This... this will be very long-winded. I really don't expect you to have anything to say in response, let alone even read through this entire thing...

But, I just need somewhere to place all of the words that've been making my mind ache, as of late.

First off, just a tidbit of background info. I am transgendered. I began transitioning from female to male a year ago, and I am currently six months on testosterone.

So. Now that that's out there.

I have a girlfriend. She's been my best friend for five years. We met when we were eleven after she moved in next door to me, and we started dating at the age of fourteen. She helped me to discover my gender identity and whatnot, though contrary to popular belief, I didn't transition for her or because of her. Even if she were out of the equation, I'd still identify as male.

When I was living as a girl, I identified, for the most part, as straight. Though, I was never against being with girls. In fact, I really wanted to, but I just never had the chance. The point is, though, that I had been with several guys.

As a male, I identify as straight. Which shouldn't make sense. Which really /doesn't/ make sense.

And, you know what? I'm pretty sure that's complete bullshit.

I have been denying it for well over a year, now, but it actually feels incredibly right to admit it. Which scares the hell out of me.

I am attracted to men.

There.

I have absolutely no problem with my sexuality. In fact, I love being like this. I love feeling so mellow, as if I don't have to be boxed in and attracted to only one type of person. I want to be attracted to anyone and everyone who catches my eye.

The issue is that my girlfriend would have a problem with it. A very big problem.

She has nothing against those who don't fall under the category of heterosexuality, not in the slightest. She's all for gay rights and trans rights and pretty much the rights of everyone under the sun -- I mean, she's dating /me/, for god's sake.

But, she's very particular with her men.

She absolutely loves the concept of men. She is infatuated with anything and everything masculine. Ironic, I know. In her eyes, however, the last thing she wants is for her man to be anything less than... well, a man. A guy who doesn't ogle after the same men which she does. A guy who hasn't been with other guys.

You know, she's... entitled to her preferences.

But, she sort of takes it to the next level.

My past is her greatest misery.

There was a point in our friendship where she drifted away and sort of abandoned me because I'd gotten into drugs and the act of seeking attention by sort of whoring myself out. I didn't have many takers. But, the guys I did hook up with? Ay... I'm still a virgin. But that's about where the line is drawn.

It eventually led into some nasty stuff, a few incidents of being sexually abused by a twenty-year-old man when I was fourteen... Which I'm over, for the most part. I've accepted it as something that just happened.

The point is, though, that she pretty much blames me for all of it. I hate that. I hate it so much, because it is so unreasonable of her. She once went through a bout of anger and misery, where she considered cheating on me out of disgust in the thought that I'd been with other guys, before.

I think that I'm unhappy with her.

Which, again, scares the shit out of me.

We're everything to each other. I'm the only person she's ever seen herself growing up to marry, and she's the only person I've ever emotionally opened up to.

Despite the latter, I don't think she really knows who I am.

I won't lie. I have a knack for sizing people up both in intelligence and in emotion. I know every corner of her mind, whether she believes that, or not.

She's a very kind person, to absolutely everyone. The funny thing, though? I'm the only person she can be mean to. I'm the only person she ever judges. I'm not allowed to be myself, with her. I have to fit her every ideal. And when I try to talk to her about it? She gets very upset. She finds a way to manipulate the discussion to make it into a fight and pin the blame on me, so I end up having to apologize to her.

That's why I've stopped trying. When I don't say anything about the things she does that hurt me, we don't fight.

I'm bipolar. She doesn't support me, with that. She hasn't said it aloud, but I can tell that she wants me to keep it to myself and work it all out on my own. She says that it scares her and frustrates her, so she doesn't want to have to deal with it. For that reason, when I go through rough patches, I put up a facade just to please her. Which is easy, considering we're currently long distance. It's simple, lying through the written word without her having to plainly see the wreck that I am, in those moments. I drive out to see her every now and again, but otherwise, we do most of out communication online and through the phone.

For an entire year, I was absolutely infatuated and obsessed with her.

Now, though?

I don't think I'm obsessed, anymore.

That, however, doesn't mean that I love her any less.

I don't want to hurt her. That is the absolute last thing that I want. And honestly? I don't think I would make it without her, either. Despite it all, we're absolutely perfect for one another. If she never judged absolutely everything I do and say, if she generally accepted me as a person... We would just be absolute perfection, and I wouldn't mind at all if I were to spend the rest of my life with her.

We're both incredibly talented people. We excel at basically everything having to do with art. We write, we draw, we act... And this isn't low self-esteem talking, but I know for a fact that she's better than me at all of it. Everything but music, I think. I play several instruments, compose entire orchestrated pieces... I'm very proud of all that.

The thing is, though, that I support her in everything. And I mean absolutely everything. We're always talking about her work, all of her projects, all of the plays that she's been given roles for, all of the stories that she's working on, all of the modeling gigs she's working up to, the pageant which she was invited to compete in, all of the cartoons that she writes and draws out and wants to make when she gets out of high school.

