It’s really informative for me to examine closely how differently I respond to a range of situations over time.
Today I went shopping in Tweed Heads by myself for clothes that don’t contravene the Falls Festival WH&S regulations. I bought 7 pieces of women’s clothing, including a bag and a hat. I’m proud to say it was the first time that I very nearly completely didn’t give a flying fuck what anybody thought. The checkout bloke (who could very well have been gay) asked me if that was the last of my Xmas shopping. I proudly declared it was all for me. He was only a tiny bit surprised. Maybe he was largely disinterested.
Five minutes later I needed to go to the toilet because I’m being really good and re-hydrating as much as I can in this hot weather. I’ve been trying to use the disabled toilet whenever I can this year. I’ve always felt uncomfortable walking into men’s toilets, but this feeling has exponentially increased over the year. Today the disabled toilet was already being used, so I needed to use the men’s toilets instead. Thankfully there was no one else in there. Phew I thought … maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal this time. But someone else walked in to the toilets while I was still in my cubicle. I needed to wait until they left before I could escape. My heart pounded and it took all of my self control not to burst into tears from the stress. Thankfully he left after a few minutes, although it seemed closer to ten or fifteen minutes. Does anybody really need to use the hand drier for that long?
I was still a bit misty-eyed ten minutes later when I was sipping my mid-shopping-expedition-latte. My latte was served to me by someone in their early twenties. Their gender was indeterminate to me. Not that this really matters, and it certainly doesn’t matter to me, but it did reinforce the principle that it’s (all) really complicated.