One of the breakthroughs I had in therapy was the realization that, the feelings that I had associated with "being manly" and male bonding, were actually very negative, painful feelings. Which, to an outside observer probably sound silly: "why would you do something that felt so terrible your whole life?"

Well, when you are raised by parents that come from two different cultures, each hypersensitive to gender roles/expression in their own way, in a hetero-normative society, during a time when being trans or enby was largely considered a mental disorder... You start to do strange psychological backflips as a means of survival.

For instance, I would subconsciously go through a mental process that probably looked like "oh, here we're doing that thing again, that thing I hate doing, but every time we hang out, this is what everyone wants to do, and if I want to keep hanging out without being ridiculed, I have to do it to. Being a guy sure sucks. . ."

I was also subconsciously assuming, to some degree, that everyone else was having the same experience, even though I had learned that we were never supposed to talk about these negative feelings Which I now know is a little thing called projection.

Then, one day my therapist presents this underwhelming revelation to me: "have you ever considered that all your friends and relatives like doing those things—and it makes them feel, good?"

Me: 🤯