Undateable Me

I am considered undateable by the majority of my peers and contemporaries.  Undateable because nobody actually sees me as a woman.  They respect my pronouns, they believe and respect that I understand myself as a woman, but they do not see me as one.  They see me as a non-male person who believes it is a woman.  If asked, they would defend the intellectual, rational, and correct answer that, of course, Sera’s a woman.  But they do not believe it.

From a distance, or in low light, I pass pretty well.  I have a fairly slim body that was more or less androgynous to begin with, and my physicality and mannerisms are pretty much all neutral or feminine.  With a conservative course of HRT, I am starting to fill out where I should.  But up close, it becomes clear what people see.

Up close, straight men do not see me as a woman.  They see me as a safe outlet for their latent homosexual fantasies, an outlet that would let them look doubleplusgood when they get caught out, because they could appear to be progressive by saying “she’s a woman, how dare you question that?” and they could also appear to be straight by sticking to that.  So, in general, straight men see me as a non-male person who thinks it is a woman.  No longer one of the guys, but probably never one of the girls.

Up close, gay women do not see me as a woman.  They see me as a confused non-female person who thinks it is a woman.  It’s fun to spend time with, it’s cute when it follows me into the bathroom, and it has a good fashion sense that’s fun to talk about, but it’s not a potential partner, because it is not a woman.  No longer one of the guys, and so, not really threatening in any way.  But definitely not a girl.

The few people who really do instinctively see me as a woman, intuitively, are all very close female friends.  Maria and Hailee both have reacted with confusion when I complain about a trans girl-specific penis problem, and then explained their expressions afterwards by saying that they forgot I had one.  Jenn, whom I was with for about six years, and who is still my very best friend, could not remember my birth name the other day.

I am, in this way, stuck.  Between my own demisexuality and now comically high standards, and the extraordinarily narrow pool of people who both find me attractive and see me absolutely and always as a woman, the points of intersection are few and tiny.  I feel like my worldwide dating pool is probably capping out around eight people.  And that makes me sad.  The irony is that I am not sad for myself.

I’m still who I am.  I’m still me, I’m very happy and content with my self-knowledge, and my understanding of Seranine.  I am a beautiful, kind, charming, compassionate, witty, and intelligent woman.  I know this.  But I wish that other people could see me as all of those things, too, and not just most of them.