Last night, I went out to dinner with a friend of mine that I’ve known for well over ten years. We used to work together, but remained friends even after we both left the company. Since then, we’ve met up for dinner on a semi-regular basis. Like me, he is also a programmer which means most of our conversations tend to revolve around technology and programming.
Even though I’ve known him for so long, I had never actually shared with him the fact that I like to wear skirts and heels. I’ve always worn pants and men’s flat shoes when meeting up with him. For some reason, it just never seemed relevant to this particular friendship and I had no idea how he would react. Well, it turns out that, like in most situations like this, I needn’t have worried.
Recently, I started a new German blog where I’ve been translating a few of my posts, not just from The Beskirted Man, but also from my main blog. It contains a mix of all my interests instead of dividing it up into separate, subject-based blogs as I do when I post in English.
In any case, he saw the new blog when I shared one of the posts on my LinkedIn account. It wasn’t one about skirts, but he clicked through the blog nonetheless and read through the posts I’ve translated so far. A few of those were some of my earlier posts from The Beskirted Man.
At some point in our conversation last night, he mentioned my German blog and the posts about skirts. We were discussing the current political situation in the US and he asked if I thought I might have problems getting back into the country despite being a US citizen since I’ve posted about wearing skirts and gender-non-conformity online. I told him I didn’t think I would.
That was the extent of it, though. The only other comment he made about the topic was that he thought he remembered me talking about it while we still worked together. However, I really can’t imagine I would have, as that would have been over a decade ago and wearing skirts wasn’t nearly as important to me at the time. In fact, I think I only owned one skirt then and that was a short black skater skirt. It’s the skirt I’m wearing in the pictures at the bottom of my post about a femboy. Wearing them out in public was certainly not something I did at the time, so it would surprise me if I had said anything about it.
The part about this experience that surprises me most is just how nonchalant it was. Given that he thought I’d already talked to him about the topic long ago, he wasn’t surprised by the posts I had translated. Maybe something about me just screams “man in a skirt”? Maybe he’d already read this blog? I don’t know. I wish I had thought to ask him though.
The conversation moved on entirely naturally and we had a wonderful evening. The topic didn’t come up again as it went back to our staple nerdy programming topics. Next time, I will show up in a skirt, though. That much is certain.
Have you ever had unexpectedly nonchalant encounters about your gender-non-conformity? Have you ever thought someone didn’t know about it, but then it turns out they actually did? Let me know in the comments!
Glad that went well. I’ve always thought it a mark of good character for a person to maintain long-term friendships, even when the immediate proximity is gone: not at all surprised you fit that description.
I was back at my college this weekend, it would be my 49th reunion year, not my 50th, but I have many friends from that year, too (and as a volunteer for organizing ours next year, an kind of reconnaissance mission as well). I wore my usual above-the-knee skirts the whole time, both days with a bright Hawaiian-ish shirt and my favorite hiking sandals (LOTS of walking). Nary a comment from peers or the college president (despite lengthy conversational engagement). Two comments only the whole time: one a very positive compliment from a woman I do not know, during the Parade of Classes. One from a local friend whom I did not know to be a graduate of the same school, there for his 25th reunion, who asked if it was a utilikilt? I said it was not, just an ordinary denim skirt, which I prefer over kilts because of the real pockets. And that was that as we moved on to other topics. IT was a glorious weekend overall, and all the better in the heat of the Summer in clothes that fit, felt, and looked quite good.
Thank you for the compliment!
Sounds like a wonderful experience! Most people truly don’t care what another person is wearing and even if they do, it’s either usually positive or they keep it to themselves.
I had a read of that programmer colleague who was caught by his father wearing femboy. Your post last year said that you didn’t have any happy news. Do you know if things have improved since then?
They have a distant relationship at the moment. They talk, but they’re not as close as they once were. That was at least what he told me several months ago. The topic hasn’t come up since, so I don’t know what the current status is.
I agree that making known my wearing of dresses and heels to old friends who have known me for a long time but have never known about my gender-non-conforming clothing, costs me more effort than showing my dresses to recent acquaintances or colleagues.
Mostly I have had good experiences with old friends seeing me in a dress for the first time. Some ask about it and let me explain my reasons for it, others simply accept it (and probably don’t dare to ask or don’t care). And there’s the occasional surprised remark.
My recent encounters of this type were the yearly reunions of a group of friends from university studies time. And quite recently the 30th anniversary reunion from school (where at least a few of the attendees were forwarned because they follow me on instagram where I occasionally post a photo of me in a dress).
Sometimes, however, it can be more complicated with old friends. When meeting whole groups of people, I don’t announce that I will come in a dress; if anybody has a problem with that, well, they are the group and I am the individual, so the group should be able to handle this. However, when meeting one individual old friend for the first time after a long period, I find it fair to forwarn the friend that I will wear a dress to the meeting. And then the answer can be quite unpredictable.
I have had one case where the old friend, who had invited me for his birthday party, was very sceptical at first, but then accepted it and finally, when I arrived, found it quite nice.
But I also had a case where the old friend outright refused to meet me when I was wearing a dress; so for old friendship’s sake I took a pair of trousers with me on this journey and met him in trousers. We had a nice reunion, but still I am a bit disappointed that he was not able to accept my clothing preferences.
It really does feel like with old friends you have some sort of artificial standard you need to live up to that you set with them long ago — as though neither of you has developed and changed since you initially became friends. I find that’s especially true with friends I don’t see often in person.
Sounds like you’ve had a mixed bag of responses. At least most of them have been positive, even if some old friends were hesitant at first. I’m glad the one learned to accept it! It really isn’t a big deal once you get over the initial surprise.
Alex, what you said about old friends having an artificial standard is so true. Moreover, there can be a feeling that your old ftiend feels mortified that they thought they knew you pretty well, but not to the.extent that that was a secret that they would never had guessed about you. New acquaintances have no preconceptions about you, of course.
Best outcome tho’ would be if your old friend had indulged in the same proclivity – and you’d never have guessed!
That really would have been the best outcome! I’ve actually often thought about how amazing that would be!
Cool, the fact that you have such friend (and I bet you’re 30+ years old) is a great thing – people at some point of life are so into the family and work that suddenly meeting old friend sounds like mission impossible.
About his recalling of you wearing skirt earlier – I don’t think he would deliberately lie to you but we as people usually make some assumptions to understand the world a bit easier – maybe he thought about you back in the days as someone ‘a bit different ‘ and then, as the time goes and memory loses track of all the details, various things got mixed up.
That is true! And I can understand why people start to focus more on family and work. It’s a lot of work to keep up friendships when you have so many other obligations, but it’s definitely worth it!
You might be right about him thinking about to that time and thinking that something was “a bit different”. 😉