I feel like a guy. I like to do “manly” stuff. Boxing, weightlifting, sports, etc. However, the concept of “being a man” sounds kinda far fetched to me. Like it’s an abstract concept that is impossible to achieve. Is a man supposed to be stoic or brash? Dress up in a tie and suit or wear carhartt and have a beard? Then they’re are guys who dress up or wear makeup. Gender related expressions are so constructed that I realized while I feel like a guy I wouldn’t mind if someone referred to me as they.
I want to be able to paint my nails without feeling embarrassed but then go to a boxing gym and spar. I don’t know if it’s a political rejection of masculinity but just wondering if anyone has experienced something similar.
Me too. Externally I'm 6"3 and look like a viking, but I feel such a passing nonchalance at the idea of being a "man". I like being big because people leave me alone, I enjoy having a dong because I suspect it's lower maintainence than the alternative, and i like having a deep voice because it means I'm rarely ignored. These are nice things to have, but I wouldn't by any stretch say they're who I am. Deep inside I just feel like some genderless void creature given temporary agency over a human body, and if i want to dance flowy or make myself shiny bronze jewelry to wear, I will. I've accepted that fully expressing myself and my aesthetic will forever mark me as "strange", in the eyes or some people, but frankly I think those most concerned with that kind of gendered behavior policing are the strangest ones of all, spending their lives wandering through the halls of a tacky construct made by the dead, and cursing those who have the courage to kick out a window and dance away into the night.
This is such a poetic way of putting it.