I met up with a lovely fellow today for a coffee and a walk. The coffee (or various brews of chai) were fine. The walking was ill-advised!

Serve me right for not being up front with him about my heart problem!

I quickly had to put that omission right because I really should be being more careful … but I also want friends (and playmates), so there’s an element of needing to “put myself out there”.

Maybe I should be less impatient with my health. I think I have been saying that since day zero.

We walked for a while, slowly unfolding who we are to each other. I couldn’t take my eyes away from his. “Honey coloured,” I said. “Amber,” he corrected me. It was certainly a better description of them.

I’ll call him “Ambrosius” after his magical eyes.

He shared a lot about himself. He said he was discreet, which comes from having encountered prejudice from colleagues and neighbours, and his own family background – they tolerate him as long as he doesn’t tell any of their friends or relatives – I wanted to hug him. He said he was “OK” with it – that’s just the way it is in Asian communities.

Stopping in a chai shop, we had our spiced tea and a cheese cake with chocolate sauce. Delicious and sweet!

Somehow we got onto the topic of religion, which was important to him. I did find that part of the conversation more difficult, probably from my own religious upbringing, but I loved the way he looked for commonality between religions and separated the human institutions from the divine messages.

He is a devout Muslim, but one who has found his own accommodation with god – by actually reading and thinking about what he reads and bringing it into his life in a way that honours his own identity and creates a loving relationship with his god. I felt honoured that he trusted me with his understanding of his place in the world – it seemed that I was meeting the most authentic version of himself.

He was interested in my gender status and asked curious and insightful questions. I had to say that he didn’t need to apologise for asking about it – I enjoy talking about it and he was being sensitive in how he was asking.

It was lovely talking about books together as there was some crossover in interest. I have never been able to talk about books with my husband, and that has made me sad that something so important to me I could not share. Having somebody share my interests makes me feel more seen and understood.

That got me thinking of something my husband said: that I didn’t share much of myself with him. Whilst that is undoubtedly true (think of keeping my confusion and fears about my gender identity and my relationship with my body from him for quarter of a century), those things that I could and would and wanted to share he showed no great interest in.

I said that it was important for me to be visible – my visibility says to others that its OK to be different and that they are safe with me. I recognise that I have some privilege in family, friends, and employer in being able to be more authentic with these groups of people – not everyone is safe to do that – this fellow isn’t safe to be visible, either at work or with his family – for him visibility could have a profound cost.

We also talked a little about our kinks and what we had in common, where we matched and where we didn’t quite. I wasn’t clear on how much he’d experimented in the past – there’s still a lot to talk about. Unusually, he’d previously shared his results from bdsmtest.org. I put my own results on Recon following his example.

He was interested in the puppy event, but was nervous that he might be recognised by someone he knows – even wearing a puppy hood. His skin tone would give a hint, but his startling eyes would make any kind of disguise impossible.

While drinking our chai, he was aware of a couple of other Asian guys in the coffee shop watching us. I eventually became aware that they had sat at the next table and found that I felt uncomfortable: their proximity felt like an invasion because the coffee shop was practically empty and they could have sat anywhere. Ambrosius said that in Asian communities, a “brown” person with a “white” person gets noticed and commented on – and gossiped about – and the community is so small that gossip can travel. Another reason why he feels unsafe being visible.

This was a powerful insight into the workings of another minority group. Ambrosius is a minority within a minority and faces prejudice from all directions, reminding me of the privilege I carry as a white male-presenting individual.

---

There is a real physical cost to such a full and fun weekend: I cannot sleep. My heart is racing and loud in my chest – it’s beating feels like it makes the bed shake.

And my head won’t shut up. It’s not even saying anything relevant to the weekend.

I tried reading, playing solitaire, hypnosis, box breathing, watching comedy and hot milk and nutmeg.

I finally got off to sleep sometime after 4am!