friend nine.

once upon a time, there was this college student. this college student was trying to figure out who they were and what the world was and what their place in the world was. so they turned to livejournal.

this person had read lots of gender theory and lots of zines about gender, but didn’t know anybody in real life who they felt they could talk to about gender. but on livejournal, this person found somebody. waaaaaay north from where they lived. this person was living the dream.

wow that was awkward to write. that whole pronoun thing. how my pronouns were different then and how i was exploring different pronouns and what should i call myself from that period in my life. i want to use something gender neutral but i’m not using gender neutral pronouns now so instead in this post, i am apparently going for the gender avoidant. anyway!

like i said, this person, friend nine, or let’s call zir alex, was up north living the genderqueer dream. ze was smart, open, thoughtful, kind, silly, and lots of fun. and ze showed to this college student, me, that you could actually live a fabulous genderqueer life, be in a good relationship, and have lots of fun. man, did i have a giant crush!

years later, we finally met. i was living in seattle, and ze was there for work. the crush was mutual and we had a fun time exploring the city together. etc.

a few years ago, ze moved out here. but by then i had nested into my cozy domestic life. and both of our quietish homebody lives have not led us to the kind of “hang out all the time!” friendship that one might expect after all of that. we’ve had some game nights (or one), i’ve eaten produce from zir garden (and stepped on some of zir baby plants!), & we’ve marvelled at the… interesting driving skills of people in the bay area. and i think we still like each other quite a bit, despite our lack of interaction. ze did just recently offer to help me prep for the gre.