Tube Girl

Life can be really random at times.

Coming home on Friday, I took the tube and ended up talking to a couple of American tourists. a chat which began over something as simple as a standing position. One thing I did learn was that stereotypes are sometimes true, they said a lot of things were "quaint".

Anyway, I did get get talk to another girl, a British girl, at the same time. She was lovely to talk to and I felt calm and relaxed. As long as I get past the first stumbling block I'm fine with conversation. We even got off at the same station and carried on talking. Eventually I lost her at the barriers. I guess I could have gone after her but I thought that might be weird. I'm cursing myself for not taking the chance though. 

Maybe I'll see her again one day. She gives me hope for the future though and I left that day with a smile on my face. 

My Week#5

Apologies for not updating this sooner but it's been really busy lately.

Not been in the best of health recently, I have a cold at the moment.

I have been continuing trying to talk to strangers though and mostly succeeding apart from the last couple of days. It's all an exercise in confidence building and hopefully I may get to the stage where I'm just not scared of saying things at all. There are lots of times when I've wanted to, no matter how mundane, and felt bad because I couldn't get the words out.

However there is a reason why I'm finally typing. I'm going away for a weekend with friends in a couple of months and we usually have a fancy dress thing. This year there was going to be a Harry Pottter theme and I hadn't decided whether I was taking part yet. I had a message from a friend today asking me if I was going to take part...and told me a secret cos/crossplay twist.

This has of course piqued my interest but also set me wondering why he thought I would enjoy this. Now, obviously he has been present when I have crossplayed before and saw the Amy Pond photos (BTW really enjoying this latest series) but lately I have been getting annoyed that people expect me to do this and that if it's fancy dress the of course I'll turn up in a dress. This could be my own neurosis but it's also that I don't like doing what people expect, I don't like being stereotyped or anyone thinking they now exactly how I'm going to act.

Perhaps I could just shut up and enjoy myself. Would I though or do I think that I should just because I'm a crossdresser regardless of whether I might enjoy it? It's the same kind of dilemma that I've been struggling with for many years now.

I will expand on these details at another time but or now that's been my day.

Chatting to Strangers

Ok, so my housemate lent me a book The Rules of the Game by Neil Strauss which I have to say I dismissed as one of those 'become a playa' kind of guides. I do not want to become a 'playa'. It would at least be a 'player' spelled correctly but being able to talk to women is at least a bonus. The book is full of missions and things designed to boost confidence and help you on in the dating game. To win the game is to simply get a date. I was looking through it and one of the first challenges struck me: 'Make small talk with 5 strangers".

I kept thinking about this and decided it would be something that could definitely help me so I tried it out today and...well I didn't get a date out of it but I spoke to 5 people at least. It doesn't matter whether it expands into a full blown conversation or you just get a grunt back. What matters is that you open your mouth and say something

1. Man on the train sitting next to me. I noted that the weather was colder today. I didn't receive much of a response but he soon fell asleep anyway. 

2. Woman in Waitrose. I commented on the amount of brands of water available. She smiled and agreed.

3. Man by the traffic lights. I asked if he could feel a few spits of rain. For some reason he at first thought I said 'rangers' but he more or less agreed with me. 

4. Woman on the Tube. I commented that we were always stopped at a red light at Baker Street. She smiled. 

5. Man on the steps up to the station. Weather again. I said I hoped it wasn't going to rain and he agreed. 

I think I mentioned that I'm English and therefore if I know how to talk about two things it's the weather and the failings of the transport system. Each encounter was barely a minute but knowing that I had chalked up another person pleased me and by the end I was quite proud of myself. I may try to talk to a couple of people per day just to try and get my confidence up but that will probably fall by the wayside.

 I don't know whether I will continue with the book but just doing this was a nice exercise and may make me think I can actually open my mouth next time I sit next to a pretty girl on the train.

Invasion of the Hipsters

I was on lunch break last week when I spotted a group of hipsters/emo kids walking in the park. I didn't think anything of it until I saw many many more gathered in another area. Now, I was intrigued by this and asked a girl with blue hair who explained it was a meet up organised through Twitter.

Now, anyone who knows me from the Haven will know how much I love the whole eclectic emo girl look and I couldn't help seeing some really cool clothes including more cool leggings. Some of the haircuts were really odd though. I kind of wished I could have hung around with them for a bit longer.

Sex and Sexuality

I remember a very specific time when I was about 16 floating in a swimming pool thinking about girls and deciding that as I get older I will understand them more and perhaps actually begin to fancy them. I thought that the knowledge would come with time and it never did. I was a bit of a late bloomer and by college I think I must have fancied near enough every girl in there at one point or another. Not that I got anywhere though.

While gender has always fascinated me, I've never really had the chance to explore my sexuality. As mentioned before, I'm straight and happy with my current gender. I have never really had the desire to be a girl, only dress like one on occasion. I can't say I've ever fitted in with either gender. I'm not a manly man into football, birds and booze and those kind of guys and discussions do make me uncomfortable and I can't say that talking with girls make me feel any less socially awkward. I seem to walk in two worlds yet belong to neither. A T Girl friend of mine always said that she preferred hanging out and talking to girls, it made her feel more feminine when she was at school. There were a couple of times at college I was eating my lunch and it was just me and a group of girls in the classroom. Somehow the conversation always got onto useless men and I ended up just trying to finish and get out of there.

