― my identity, in depth . . .

• gender orientation
  • i'm going to keep this simple. i use the terms crossdresser and nonbinary. you might be thinking "well yhana you can't crossdress if you're nonbinary", and you'd be right. i'll put it like this: at heart i am in the middle, but i usually present either feminine or masculine. when i dress masculine, i want to be seen as a girl who's crossdressing, and vice versa. i don't know why. it's just the expression that feels most comfortable for me, so i try to portray that with how i style myself.
  • how i express myself depends a lot on who i date. sometimes i want to be masculine with someone, other times i want to be feminine. i like to compliment my partner and play around with how i look. not to appease my partner, usually it's going off of what i think compliments them rather than what they think. but my appearance will drastically change between partner to partner, i've found.
• romantic attraction
  • i really do struggle with putting a label on most of my identity, but this is one of the biggest ones. i always thought i was a romantic at heart - i really do love the stereotypical laying in bed, fantasising about romantic stuff, having a partner, etc, and i could SWEAR to you i'm a hopeless romantic; but in reality, i struggle a lot. i experience limerence like crazy, and i'm the most in love with someone when they don't know and/or its unreciprocated. i love from a distance, and for some reason if a person gets too close, i feel repulsed and become very avoidant.
  • however, that's not for a lack of trying. i put myself out there, but once the fun flirty part ends, i get uncomfortable. i come off very cold as a result, and tend to abandon endeavours very quickly. maybe it's commitment issues? i don't know. i thought i didn't want to date people because i was still grieving my partner passing, and while i'm sure that plays a large role, i don't think grief is exactly what keeps me from people anymore.
  • i have a preference for girls/afabs, emotionally speaking. i find them more tuned in, more clever, smarter. i'm much more attracted to the mind than i am appearance (although a good looker never hurt). a lot of the time when i pursue men i find my heart isn't in it, and i'm not much attracted to them at all. there's been one major exception to this. in general, with dudes, im like "i dont have the same connection with you emotionally that i do with a woman and i dont really feel attracted to you physically. yay. you have a penis (*grimacing*)". like no the reason i dont feel attracted to men isnt because they look like men its because they have. MAN BRAIN. if i am ever attracted to a man, it's typically because they're a lot older and well rounded. fatherly. might be the daddy issues talking, and i still never feel as "connected" to them as i do a woman. it's pretty close, though. they have a gentleness or a care that i see in women, and while i don't see it as "feminine" for a dude to be in touch with his emotions, it is a trait i see less in men. that is more of a societal issue, though.
  • i like a touch of arrogance in who i date to be honest, but not so much that they have their head so far up their own ass they can't see beyond it. i don't like it to be all-consuming. especially because i see myself as the dominant figure. not in the traditional sense; i don't see my partner as meek, or beneath me, and i do not see myself as some popeye strong man. i don't care how traditionally masculine or rough-and-tough my partner is, i like to see myself as in charge. I KNOW RELATIONSHIPS ARE A PARTNERSHIP!!! i mean this fairly superficially.
  • for whatever reason, anytime my relationships have seemed long term or "serious", it's been someone else with a cluster b personality disorder OR someone with lower empathy. not "bad" people - i don't think the terms "low empathy" and "bad" correlate. i've actually found it incredibly cringe-worthy and unintelligent whenever people do the whole "i don't care about it because it doesn't affect me, i don't care because it's so beyond me, i'm above it, etc" type of spiel. sort of turns me off of people most of the time because those people tend to be dumber than me (not to sound too egotistical but god it bothers me) and i really just. can't stand it. i don't mind dumb people until they have bad intentions, or bad morals. i think it's because i'm a very morally led person. back to my main point though; i think it's because people with low empathy love others differently. i don't know how to describe the difference, but it doesn't evoke that "repulsion" that i mentioned before. however it does mean i tend to butt heads with them a lot, and things can be bumpy or messy. i don't know. it's complicated, and i don't have it all figured out yet.