#43 | notes of a crocodile
Yesterday at the laundromat, I finished reading Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin. It's a very influential feminist lesbian novel noted for its depictions of closeted butchness. I started reading it a few years ago but put it down partway through. In the last couple weeks, I restarted and devoured it. Its depiction of gender dysphoria and lesbian heartbreak really resonated with me. The protagonist spends much of the novel suffering in the aftermath of an on-and-off relationship that ends due to her dysphoria, internalized homophobia, and depression.
In the aftermath of my last relationship, the level of self-hatred I've felt has been so much greater than I ever thought it would be. I was reflecting on how insecure I felt the entire time, and how my ex loved me through it. She made me feel so perfect even though I didn't know who or what I was; in the safety of her love, I was able to come to terms with my identity as a masculine woman, soft butch, whatever you might call it. For so long, I felt out of place in my own body, invisible to everyone else, but she knew exactly who I was and loved me fiercely. I've discovered that this is a dynamic in many butch-femme relationships.
There's a chapter in the book where the protagonist writes a letter to her ex. A lot of it resonated with me, especially the parts about self-hatred and being in disbelief that you could experience love:
"Suddenly I realized that somewhere in this great big world, there really was a you that loved me. For a long time, you and my family were the only ones who loved me, who would do anything for me, but it wasn't the real me. No one loved the real me, and it caused me suffering. You're the only one who knows my pain. I once bared my soul to you. Your love saw past the mess that I was. So in the end, I don't know why I only remember your love hurting me. That notion backed me into a corner, told me there was no place for me out there [...]
I never believed that anyone could love the real me—not even you. Why didn't I get it? That has to do with my own issues. Ever since I was little and started to learn what it meant to love, I never understood that I had to love me too—otherwise, what was the point? If I wanted to join the rest of humanity, the only solution was gradually to reveal my secret. I would begin to construct what was in my internal blueprint. There was no other way I could go on. For me, it was a matter of life and death, and of pain [...]."
Despite the fact that the relationship is over, she resolves to move forward. She accepts this insecurity and brokenness as part of who she is, that perhaps it did contribute to the end of the relationship. Now alone with nobody to patch her up, she can't continue in such a broken state. There is no choice but to mend oneself. There are many reasons why my last relationship ended, which include that didn't know how to communicate her feelings, and I let myself become trapped in self-doubt triggered by the distance. But no matter what, even though she was the only person who saw and loved the real me, I need to learn how to do that too, to push past my fears and embrace myself. There is no other way.
I've been wondering if I could ever fall in love with a man again. I'm attracted to all bodies, but in this moment I can only see myself loving a woman. Having come to terms with my masculinity a bit more, I keep thinking that men wouldn't even be drawn to me. It's strange—I'm certain that I do not fit in the realm of heteronormativity, but what about queer men and trans men? Would they see me? I don't really know. It's yet another strange form of self-fulling self-hatred: men couldn't possibly love me; they see right through me. So, how could I possibly love them? Then again, I'm someone who never rules anything out and accepts how impossibly big the world is. I have difficulty identifying with any label sometimes other than queer or bisexual. Regardless, here's a relevant section from that chapter:
"I'll never fall in love with a man, just as most men can't simply fall in love with another man...I discovered who I was through not being readily accepted by society. My identity was fully formed long before I was ever actualized, and it wasn't going to change even if I kicked and screamed [...]
I was in love with you. I wanted to give myself to you. The benefit of hindsight makes retracing this story even more painful [...] I'm unworthy of loving you. I've struggled to find self-worth, but I can't expel the monster's consciousness still lurking beneath my skin. If my self-worth was already wounded, my experience with you only put salt in that wound. You opened a realm that exposed me. The deeper and harder I fell for you, the more grotesque I felt. The shackles that had been holding me down were removed."
Nothing has happened, but I did find out that my ex has been hanging out a lot with a straight cis male friend of hers. With little evidence and scarce information, my mind has run wild with the ideas of her ending up with him. It's some fucked up self-flagellation. He's handsome, accomplished, athletic, and a good painter. They have similar ways of coping with emotion, and other shared interests. The rational part of me knows that she ended our 5-year relationship because she couldn't handle the emotional intimacy, so how could she possibly start something new? Deep down, I can see that I will always a special person to her, and that she knows this would run a spear right through me, as well as one of her best friends, who just exited a 7-year relationship with him. The irrational part of me whispers that, in time, of course she'd leave me for a man, because she needs someone strong—it insists that I'm weak, just an imposter of a man that could never actually become one.
