The Origins

Ever since I was a small boy, I always felt more comfortable around girls. Throughout elementary school, I only walked home and played with girls in school, my block, and all other social settings. Although many attempts were made on my part to interact with other boys, in many areas, be it homework, designing science projects, playing sports, or just being wild and fighting in the playground, little ever came of it. My father worked very hard to give me the all-American male upbringing, Little League, baseball, soccer, basketball, scouting, and other male-bonding rites of passage. We had a pitchback on our front lawn, so that every day that wasn't brutally cold, would have us there attempting to play baseball, quite often being interrupted by his screaming, "catch the ***&&%% ball, chucky, don't be afraid of it" . He became the little league coach, where I was further humiliated in front of all the other boys. In Cub Scouts, I was the only boy that could never tie the knots, learn any of the camping skills, or earn any of the Merit badges. Once again my father was the Troop leader, becoming very frustrated and embarrassing me in front of everyone.

JHS, especially in Public School, is extremely traumatic for anyone. However, it was infinitely more so for me, because as much as I tried and wanted to make friends, bond, and form solid rel-ships with other boys, it never happened. At the time, I was beginning to develop a strong interest in Yiddishkeit, and learning Torah. Every Shabbos, during walks home with the local Conservative Rabbi, someone from the old school, who learned in Torah V-Daas, not JTS, there was no end to my questions. Most went unanswered. This caused great internal turmoil. On the one hand, I now realized, it was important to relate to boys more, on the other, emotionally, this was extremely difficult and I never succeeded at it. In fact, the closest relationships in my adolescent years were with girls, and none of them became sexual.

If you are wondering about my orientation, I am 100% straight and for sure, there were tremendous taivos and thoughts like any healthy adolescent, going thru puberty, nevertheless none of thes friendships ever became physical.

By the time, I reached High School, there was really no point in denying my feelings, and the tremendous pressure of being in all Honors classes, and working hard to get all As, and do my best to assure getting into a good college left no energy, or mental/emotional abilities to fight it..As a result of this, whereas, in JHS, I took wood-shop, contact sports, and all male-dominated subjects and activities; in HS , I took Home Ec (cooking and sewing), tennis, golf, and swimming. Interestingly, I was able to convince the Phys Ed director to allow me to swim between periods, when the pool wasn’t being used, to avoid mixed swimming. For extra-curricular activities, I got very involved in Debate Club, Poetry Club, and a Literature extra-credit seminar that featured romance novels. An added benefit of was that extremely intelligent, cultured students were far more open-minded and accepting than the general school population. I developed many close relationships with very sweet girls as a result of this.

In 11th grade, after making the full commitment to become frum, a strange dichotomy came about. I wanted to avoid girls entirely to conform with halacha, but that was sort of like not breathing. The year started off with an eight week stint in a mainstream Yeshiva HS, far away from home, that was abysmally unproductive. The secular education provided was appalling; the Limudei Kodesh was at best satisfactory, however all the spoiled FFB kids didn’t take it seriously in the least bit , and it felt like JHS, all over again, this time in 24/7 mode sans bus stops and study halls..To make matters worse, a perpectual estrogen-free environment was absolutely unbearable. So I returned to my former HS until graduation.

After HS, I chose to go to Yeshiva instead of the several ivy league universities that I was accepted to. Boro Park proved to be a very repressive atmosphere. The stifling intense gender segregation and prevailing attitudes exacerbated matters immeasurably. The year or so there was absolute torture. Fortunately, I was able to find a very, nice, warm out-of-town Yeshiva, where things were more laid-back. I drove my Rebbe’s daughters all over, as well as, some of the local wives from time to time, when they needed to go shopping. Being able to socialize and converse with them relieved a lot of the pressure.

Over the years since then, technology has improved matters tremendously. My quality of life has benefited drastically with the introduction of the Internet, blogs, digital voice-changers and awesome makeover software.

So far, I have only gone out in public en-femme about twice, as I have tremendous apprehension about it, socially and halachically. I would like to use this blog to get feedback from other frum CDs, as well as, to explore my feelings..