me to be a gay guy, I was still a pal. Finding that balance was hard for them.

Guys relate to each other differently than they do to women. You and your friend will just need to figure out how (if at all) your friendship will change. There is not correct answer, except the one you both decide. The one that allows you to be close and share things with the other.

You can look at it has having the actual "best of both worlds". You have a friend who "gets you" as a guy, but also understands you though the eyes of a woman. What safer way to find out if you putting out the wrong messages to potential dates?

[JodieTs]

Originally Posted by rawr1313

She gets angry when I call her by her birth name for example. I don't mean to, but it's difficult when you call someone by a name for 14 years and then they have a different name. It's like come january 1st and you accidentally write 2009 on the check book. Force of habit.

Insecurity. So don't sweat it.
We are all like that at the start
Just a quiet "sorry" should do, till she is comfortable,
at which point she will smirk when you do that
& insist you address her, with her birth name for the rest of the day! ....if she is anything like me...

Oh, you are being a brill friend; keep doing what you are doing.

Misha. xxx