[The Oopster]

Originally Posted by June

Thank you, Koop (Still have to call you that!)

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. And wondering why some men feel really welcome here, and others don't. Kind of like I wonder how some Butches, female ID'd or not feel welcome or not.

I know some of it comes down to personality, but I also wonder if it drills down further to perceptions. Too male, too loud, too something. I wonder if it's not the Gender, but the person, how we (all of us) interact with each other that makes the difference about how welcome or welcoming people feel.

I'm glad i have this site. If somebody said something about my not belonging here it probably wouldn't reach me ... I have an automatic mute button on and i'm not going anywhere.

I've said it before that I stay here to give back. For a lot of us the path to who we are is a long slow path. I had a lot of stuff burried that needed to be uncovered in layers. I don't know who I'd be today if Nick, malcom, mike, krystal, and mike hadn't been around to be examples for me.

I was able to look at this layer of me because they were there. They gave me the freedom and strength to look at something that was soooooo burried. Yes there are ftm sites but I would never have thought of going to them because I was so disconnected from that part of me. In fact just going to a butch femme site was a total fluke because I had no clue what that meant.

I hope I always keep coming here or to a site like this. I want to be the Mike, Mike, Malcolm, krystal, or Nick in somebody else's life.

Recently when looking up information for surgery I went to a ftm site. Reflecting on my experience with that site, I think part of why a person feels welcomed or not welcomed has to do with their personal expectations.

I posted a few times on that site and felt very unwelcomed. I'm sure I was welcomed but people just didn't respond in the manner that I'm use to. People weren't sharing their experience, just resources. I was appreciative of the resources but a bit taken back that people weren't sharing their experience. If every place I went just referred me to another spot ... I just would end up with one big spinning head. All that made me feel unwelcomed.

Since I have other resources where I feel I get what I'm looking for I haven't been back. I'm sure if I stayed longer I would find a home on that site. If i didn't have support in other avenues I might have tried harder.

For me the window for trying something out online is even much shorter then in real time ... if I don't connect right away I'm gone. I wonder if some of what we see isn't that.

People come in looking for something specific don't feel it and are gone.