So It’s been probably 5 years since I’ve had anything resembling a friend group, or really anything like a friend; and recently I’ve been wanting to get out there again but I’ve stumbled across a couple roadblocks.

I can’t do IRL because my town has 1000 people in it and most of them are hardcore conservatives and I don’t own a car (fuck american infrastructure)

I am struggling to find an online group because I am extremely uncomfortable around men due to a lot of childhood stuff, and a majority of the public spaces are either mixed Adult / Teen or Adult only with absolutely zero tolerance for NSFW (I’m a hentai artist, unfortunately, I love my hobby too much lol).

I feel like a lot of it are personal hurdles I need to overcome too - like I’m very embarrased at how deep my voice is, I haven’t had very many positive social encounters when I’m being myself and not putting up a façade etc.

But I have been working on myself recently and I think I’m getting there, but by trying to be too safe I can’t really find the community I need. But I know for a fact that if I venture out too far I’ll just end up getting hurt again, and my sensitive ass is pretty sensitive so y’know that’s a shit deal.

What I want to know is: how did you find your group, and is it really worth it to put myself out there right now?

  • lazyneet@programming.devEnglish
    5·
    10 days ago

    I have found in-person groups in towns of 50k. There are plenty of conservatives where I live, but the dominionist Christian nationalist 20% or whatever of the country that wants us dead isn’t here.

    Online has been harder because of the amount of gatekeeping, especially with groups that use Zoom and Discord and target specific gender identities. The less-gatekeepy spaces are usually focused on a secondary interest like software development. (I guess because general terms like queer and LGBT don’t narrow it down enough? Or maybe because general spaces are too political or spammy or something?)

    The communities I’ve been in, both in-person and online, have not been exclusive to trans people. I’m fortunate to not have as much trauma with men as you have, but I’m also masculine-looking after 1 year of HRT and still have a facial hair issue. I get called “sir” a lot outside of explicitly queer spaces. Taking all that into consideration, I can’t avoid men on the basis of gender because I’ll seem hypocritical. (I’m also sexually attracted to men, so that does change the dynamic a lot, but recent trauma with an amab agender partner has me convinced that I need a break from dating testosterone-dominant people. Right now I just treat them professionally and don’t interact beyond the level of acquaintanceship.)