A Picture I Can’t Picture

The following thoughts are the result of a single comment Summer Intern made to OBP this morning while we were all goofing off in the reception area … “When I worked here two summers ago, I’m sure Joe Hairdy had normal, short, businessman hair … but I can’t remember what it looked like”.

One of the difficulties some are having with my whole transition is that they simply can’t imagine me exhibiting “girl” behavior.

You’re such a guy’s guy

You don’t know anything about being a girl

I can’t picture you any other way than the way you are now.

Hehe … of course, I hardly consider myself a guy’s guy … I’m far from that … but, I will agree that I play a particular role of a guy really well …

And with respect to not knowing anything about being a girl … well, if they are referring to the day to day things women learn growing up, then there is a fair chance I don’t know most of those, and what I know … I’ve had to learn in a crash course over the past couple of years …

But when people say any of those statements, or any similar type phrase, I don’t take it usually as meaning that I couldn’t ever pull it off … I take it to mean that their perception of me … their vision of me, what I represent … in their mind’s eye … is so set … so strong … that they can’t imagine Joe Hairdy doing anything THEY consider typical female behavior (which also means the perception varies from person to person) …

I totally understand … their perception of Joe Hairdy does not include female behavior or appearance. My perception of Joe Hairdy does not include female behavior or appearance.

And I’ve counted on that … because over the last few years … as I’ve lost the weight, as I’ve reshaped my body and curves, as my face has changed slowly in subtle appearance, as I’ve had telltale marks occasionally on my face following electrolysis, as my hair has grown longer … I didn’t want people to figure what was going on .. and for the most part they haven’t … the people that see me regularly see me still as Joe Hairdy … because in their mind’s eye … their perception/image of Joe Hairdy is so set … any change noticed will be conformed to fit into their picture of Joe Hairdy.

I think this happens because … in their mind … in our mind … as long as we don’t change too dramatically in appearance … we don’t notice the small, fine details of our friends’ appearance each and every time when we see them … I think our mind fills in the blanks based on what it expects to see … and that gradually over time, those blanks are adjusted to reflect current reality … of course, we’ll notice substantial changes … hair cuts, hair color change, gender role change … you know, day to day things like that … but even with those changes … we get used to them and re-associate those new appearances with the person … it totally amazes me how it really only takes a day at the most for me to get used to each and every one of the painfully awful haircuts Shaft receives … but after the end of the day … I still see Shaft … bad haircut and all … and that’s the image of him in my mind.

Just as today … longer hair, narrower face, no beard … is the image that people actually have for Joe Hairdy … so much so, that it’s hard to remember what he looked like before without referring to a picture, as noted by Summer Intern … it’s just Joe Hairdy.

Now this is where my gender perception theory gets a bit weird …

I think that gradual changes that allows the mind to slowly reshape its perception of a person make it harder for one’s mind to aggregate those choices and identity them with a new identity … a different person. Meaning … at my current pace … among those who see me regularly. their perception of Joe Hairdy is still male, even though there are many female characteristics in my appearance now .. and it will remain such … even if I become more and more feminine, possibly even in dress … they will still see Joe Hairdy in me … unless I can create in their mind a totally new identity perception … one for Amy.

How do you do that ?? Heck if I know … but I’m taking a chance that you can do a hard reset in some cases … which forces one’s mind to reassess an image of a person from the ground up … and if it doesn’t closely enough resemble an image in its memory … instead of EDIT … it executes a NEW.

As such, I’ve really taken great pains to avoid incorporating too much of my behavior, personality, appearance, into Joe Hairdy’s life … Shaft is the only of the key players to know what I really look like (and yes, I’m still bitter about his lack of compliments for my legs) … I’ve done this because I don’t want them associating Amy characteristics with Joe Hairdy … such that when they see me exhibiting them … they perceive Joe Hairdy.

Now this perception thing … it works on a subconscious level …

Consciously, I’m not kidding myself … they’ll be telling themselves they can’t imagine me wearing a dress, walking in heeled shoes or utilizing lipstick (why do they always mention lipstick?) … nor can they can’t imagine me doing girl things (wait until they get a view of me doing the submissive flirt with some poor boy) … but if I can create a new identity in their mind … instead of editing Joe Hairdy’s … I honestly think that it’ll be easier for them consciously to accept the changes and their subconsciousness will be nudging them in that direction and telling them it’s what they really should expect to see … I different person … a female person.

So … how do I do the hard reset? My theory … and trust me … it’s total guesswork on my part, I don’t advise anyone trying this … is total and complete separation in presence and time combined with substantial change … both steps have to be done in conjunction with one another … sorta like a hard reset with a cable modem where you have to disconnect the cable AND disconnect the power supply, just one of them won’t do it, you must disconnect both … in my case … I think I have to remove my appearance from the active memory of people for a long enough period of time such that one’s mind has to check it’s entire memory to see if it recognizes me … and I have to have enough changes of substance so that even if consciously they know I used to be Joe Hairdy, their mind doesn’t associate the new image of me with him … and it creates a new perception, a female perception.

I’ll try to better explain this whole “perception reset theory” of mine as time goes on … but these thoughts will sort of explain the steps I’m taking that I’ll be sharing with you over the next few weeks … and my reasons for their timing.

Ahhh … sorry for the length of this post … it was insomnia induced !! lol 😉