I’m answering reader’s emails this week. If you have a question about love, sex, or life, email me at [email protected] and I'll give you my two cents.
I have bulimia. My problem is really bad and I have not been able to speak to anyone about it. I have some good friends, but I am not ready to admit this part of me. I am transgender and I do not feel as though I can connect with anyone on this issue. Not only do I feel completely alienated by my gender, but by the rest. I feel really alone and helpless.
–Nobody
Dear Nobody,
First off, you are not “Nobody”. You are every person. We all get the shit kicked out of us on a daily basis. That’s life. Isn’t it fabulous?
Second, your question could not have come at a better time. I have been working on this dense research piece for VICE concerning censorship of pro-anorexia content (referred to as “pro-ana” or “pro-mia”) in social media. I did a lot of work, interviewing a whole slew of people, which eventually led me to an organization in Los Angeles called Trans Folx Fighting Eating Disorders. I originally started talking with one of the organization’s co-founders Dagan VanDenmark and ended up interviewing most of the head members involved. Basically, this collective started when VanDenmark was trying to obtain information for a transgender friend with a severe eating disorder and was met with the unfortunate yet expected medical bullshit like not acknowledging transgender people as treatable patients and invasive questions that alienated the girl. Horrid.
Anyhow, TFFED is a collective that works to raise awareness and visibility for transgender people suffering from eating disorders, as well as educating the medical community about the reality and experience about transgender people with eating disorders. The staff is compassionate, educated and, most importantly, in the thick of it. They have all been where you are and they care. The experience a transgender person goes through dealing with the medical community when it comes to eating disorders is different because the system is archaic and is still sorting the fossils out. I suggest you get in contact with TFFED. You are not alone. TransFolxFightingEDs.org
My ex-girlfriend and I had a really sour break-up and, to be fair, the ending was kind of brutal on my part. When we broke up, I ignored her when she reached out and fell off the map. I think she and I wanted different things, but I just was not ready to talk right away and needed my space. Anyways, it’s been a year since we broke up but now she is really close with one of the girls I slept with right after her. That girl and I never had anything serious at all, we are just friends, but it makes me weirded out. Is this normal? What the hell? I don’t know why but this makes me extremely uncomfortable and I feel stupid for caring.
-Ex Hell
Dear Ex Hell,
Bummer deal that these two chicks are bonding over you. Right? Such a bummer with a capital B. Guess what? You were most likely just a jumping off point. This is the thing: sometimes people have to find common ground and, (unlike men who are bound by the proud, ridiculousness of their trained, engrained masculinity), women will pass their common one-offs with a guy like gas. Farts come and go, but friendship is for life. Isn’t that the new feminist girl code? I’m kidding.
OK, look: I know this probably makes you feel uncomfortable because you worry that they are sitting there, drinking tequila, and laughing about all the times your dick failed them, but they aren’t. They probably used you as a common thread and developed their own bond from there. You were nothing but a pick up line for these two women who gazed at one another’s wonder from social media and decided they needed to be friends. They are beyond you.
Do not get freaked by this. Be happy that they are mature and self-righteous enough to be friends without their measly, short-lived unions with you getting in the way. Besides, you have since moved on to better things, right?
Relax, fart. You created a bond.
• Send Mish your own sex questions and queries to [email protected]