The first time I was in college it was the late 1990s and two items of female clothing really took with me. Gradation jumpers and lines t-shirts.

Gradation Jumper

Teacher's Lines T-Shirt

I remember hearing another guy talk about the jumpers too which cheered me up - until I found out he was gay and it made me wonder about myself. As I said, I was young at the time and of course being a crossdresser doesn't mean that you're gay and vice versa. Not every gay man wants to dress up in drag and perform on stage, these are just stereotypes.

Now, not to go into too much detail but I have never enjoyed much of a love life although I have at least been on a few dates and lost my virginity (just). I saw the film The 40 Year Old Virgin the other week and I love how Steve Carrell's character  is portrayed not as a geeky man child Mr Bean like character but just as someone who it just never happened to and of course over time it makes you more nervous. I've also never really had the chance to explore my fetishes with a partner so who knows it could make things better. Never really had the chance to be a sexual being either and I wonder if it's too late now. I have been thinking about internet dating recently and it was during a discussion with a friend that he admitted some girls have complained that I stare at their breasts. This has horrified me and made me ever more nervous as I've never thought about myself as that sort of guy and now it's something I can't get out of my head. I rarely look people on the eye anyway, maybe it's been misinterpreted although I'm probably just making excuses.

I've recently put up a Dalek poster on my wall too. It's a nice picture and I wanted something to cheer up the blank and bland walls. What if I bring a girl back? What would she think? It never crossed my mind until recently that she could look at it and think it was the coolest thing ever. I used to think that I would get married in my early twenties like my dad and that it would mean compromising things but now I know a lot of couples in great relationships and that's what I want now.

And just maybe there's a perfect geeky girl out there who would love to see me in a skirt...

Fashionista #2

Ok, so...

Due to the Olympics there's been a lot of patriotic clothing around with 'Team GB' and the Union Jack on.

Team GB T-shirt

I love the little lion symbol and our 'Pride the Lion' mascot is certainly better than the official ones although obviously you couldn't have anything as nationalistic as that to be the official mascot. It will be interesting to see how much of this patriotic style remains in a few months once the games have been forgotten. Another thing I've noticed is the rise in leggings with the flag, and not just the British one, on them stretching down the side.

Flaggings: UK Style!

Flaggings - USA style!

Of course with the sun out there are plenty of sunglasses around and not the big black Victoria Beckham ones either but cheap, very 80s looking ones with neon rims. The 80s still seem to be in at least. Also rising in popularity are the Pussy Bow blouse and the round collar blouse. I didn't like the latter when it first started getting popular but now it's growing on me. Still not sure if it's the sort of thing I would wear though. Maybe, but it looks quite cute especially with the outfit below.

The Round Collared Blouse

I've seen some wonderful outfits recently too, for example a woman looking a bit like a rock chick with a shock of blonde hair wearing a band t-shirt, fashion jacket, skinny jeans and fake leopardskin high heels. So stylish.  Lastly, there are the shorts. Cut off denim shorts with the pockets pulled through although, unlike the picture below, I've seen quite a few pockets painted with different designs like, and I'm sensing a theme here, flags.

Jean Shorts with pockets pulled through

  
Since I saw this picture I've also noticed that studs have been creeping in to clothing. I saw some on a few jackets recently. Very bad-ass.

When I was talking about posting some caps before, Alectra suggested having caps added as part of the theme of whatever I was talking about and sinceI sourced this picture here to do a cap I thought I would share. This was done for the Haven's teen dream Totalditz since she did a similar post over at Tis My Life - OMG!

Laters!

New Shorts (2012)

Olympics #2

Well, the Olympics have been over here for about a week now and everything's more or less back to normal.

The travel wasn't too bad in the end although it was mainly the helpers that got on my nerves. Now, don't get me wrong I would be glad to see so many people leading the way if I was a stranger in a strange land but since it was just a normal working fortnight for me I slipped into haughty commuter mode. I resented being herded about and asked if I knew where I was going by people younger than me. This must be what being a pensioner feels like. Before some cordons were put up they were all holding hands to guide us around the station. What made it weirder was that I was wearing a suit so I don't see why people thought I had come from the Olympics anyway. At least they put on a lot of extra trains and I used to walk over to Hyde Park in my lunch hour to see what was on. I expect come the winter I'll look back on it with fondness

Still, you can't deny the wonderful sense of national pride that it's brought about which is something virtually heard of in this country except in extremist organisations. It's become such a national event and a real pick-me-up for people. I've known people that are not that into sport but have got wrapped up in it all. I even went to see the closing ceremony up on a big screen in the middle of town. Yeah, that wasn't too hot I have to admit.

Just a quick note on the mascots. I've read up on all the thinking that went into them, the designs and names etc. and it all makes sense in a weird way but sadly I still hold the same opinion.