And I'm on the side-lines. Always. I live in her shadow, and I have been for the past five years. She trumps me in all, she's successful in every way, she's a straight-A student with incredible ambition and the ability to do anything and everything she dreams of. Whereas I might as well be a drug-addicted, degenerated, typically struggling artist.

She doesn't support my work, though. It's just always about her. She cheers me on, but I wouldn't say at all that she's interested. I can sense the spite she carries about me and my music. I don't think she likes that I have a general success in that. Even though I've invited her, she's never come to a single one of my concerts, even though she's been free for most, if not all of them. She didn't even come when I did an actual gig at a local theatre in a chamber orchestra, playing one of Handel's concertos.

The only things of mine which she supports are my photography and my transition. I'm convinced that the only reason she cares about my photography is because she wants me to take shots of her for her modeling career. And the only reason she cares about my transition is because she can't be with me if I'm not a man in every way shape and form.

And she doesn't respect me or what I enjoy. I'm very into horses and riding, and I have been for six years. It is one of my greatest joys, and I couldn't think of a creature more beautiful and more interesting and more lovable than the horse. She calls me a "horse person", though. She says that horse people are weird and crazy. She scoffs me for it.

She said one of the worst things to me, the other day. About the only thing I value in myself is my intelligence. Call me a narcissist, call me delusional, but I think that I'm a genius. Of course, that's only in certain aspects. There are several things that I struggle with on a cognitive level, and... well, I essentially fail at everything. Although, the way in which my mind functions is so beyond absurd, but I love it. A great deal of adults with whom I've become fairly close have called me a genius. Perhaps in rather loose terms, because everyone does have a different view of the definition, but they can at least recognize my intellect.

It's something that I hate to hear myself say, though, because I do not boast. I never boast. I feel terrible about it. I keep very quiet about my accomplishments and only discuss them when someone else brings it up. Even then, I'm humble.

Anyway, what she said to me was this: "Do you think that you're a genius? I think you're smart, but you're not a genius." Then she proceeded into a speech about how anyone who views themselves as such is just pretentious and self-absorbed, and the true geniuses are those who don't consider themselves to be one, and...

Well, again, everyone has a different definition. I can understand and respect that, but at the same time, I'd like for my own view to be understood and respected.

But, it's shocking how badly it hurt to hear her say that. "Smart", in my personal opinion, is an insult. Even "clever" would've been a better fate.

Anyway, though.

Here's what I've been working up to. Finally.

I have a decent-sized crush on a guy.

And he's just... amazing. He's talented, he's intelligent, he's classy, he's mellow, he's attractive, he's humorous, he's into photography and film and Led Zeppelin and Sherlock Holmes... He's everything that I love and admire in men, and he's everything that I want to become in my transition.

The difference between him and her, though?

He recognizes all of those traits in me, too. He makes me feel good about myself.

He sits beside me in the school orchestra, and we've just recently become pretty close, on a platonic level. But, the way he talks to me, the conversations we have, the way he seems so attracted to me... not in a physical sense, but just generally attracted. He realizes that I'm transgendered, considering I identified as female, last year. We've never actually vocally established that, but he treats me just as he'd treat any other guy, without hesitation and without question.

I don't know what his sexuality is. But it's wrong that I'm curious. I'm in a relationship.

I trust my gay-dar fairly well, but I don't think that he's gay at all. He sort of gives off the vibe that he's very careless with sexuality, that he'd just go with the flow and be with whomever, just like I would.

He's written a piece that we're going to premiere in the spring concert, this year. He pulled me aside, today, and told me that he wants me to play the guitar part, even though I can't possibly be the best guitarist the orchestra has to offer.

The piece itself is inspired by those old Western pieces, and it's incredibly well-written. He's already selected me to be the "whistler". You know, like in "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly". I'll admit that I'm awesome at whistling. I've literally been doing it since I was two or three-years-old. I'm not too far from having perfect tone.

So, anyway, we talked about the guitar part, he let me glance through the tablature, and then he took me back into one of the private practice rooms so that he and I could work on it one-on-one.

Is it wrong that my heart was racing? That I couldn't stop staring at him when he wasn't paying attention? That he placed his fingers over mine when he was showing me the correct notes?

Fuck...

Fuck, I am in such deep shit.

I will /not/ cheat on her.

Cheating is absolutely disgusting, the lowest thing that anyone could possibly do, in my opinion.

But, I don't want to leave her.

It's like a classic case of "miserable with her, miserable without her".

I feel so bad for saying any of this. I feel like a monster, like a scumbag, like a completely selfish idiot.

I just don't want her to be hurt. I really, really don't. I don't want her to stop being a part of my life because of everything that we share. But I can't see us being just friends. Not in the slightest, not after everything that we've been through, together.

Did I mention that she's considerably suicidal, and has been for years?

That I'm the only one who's kept her afloat for so long?

Again:

Fuck.