Help! Knowing Other Humans is Confusing! (Relationship Advice ✨)
Advice for cracking eggs, romantic partners, and platonic friends
Hey friends, hope you’re well. I rounded up some of the questions I had sitting around that involved any types of relationships. I hope these responses are useful or at least entertaining. Lots of love, lith.
Dear Lithium,
I’m a trans woman starting out as an internet sex worker. I’m finding it intimidating but exiting! I’m a bit of an exhibitionist tbh. My monogamous romantic/sexual partner is supportive, but I’m a bit worried about how my new gig will affect our relationship. Ideally I would like to do collaborative work with other trans women when the opportunity arises.
How do I balance my own desires and need for autonomy in my work with being respectful of my partner’s boundaries? All while needing to start making money at this relatively quickly?
Love,
Porny/Horny
Dear Porny/Horny,
Idk. It sounds to me like you need to have an uncomfortable number of conversations with your partner about this. Imo, the issue isn’t the sex work or the collaboration with other trans women. The issue is monogamy. That’s a difficult boundary to work around when you’re trying to turn sex into a career.
What I would do, in this situation, is to collaboratively draw some very clear boundaries with your partner. What’s okay and what’s not? When you want to collaborate with someone, then what? How much do you need to communicate? Is it okay for you to hookup with potential collaborators off-camera in order to determine if there’s an adequate vibe?
If monogamy is the rule then you should make sure to define all the exceptions you’re going to need. Hyper specific communication seems required for this…
And even then. We can all say we’re okay with something, but when things that we’ve only imagined become reality, then our opinions often change. Make sure you have a plan in place if that’s to happen. Investing time and money into this only to have it turn out that your partner isn’t ready for this would be low key rough as shit.
With my last (poly) partner, I had a rule. I want to know who you’re hanging out with, but I don’t want the details of what ya’ll did. And that worked really well for me. I knew stuff was happening, but because I understood my boundaries around it and how to communicate those it was fine.
Good luck hun 😘
Dear Lithium,
I have a dear friend who I'm absolutely sure it's an egg. Like 200% sure, there's no way they wouldn't be. I wanna help them find it out because everyone would like to have started transitioning sooner, right? However, I've been informed that trying to crack another one's egg usually actually delays that discovery process. I have invited them to get to know the LGBT center close to us through which I myself do my transition. They were misinformed about what hormones actually do, so I corrected that. We might try some femme clothes soon, as they've tried it before and loved it, so I guess this is not crossing the line. Tho I have "forced" just a little bit and saw a regression on that. My question is: how do I help without making it worse? They seem very afraid of exploring this side of them, while also wanting for it a lot. I'm aware transition means different things for everyone and I just wanna help them find their own way. Thanks already!
Dear Egg Cracker,
Put your hammer down. I read this book, don’t remember which, and it was saying that the “closet” metaphor the queer community uses is dated. The author proposed a new metaphor, snail shells 🐚 ! We’ve developed this hard outer shell to keep us safe from the chaos and hate, and only as it feels safe (or the shell’s on fire lol) do we start to work our way out of it.
Pushing too hard could make your friend feel defensive and scared, forcing them back into their shell where they know it’s safe.
Instead, try this: be a really good friend. Show your friend that you’re trustworthy, you care, you love, etc. It sounds like you’re already doing this stuff. Open space for them to explore with their gender, but only if they want. “Hey can you paint my nails for me?” and then offer to do theirs. Take no for an answer. It’s okay to talk about hormones and the LGBT center and to correct myths. But don’t force them into any gender stuff they don’t want to be forced into. As they feel comfortable with you and your transness and/or queerness they will likely start to feel more comfortable with and accepting of their own.
P.S. what do I know? You could throw in a casual “you’d make a cute girl” and see what happens lmao.
Dear Lithium,
I need advice regarding my relationship. My gf and I are both trans, she's not out irl, I am. I am not attracted to masculine aesthetics (outfits etc, not physical features) and even put off by it, probably trauma-related. Now the issue is that every once in a while, my girlfriend likes to roleplay as imo cliche toxic men from popular media, dresses up (think suit and tie) and acts accordingly. I feel awful about this, but for lack of a better term it gives me the ick. How do I deal with it? Should I tell her how I feel? I love her so much and I don't want her to stop expressing herself in different ways. But it makes me sooo deeply uncomfortable. I know she's still the same person and it's definitely not worth jeopardizing our relationship over. I feel so guilty over having such a strong negative reaction about something that brings her joy and shouldn't affect me. Any tips, thoughts and opinions are appreciated, I just need an outside view from somebody who understands the trans experience. Thank you!
Dear Uncomfortable,
There is no such thing as a relationship where each person is on the same page about everything, this is including sex stuff. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling this way. In my mind, a healthy adult relationship includes conversations about our wants and our needs. And that includes communicating things that make us uncomfortable. You’re framing this whole thing like it’s totally on you to figure out how to let your girlfriend do her masc roleplay. But you’re failing to realize that in a healthy relationship it’s also on her to make sure that she’s not making you uncomfortable.
I think kink is great but I don’t recommend it when someone is having negative emotions about it.
Try working on your open communication with your girlfriend. Tell her you love her, but you don’t love men, and that you don’t want to do masc roleplay scenes anymore. If she’s dedicated to you, and not her idea of you, then this should be totally fine.
Dear Lithium,
Do you have a sensation of somewhat immediate physical dis/comfort when meeting new people? I do — and 100% of the time the comfort is with neurodivergent people. Do we exist on some other plane and I can sense when someone is on the same page as me? are NPCs real? can science explain this?
Dear NPC Hater,
I know within a couple moments of meeting someone if I like them or not. I think we all have this for the most part. I’m pretty judgemental. I think this is in part to being treated so poorly at various points in my life, so I form pretty quick opinions about whether or not someone is trustworthy (and fun). My experience says that yes, it’s usually neurodiv people who I’m vibing with. But that’s cause normies are cringe and say mean things all the time.
Our brains are pretty powerful pattern recognizing machines. I don’t attribute this to us being on another plane, but merely to us having put the pieces together on who we like and who we don’t.
I’m not sure how this is life advice but ily. bye.
Dear Lithium,
What is the best way to get over someone you know wasn’t good for you? I had a fling/situation with this guy and I really loved him and he likes to parade that he “tried” to make it work but it never felt like he really cared, he was always distant! I’ve found self love but I have a hard time forgetting about him! What do I do?
Dear UnForgetting,
I say this alot, but here it is again. I’ve had the most luck getting over relationships by starting new relationships. And I’m not talking about new romantic relationships. Surrounding ourselves with community and good people is how we branch out and learn more about life. In these moments we can more easily put into context what happened to us in failed romantic relationships. And, hopefully, from there, we can learn to feel some acceptance around that situation.
So, go make some new IRL friends! No Discord!