To the boy I met tonight at Jacques.

Thank you.  I mean that absolutely sincerely.  As I meant also the compliments I paid to you.

You managed to do something for me tonight that almost no one male-indentified so far has managed to pull off.  Despite the fact that you claimed to be shy.  Despite your nervousness and your apparent lack of experience in places like we were at tonight or with girls like me.  Or perhaps because of those things….

You were brave.  You were polite.  You were cute and you made me smile.

I lead an unusual life, which you might easily have surmised.  I was perhaps stretching my star to refer to myself as “famous”.  But not by much.  I am at least internet famous.  Locally so as well.  I’m possibly even infamous in certain circles.  I am at least recognizable enough to know the experience of strangers approaching me in the street who already know my name and who I am….

And I am bold enough to be able to stand alone in front of a crowd of 10,000 people and presume that they might find me entertaining.  I am even bold enough to live my life quite in the open and very publicly as an Out Transgender Woman.  To be the woman I am, wherever I go.

It does not change the fact that I am also a shy, nervous girl.  Able to address a crowd in an urgent and powerful voice.  But afraid to speak to a cute boy at the bar.

Sometimes I just want that cute boy to take some part of the initiative.  Offer to buy me a drink.  Flirt.

And it’s not that there aren’t boys who don’t.  As I mentioned, there is a type.  The kind that is flattering enough, but that can’t ever get past my transsexual status.  Can’t just see me as an attractive woman.  Who is also trans.  They’ve got such a standard script, it’s hard not to finish their lines before they speak them themselves.

But you pulled it off.  You were able to find that line, despite your own nervousness and (I think…) inexperience with transwomen.  You were able to speak about my transness, ask your questions even.  All the while making me feel like just any average pretty girl with a handsome boy flirting with her at the bar.

It’s a fine line I ride you see.  For all my famous “queer transwoman-ness”, when it comes to boys, I’m just kind of a nervous straight girl.  Going through puberty for a second time.

I live in a weird in-between.  In a lot of ways, I have no place trying to meet men in a gay bar.  I’m a woman looking for a man.  Pretty surprisingly heterosexual for such a militantly queer woman.

And yet, “straight” bars have little more than frustration for me.  I’m too gay.  Too openly trans.  Not that I think there aren’t boys there who might find me attractive (I always hope…).  But almost all of them seem to be too afraid to even approach me.  Too afraid of their own sexuality perhaps.  Or maybe mine.  Or maybe I’m not “enough” of a woman for their friends…  Or.  Or….

I’m too straight for gay boys.  And too gay for straight boys.

It’s frustrating to put it mildly.  These are the thoughts that tear me to shreds before I fall fitfully asleep some nights.

But you pulled it off.  You found that balance.  You managed to make me feel like a beautiful woman while acknowledging me as a transwoman.

Even in the middle of a bar full of stunningly coiffed and elaborately made-up drag queens.  You made me feel fabulous.  Even though I had no makeup on, no painted armour to hide under.  You made me feel pretty.

You were brave.  You were polite.  You were cute and you made me smile.

You bought me drinks without my having to prompt you and without an overt agenda.  At least no more so than any guy buying drinks for an attractive woman!

Thank you for walking with me and thank you for your nervous banter.  I was nervous too.  And it helped.

And thank you for the sweetest goodnight kiss outside the T station so I could get back to my car.  You made me feel like the woman most boys seem to forget that I am.  Like the woman, I myself sometimes forget I am.

We might not meet again.  I can’t be sure the name you gave me was real or just yours for tonight.  But you have my card, and as you can see, if you’ve gone surfing, I really am this person I said I was.  If you’ve come this far, then these words have made their way through the 1s And 0s Post.

And so, boy I met tonight, thank you for being not a boy, but an actual man.  It’s nice to meet one.  It gives me hope.

I was really pretty desperately needing that.

Slainte!