I don't really know how to start this but first of all, I have a lot of extended family. Like 50+ cousins. And basically I feel like the matriarch of my family is my great-grandma, like the majority of us always go to visit her (unless we live in another city) and I've met a lot of my relatives at her house. When I was younger, one of my cousins used to live at her house because he had family troubles although I don't know all the details. He's a few years older than me so I'd say when I was around ten, he was fifteen. He's not my first cousin, my great-grandma is his grandma so I think that makes him my first cousin once-removed. We used to play games sometimes and I always thought he was cool. I always really treasured those memories and I was sad when he moved away for college. We didn't keep in contact so I have talked him in 9 years. So I hadn't really heard much about him and I always kind of wondered what he was up to nowadays. And I was at my great-grandma's house a few weeks ago and she brings him up, telling us that he's transitioning…well, she didn't say like that, she was pretty confused about it all but I got the gist of it lol. He was born female and I always knew him as female, right up until the moment she told us he was trans. I'd always kind of thought about getting back in touch with him, just here and there but I never acted on it. After hearing that he was FTM too, I just felt really compelled to try and get in touch…like it'd be cool to have a family member in my life who was going through the same sorts of stuff and who understood what it was like. Maybe I could tell him that I always sort of looked up to him, even more so now. I know a lot of my family has cut him off so I thought maybe it would also mean something to him if I was there? And okay, after some sleuthing on Facebook, I found his profile since my great-grandma told us his new name. Maybe that's creepy but I don't know how else I was supposed to get in touch lol. I was going to send him a friend request but I'm having second thoughts…like I don't know, should I just leave the past in the past? As I said, we haven't seen each other in 9 years and I get the feeling that our friendship didn't really mean as much to him as it did to me. I mean, I looked up to him but he probably just though I was an annoying little kid…I don't even know if he'll remember me. Should I give it a shot and try to reconnect or should I just leave everything in the past?
I'm not sure how out you are with your family, because reaching out to your cousin may lead to your family finding more about you. If you aren't worried I don't think it would hurt to reach out. Your cousin may feel alone and separated from the family and a familiar family member may help. It may also help you to share your thoughts. Good luck.
Personally I’d say leave it, especially since you sought out his name on Facebook which isn’t a good first move if he were to ask. Then again it might be worth it to reach out but considering how large your family is I’m not sure how your intentions might be received.
Yeah, this is what I was worried about. Like I don't know if it would be taken as it's really weird that I made such an effort to find him and maybe he'll be wondering why I even bothered when we haven't seen each other in so long. I mean, my great-grandma and his grandma told us his new name and then I thought about it for a while and I decided I wanted to try and get in touch, I don't know how creepy that is lol. I like to think that I could help in some way and we could be close again but I get the feeling that our initial friendship meant more to me than it did to him, only because he was 15 and I was 10 and I looked up to him in a way. So I don't know. I'd be sad to leave everything in the past and just accept that we'll never really talk again but maybe it's better that way?
The best decisions aren't always the one that will make you happy. You might be right in that you overestimated your initial relationship with him,I know that's happened with me a few times in the past and it hurt to come to that conclusion. Sometimes you just have to let go rather than force something for your sake since, from what you're saying, he's doing ok. I'm not sure since this is just a guess.
