With a Sense of Poise and Rationality

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For my interview class we’ll often do role play exercises, where the teacher will tell the interviewee to behave a certain way in order to push the interviewer’s boundaries. The point is to put the interviewer in an uncomfortable situation, and still expect him to put into use all the tools learned up to that point.

Today I got a pregnant girl from a very religious, conservative background, relatively indecisive about whether to abort or not. As usual, the person came with an “I need you to tell me what to do.” attitude, which of course I had to avoid caving in to.

Long story short, it was very difficult. My personal stance is irrelevant, the point is to guide the girl into making a decision that will suit her, and won’t psychologically damage her. Still, it kills my soul a little bit every time I have to shift into that conservative, religious mind frame.

In another exercise, I was put on the spot, having to be interviewed about love and relationships. Sweet Jesus, was I anxious. Mainly because I wasn’t allowed to lie or deflect, so I just minimized, minimized, minimized, describing behavior, instead of using labels.

It’s not that big a deal, given people are aware of most of my alt-sex identities…which is what happens when every other class feels like therapy, and you deal with psych students.
The interviewer wanted me to give a brief overview of past relationships, milestones, patterns, etc. but he got hooked on this last guy I had to end things with.

Of course it was extremely uncomfortable, but I don’t particularly like deflecting, so I simply kept myself in check in terms of how I phrased things.

It’s still all pretty fresh, so it was tapping a bit too deeply into an aching wound (not a good idea to sever things in the middle of NRE; everything feels more intense), but I think it’s something I needed, because it made me realize something very important.

At one point, after I’d described why I was drawn to this guy, he asked “Was this a guy you decided to go out with because it would please your family, or because it would please you?”

It took me a moment to answer, because the question took me so off guard. He paraphrased, and did a bit of an interpretation, quoting things I’d previously said about how this guy was perfect because he was fine with my alt-sex identities, came from a good family, was open minded (read: potentially corruptible), came from a similar background, and was the type of guy I could bring home and not lie about, or be terrified he’d be eaten alive by the family.

His interpretation was that I was trying to mix contexts. Please the family out of social pressure, while still trying to please myself.

And the thing that utterly terrified me was that when I talked about ‘family’, I wasn’t talking about my mom and dad, who are cool with whoever I’m with as long as they’re male and make me happy. No, I was thinking in terms of my uncle and cousins.

That scared the hell out of me.

Yeah, that’s how much this context has been affecting me. Luckily I will be getting the heck out of it in a couple more months.

The relevant things I learned from this failed attempt at a relationship were:

- It’s not about pleasing the family. I’m the one who’s going to be interacting with the person more than they are. It’s about what suits me, not them. And essentially, it’s in their best interest not to pose any objections about any of my partners (unless there’s a genuine concern), because it will only promote alienation.

- It doesn’t matter how perfect a person is in every other area or how ‘in love’ I am or how much I love them, if I feel inhibited expressing specific preferences, or feel there isn’t an open space to explore them, that’s it. To the curb.

- I don’t respond too well to male overly dominant personalities, since I start taking little things as an attack, and way too personally, getting very defiant in a non-sexy way. Yet if I’m treated on equal footing, I’ll have no problem submitting in general by my own free will— do it gladly, even.

- Sexual compatibility is very important.

- Right now, I don’t care for anything too demanding. I’m fine being someone’s secondary, just not their primary. Which would have been a good thing to know before I got involved with this guy to begin with.

- Mixing contexts doesn’t work. I was making him step way out of his comfort zone, and him way out of mine, creating a clash of framework, and thus slow simmering conflict.

- A ‘partners in crime’ dynamic is key.