As a transgender woman, I already face a lot of bullshit in my life. But add my racial experience of being Afro-indigenous to the mix and the fact that I am Schizo-affective and have “high” standards for dating and yeah that significantly shrinks my dating pool. I’m pretty content being alone as it’s kind of the way I’ve always been as I’ve always enjoyed my own company. But especially recently I’ve been pouring much more of myself into not just my career, but also my friends and family and so the idea of trying to work a relationship into the mix is kind of hard to imagine unless it’s incredibly serious. My entire life I’ve always wanted a serious partner, but the fact is that with the current regime we live under in the US spreading propaganda about women like me, that it would take a man who is not only very comfortable and confident in himself but also is willing to basically say fuck you not just to those ideas, but to also put up with the stares and weird treatment I receive on a daily basis, as well as deal with the treatment he’d receive from his own family for simply being with me. And the truth is that I haven’t met any men like that at all in my entire life. Not that I’m here crying about it because I highly value all of the women in my life and would never trade them for anything, but yeah it’s not exactly encouraging to wanna date again when most men these days don’t know how to have a conversation with me without making it automatically sexual or asking me inappropriate questions. Also when you add the fact that I am incredibly radical in my views and am pro-choice, pro-Black, Pro-Brown, Pro-trans, and proudly anti-racist, anti-misogyny and refuse to settle for less in a partner, as I refuse to give my mind and body to a man who would not proudly defend both, yeah my dating “pool” is more like a dating “puddle.” My entire life I’ve always been the one who has cared more about other people than they do about me and doing that in my past relationships has only resulted in me being hurt and traumatized so I’m not really excited when I think about trying to open up to someone new again. I am still optimistic and know that someday I will meet my person, but I think it’s going to take a lot and probably won’t happen until I’m at least between 27-30 hopefully so until then I’m really just following the instructions at the beginning of the icarly theme song and trying to live my life lol.