Okay this thread is about a friend I've had for over seven years, but I'll go into a little bit about myself first, for those who don't know. I'm MtF and I've been doing the hormone thing for 5 months now and I've been feeling down because I'm just not seeing the progress and no one else says anything about it either, even though I have a 5 month timeline picture thing I made. Still don't really see it. But anyway... My friend, we hang out pretty regularly I guess. He's just a straight, married cis guy (with 4 kids) and ever since I've come out to him it's been sorta crap. The first time I told him it was all "you're making a mistake." "you are a man." "you don't act like a woman." and all that bible stuff I really don't think I need to get into. He would reinforce all of these things every time we'd get together. It wasn't until recently that I kind of realized he's keeping me away from his older kids, because, in his own words, "I don't want them getting any ideas." And I know this all sounds negative, but we also have fun hanging out together. I guess I've sort of just been ignoring all of this. Two days ago I was over again and here he is reinforcing all this "you're a man." crap again. He goes on and on about how this is just a "choice" I've made and it's quite obvious he doesn't respect it at all. At one point he even told me to "stop acting like a queer." And to top it all off, I'm "not making any progress at all." I don't know if I can take hanging out with him anymore, because of the way he treats me, outside of regular activities. He's the kind of person who has a real hard time seeing women as friends outside of "things" he uses for sex. And he admits that he doesn't really worry all that much about other people. I'm torn. Should I give up and move on?
From the sound of it, he isn't supportive of who you are and is blatantly putting you down with those hurtful comments. If he was a real friend he probably would be more accepting of your transition despite his beliefs but he doesn't appear to be. It's your choice ultimately but from what you posted I don't think he is a friend you would want to be around in the long run.
He likes to call himself my good friend, but in reality I think it's that I'm his only friend. So it kinda boggles my mind that he would push me so far away like this.
(*hug*) One thing I'm finding out about myself is that I way need people to like me to feel good about me. I mean if that crap was coming from someone that wasn't your friend it wouldn't get to you right? There are days when some of my friends not accepting me makes me feel really bad about me, and then they accept me or they're just happy and all of a sudden it feels like I'm making the right choices. Like, imagine your friend, he did a 180 tomorrow. He said he's 100% behind you becoming a woman outside. How would that make you feel? Cloud 9 right? What changed? His opinion. Nothing about you at all. It's really shit the way mother nature screws with us like that, but she does. So I mean I think you kinda already sound like you wanna not be friends with this person. But easier said than done, right? You're still hanging out with them after all that. You keep coming back because this is your friend, someone you come back to to feel good about you, and now you can't get that any more. When I was in your shoes I came here and asked a really similar question. I asked it to my therapist and a dozen other places online. The truth is, I knew the answer, but it just takes practice. You've gotta make your opinion of yourself the one that matters, and just stop trying to get other people to accept you. You should be nice and caring and everything we are, but you don't need them to accept you. They don't have to be you. You have to be you. Just keep paying attention to the way people make you feel, how you react to things, where that reaction comes from. I had a good experience coming out to my dad. That's how I do it day to day. I know he's proud of who I am; everyone else can screw off.
