This will be TMI but you struck a nerve so hewego:

As a dude, I can speak to some of this. I find myself envious by how emotionally free women are. My office demographic is heavily skewed towards having more women so I see and hear it a lot. Everyone looks so comfortable in being themselves. They are only roughly a median 7 years ahead of me in life, married, fulfilled, with so many more experiences and stories. But my perspective is also pretty outlier as will become evident further on.

I think it also turns into being angry/ hateful towards one self. "Why can't I be more like them?" "What did I miss/ what am I missing?" "What tutorial promp did I skip? " Which then turns into feelings of worthlessness and ultimately emptiness. At that point your brain wants to balance this internal state with equal or worse external stimuli, ones that reinforce you being inferior. And so certain desires are born. There's my half assed psychology minor showing.

To finally give more background than you'd like, I only really started making friends when I got to career work. This was for various reasons; being sheltered, not knowing better and being first gen immigrant and many others I'm blind to. Awfull social intelligence aside, this isolation and cultural disparity only piles on. Same with Americas car focused infrastructure, the roads are a sea and the islands are barren of social interaction while home to french fry palm trees. Add to that the socio-economic factors of clawing for some sense of stability and you get a pretty shitty sandwich.

And in my case I'm likely closer to that egg definition as well. But even with my hate toward how hairy my body is, or getting inconvenient erections, or how much a friend who went through conversion pokes fun at me for being an egg; I don't think it will bring me the happiness it did for them. I respect them a lot, its an arduous journey. But I feel more fundamentally unhappy.

A minor tangent on erections because fuuuuuuuuck ooofffffff. I get it its biology, instincts and all that jazz but for fucks sake. It heavily contributes to my self loathing. Yes, they are pretty and cute and everything else but I did NOT order my tail to start wagging which then starts me thinking about them that way. It makes me feel fucking awful. I don't wanna be a dick on legs.

Back to the regularly scheduled trauma dumping; I'd also need to completely cut ties with my only family to transition because of how different our perspectives are. The shit I heard from growing out my hair and name change, you wouldn't believe. Then there is the societal scorn and transphobia that I'm plain not built to deal with. All of these things would be isolating me even more which I don't think help. I'm in awe my friend was able to do all this, they are much more resilient and stronger than I for it. The argument for going through it, ofcourse, is that I'd find more like minded people, but I'm already in so many niche hobbies that should do the same and its not working. So theres gotta be something else, more fundemental.

So to that extent I finally asked for a therapist referral from my primary care doctor and went through the first onboarding session. It will take a lot of time. An ammount I don't think I have. I'll probably have to go though multiple therapists. But I have some shred of hope that maybe I'll find a way out that's not ending it all. And maybe at the end of it, when I'm comfortable in my skin, exists a person I can make happy by being myself.

Sorry for the vent(s), these things are easier to type than vocalise. I'd prolly break down crying if I had to say this aloud. Thanks for reading, lol.