Raffinadery29
What I was unmarried during the pandemic taught me about friendship
Ever since I was a child, I have projected my trans womanhood on crushes. I did not understand my gender, so I assumed I was only romantic. I thought that if I could just find my soulmate, my gender confusion would disappear. Until I did it – and I did not. Then I came out. Two years later, in February 2019, I broke up with that soulmate and moved to LA to experience my true identity as an individual, apart from the relationship I seemed so hard to find. The decision began a year of strange single chaos. I went on appointments, I had one night stands, I fell hard for the wrong people, I tried new drugs and new spaces and a new persona. I felt like I did for the first time and loved sharing it with the world. The best date I went on during that year was with Gaby. We did not grasp or capture feelings or go on an adventure; it was just coffee. But it started one of the most important relationships in my life. After the date, Gaby sends me a message telling me that they have a partner, Mal, and that they are poliamorous. It changed my expectations, but only slightly. I was not yet looking for another relationship, and I began to accept my own polyamory. Gaby and I continued to get to know each other, and at one point we both recognized that we could be better at getting into platonic friendships. We clearly had an attraction. We clearly had a connection. But perhaps appointments were not what was needed to best serve the mortgage. What if we asked each other, instead of hooking up, did something much more vulnerable for both of us? What if we become friends? And so we made a deal not to have sex. Yes, it sounds like the first industry of a romcom, but this one had a surprising ending: we complied with our agreement. I thought singles would be about connections and flings, but my 2019 is defined by friendship. I met so many people who were in a strange community, and I realized that friends – true friends, like Gaby and Mal – could provide the support I had always sought from a partner. Before, I never felt defenseless, emotionally open, or expressing my needs and desires in friendships – only in my romantic relationships. I struggled as a child to make friends, and as a teenager and adult I tried to just be pleasant. I showed up for others and asked nothing for myself. But with my new friends, I can be defenseless. It became good to cry, to talk about money, to make mistakes, to say no, to say yes, maybe to say. These friends taught me what it means to trust in a friendship. And through this discovery of a strange family, I achieved a newfound independence. I was not dependent on a ‘significant other’ because I was part of several symbiotic relationships in which we all cared for each other. It was not because I lost interest in romance or sex or eventually got future partners – it just did not feel a necessity anymore. And then the pandemic happened. In the spring of 2020, Gaby and I lived within walking distance of each other, but we might as well have been in different states. They lived alone, but I lived with four roommates, all of whom kept seeing their partner. I did not dispute them about this – if I were in a relationship, I would like to see the person too – but it did mean we were not completely quarantined, and I could not see Gaby or anyone else safely. Meanwhile, Gaby has made plans to move in with Mal. Suddenly cracks began to form in my newfound revelation surrounding the community. Of course, it’s nice to think that we as strangers can prioritize our friends over traditional relationship structures. But with the pandemic limiting the number of people we could safely see, people are choosing their partners. And I was alone. I spent months going through search programs, texting strangers, going on FaceTime dates, getting reckless with DM slides – most of them foiled under the weight of just how many months (maybe even years?) Ahead of us. I’ve never been one to fulfill the lesbian U-Haul stereotype, but part of me wondered if I should try. Maybe I can have someone too if I meet the right person. It did not work. But I managed to get quarantined properly, so I was able to visit Gaby and Mal in the house they rented for the summer. We went swimming and looked in bed and strolled to watch Drag Race. For a brief moment, the loneliness of the year made way for the community I had so deeply missed. SMS and FaceTime are nice, but they are not a substitute for physical touch or to feel the energy of someone next to you. When Gaby and Mal started looking for a more permanent home, my heart ached for my own transience in their lives. Towards the end of this trip, my roommates let me know that there is an option to get out of my lease early. I shared this news with Gaby and Mal. “Why don’t you just move in with us?” Mad casually suggested. I told them not to joke about it, and they said they were not. Initially, the same old walls went up, the ones that told me not to express my own needs for fear of asking too much. But they reassured me time and time again that they wanted to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with them. When Gaby and Mal moved a month later, I moved too. They rented a place with a backyard, and that’s where I live now. Every night I come into the main house and make dinner or we make dinner together and then we watch TV or listen to music or just talk. We support each other and love each other in our own way. I’m still going out and I still want to find a partner of my own. But if I do, it will not come from a place of want – it will come from a place of excess. I’m not looking for The One because I do not believe in it anymore. I believe in commitments and community, love and sex and friendship. I believe in the flexibility and safety of these words. I believe that someone can move into your DMs and then become your family one and a half years later. I started the pandemic with the wish that my friends would take care of me like my spouses used to. Seems? They can. As you can see? How about another R29 goodness, here? What is it like to be single (kind of) 31 A love letter to lesbian bars? I made more friends in 2020 than ever before