Yes, so true. Even without my having taken the first real step on any kind of tangible journey, the mere conscious rejection of the societally-expected assumption of the normative framework has helped me with coming to terms.

I always rejected the expectations, but could never really explain why I did so. I always preferred the solitary, introspective life, rather than the demonstrative, aggressive, masculine one. My own fear/shame/shyness and defensive rejection of personal alternatives should have been a giveaway, and they may have been for someone who was more perceptive. I remember on most occasions I have had to do so, when walking through the women’s sections of department stores to get to the section I needed to, feeling my face temperature rising, while hearing in my mind, taunts and goads from male acquaintances about the items I was moving past in that department store and how they could be applied to me.

What does still amaze me, even though it shouldn’t, is the way GNC-type attributes are invariably linearly equated with being gay; something which itself is put through the wringer of mainstream social criticism. I have always had to fight against the internal flush of embarrassment (fear), whenever the threat of being seen as anything ‘less’ than a hairy troglodyte were presented as a socially-reputational threat to me, even though I never thought of myself, nor even wanted to be one of these troglodytes.

So much comes to us through subtle and not-so-subtle social insinuation that’s it is very difficult to maintain any sense of equilibrium.

Lately, I have started to recall many instances from when I was very much younger, pretty much up to the present day, where any deviation from Expectations was admonished with varying degrees of vigour.