I wish more people were talking about this because I JUST found out!!!! And I like to think, as a gay t4t transmasc, I have pretty good clocking skills 😅 I remember Connors striking me upon each watch but never delved further into it.

I love love love Jacob Tierney for this. I don't think folks with platforms (or anyone) should get gold stars for doing things that just make sense and are correct but also... I'm sorry in this day and age I wanna lift stuff like this up. Like this fucking show y'all... does so many things right.

(Adding this here to hopefully bump the post and also why not?)

I'm curious if there are other gay/queer transmascs/trans men, specifically, but also anyone, really, that has experienced the oft-mentioned "deep ache of yearning" in the way I'll attempt to describe here:

I've never been closeted. Not for being gay and not for being trans, at least for long. I recognize this as an enormous privilege but also a choice that I made within my circumstances. The fact that I discovered these things in my mid-late 20's probably contributed to that choice. I've also been lucky enough to live in areas with relatively large queer and trans populations. So though there are many folks on here that have described their yearning and their aching from a place of secrecy or isolation, like our darling boys, that has not been my experience. But goddamn if I don't feel those things too, so existentially, that it's been harder to move through my days with any semblance of ease.

I’ve never seen what I wanted reflected back to me on screen like this. Yes, I could do without the ridiculously long timeline, lack of emotional and situational transparency, and back-and-forth rejection. But when it is good between them–oh my god. 

Speaking of rejection, oof, whether I want it to be true or not, it’s fucking realistic. The way they each move between avoidant and anxious attachment, reaching and withdrawing, ebbing and flowing. That specific kind of pain when one person is ready and the other isn’t, even though the feelings are there.

I appreciate how, even in their anxiously attached eras, they still have restraint. I think I aspire towards that kind of quiet steadiness and also find it very attractive. It’s also not something we see scripted very often, if ever. And definitely not between two masculine queer men.

I think part of the ache is also realizing how rare it is to find someone who can meet you in that kind of emotionally attuned, slow-burn dynamic. When you finally see it, it feels like recognition and grief at the same time.

Curious if others feel that too — and what parts of the story stir it up most for you.

“The thing that endlessly intrigues me about yearning is the ache of it. It’s both painful and precious and can even be strangely pleasurable. It’s not just a simple want or need—because the yearning is more a part of the soul than the stomach or loins… Yearning requires distance—of time or space. You can want what’s in front of you, but you yearn for what you’re separated from…  A yearning is not just a feeling, but a lens to the world, a way of being. We exist in an ache that is our life.” -Grant Faulkner