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without the roleplaying
Jun. 18th, 2010 08:56 pmRemember those friends I went to visit last week and saying they weren't being very supportive about my transition? I ended up hanging out with them again this tuesday. They had just gotten a new game called 'Descent' which we started digging into at about 7pm. Two and a half hours later, we basically had it set up. Toni was being the overlord, and we had characters set aside for James and Edwin, who decided to come participate(!). Awesome game by the way, we finished the dungeon at like 530 in the morning, James had long since gone home and Edwin was basically playing both characters. Ive been told its like D&D without the roleplaying, which is the sense I got from it, only I've never actually played D&D (sadness).
ANYWAY. As we were getting the game set up, pretty early on in the evening, Toni asked, "Whatever happened to Eira? I thought he was our friend." I calmly but firmly said, "I think She had a hard time with the pronouns." Brady said something like, "I've tried telling you that, babe..." but anyway the subject got dropped for a while. Toni kept calling me by my birth name, but I got the feeling he was wording sentences so he didn't have to use a pronoun for me. Which was a start. XD
The real breakthrough came a little after Edwin finally got there, and before James took off for the night. Toni said something like, "Simon it's your turn" and I probably got a big goofy grin on my face. A turn or two later, or during someone else's turn, he started talking to me like, "Si- S...Seth? is it now?" And I'm like yeah, yeah, I decided on Seth, and we entered this rare little zone of -real- conversation, he told me he could definitely see me as a Seth, that he liked it a lot better than Simon, and basically said he'd try to call me that from then on. The rest of the night, he called me Seth (or Sef), or if he slipped he'd correct himself. I even caught him using male pronouns once or twice which was awesome.
Brady might take a little longer, if only because he's a bear of habit and half the time won't remember to try to change his patterns. If Toni's working on it, though, it shouldn't take long for Brady to catch on... Toni's definitely the ringleader over there.
Good things. I'm glad because I definitely prefer enjoying hanging out with them to having to avoid them. Toni's not a terrible guy, he just likes to pretend he is. I was worried there for a while I'd been taking the wrong approach by not being a little more aggressive about getting them to make the gender/name switch, but now I think I made the right call in this situation by waiting it out and being calm about it. Mentioning it to Brady on aim last week might have helped, it's very possible Brady talked to Toni about it then, but it's also possible Brady didn't even mention it at the time. Either way, it's a big step for them and I'm actually looking forward to the next game night.
ANYWAY. As we were getting the game set up, pretty early on in the evening, Toni asked, "Whatever happened to Eira? I thought he was our friend." I calmly but firmly said, "I think She had a hard time with the pronouns." Brady said something like, "I've tried telling you that, babe..." but anyway the subject got dropped for a while. Toni kept calling me by my birth name, but I got the feeling he was wording sentences so he didn't have to use a pronoun for me. Which was a start. XD
The real breakthrough came a little after Edwin finally got there, and before James took off for the night. Toni said something like, "Simon it's your turn" and I probably got a big goofy grin on my face. A turn or two later, or during someone else's turn, he started talking to me like, "Si- S...Seth? is it now?" And I'm like yeah, yeah, I decided on Seth, and we entered this rare little zone of -real- conversation, he told me he could definitely see me as a Seth, that he liked it a lot better than Simon, and basically said he'd try to call me that from then on. The rest of the night, he called me Seth (or Sef), or if he slipped he'd correct himself. I even caught him using male pronouns once or twice which was awesome.
Brady might take a little longer, if only because he's a bear of habit and half the time won't remember to try to change his patterns. If Toni's working on it, though, it shouldn't take long for Brady to catch on... Toni's definitely the ringleader over there.
Good things. I'm glad because I definitely prefer enjoying hanging out with them to having to avoid them. Toni's not a terrible guy, he just likes to pretend he is. I was worried there for a while I'd been taking the wrong approach by not being a little more aggressive about getting them to make the gender/name switch, but now I think I made the right call in this situation by waiting it out and being calm about it. Mentioning it to Brady on aim last week might have helped, it's very possible Brady talked to Toni about it then, but it's also possible Brady didn't even mention it at the time. Either way, it's a big step for them and I'm actually looking forward to the next game night.