"My self-loathing and defeatism made me see the world through shit-smeared eyes. Having only known unfulfilled yearnings, I thought that love was a long shot, that keeping my pride intact was a far safer bet. I didn't think I was worthy of being loved. Though you showed me that you loved me, I assumed it was because you'd never experienced a man's love, that you didn't know the social disapproval we'd face, and that you couldn't tell I was seriously fucked in the head. I thought that in the end, you'd still need a man, that you were just going through a confused phase, and that sooner or later, I'd be dumped so that you could move on to the next shiny new thing."
My delusional mind keeps rifling through the last couple months of our relationship. That guy had been trying to get closer with her. He asked her to meet up a couple times, to talk about his depression and family issues. He was a fixture of our shared life for a few years; she would talk to me about him, with nothing to hide. He was just another friend. She told me she learned that he reads news headlines every morning. We used to think he was just a techy guy with no interest in politics, so it was endearing that he actually reads the news; just a point of amusement about her friend. About a month before we broke up, he asked her to meet up in Central Park, where he told her he was thinking of ending his 7-year relationship. She did tell me they were meeting up in the park and that they talked about how he was having a difficult time lately, but she omitted the specifics; I only found out from talking to his ex. I think she didn't tell me because when he began confiding in her about it, she probably told him she was thinking of ending things with me, too.
A month before we broke up, they went to a music festival in Atlanta together. She booked the ticket spontaneously and invited a couple friends who liked the same artist, but he was the only one who said yes. Other people wound up saying yes last minute, but she and him planned to share a hotel room since they'd already booked it. I didn't think anything of it. But a few days prior to the fest, he asked her to confirm if she was 'comfortable' sharing a room. She told me about this; we thought it was strange. She laughed it off and said he was just being overly nice and considerate, but to be honest, I was offput by this small interaction, the idea that he saw himself as a man and her as a woman, and that in itself made the act of sharing a sleeping space something worth checking in about. By asking her this question, he was gendering and feminizing her. He saw her in a heteronormative way, as an object of attraction.
Am I, too, seeing her in a heteronormative way by wondering if they'll end up together? Have I placed her in a box in which she’s a vulnerable woman who needs a strong man? Maybe it’s just that my brain is folding to the realities of the rest of the world. My imagination creates an exaggerated scene where she is crying, pouring her heart out to him every night about her grief, and he is saying all the right things that I couldn't. In reality, they're probably spending a lot of time together watching mindless TV, mostly in silence, but I'm sure she is indeed occasionally opening up about her grief.
Stop! I would say, bursting into her family's condo, the condo we shared for two years until we were evicted by her parents, the condo she moved back to after breaking up with me, how sadly poetic it all was. Where we used to fall asleep with our cats on the couch, where we fought once in a blue moon, where we had hot gay sex, where this man is now keeping her company during the darkest time of her life. I would point directly at his face. You could never understand her like I do! We discovered the deepest parts of ourselves together! I showed her that to be loved is to be known! She came out to her family for me! And then she would scrunch up her face and say, Actually, he does understand me. He sees a deep part of me you never could. You don't know me as well as you think you do. Then, they live their lives happily ever after because, as a man, he fits into her life better than I ever could. He allows her to feel at peace in society. She could openly tell her mom about him, and he would be allowed to live in that apartment—or, whatever, he makes enough money that together they could buy their own condo without any strings attached to her mom, like she always talked about doing with me after the eviction, when we'd wake up on Sunday mornings and browse Streeteasy and dream about what could never fucking be. Anyway, back to the scene. After she would say that, then they'd gaze into each other's eyes, make out, and I'd burst into tears and flames and vomit and die. The end.
She is more feminine than me, but I know she doesn't think of herself as a woman, either. She often told me her gender was a dark void. In the past, she even wondered to me if she were a lesbian; she never enjoyed sex with men. But men have always been drawn to her anyway. In all 8 years we knew each other, I saw them crush, stare, stalk, and beg for her. When we were dating, I noticed the way they approached her in clubs despite her not engaging. Sometimes she would hide behind me, sometimes we would both hide behind a male friend. I’d hold myself back from performative displays of masculinity or possession. I was never threatened by them; they were not unique. It's why I wasn't at all surprised when I discovered that this friend of hers had said just a month after we broke up that he didn't think it was "impossible" for him and my ex to date, because they are similar and "have fun together." It simply confirmed what I already knew about his, her, and my place in the world. He was her friend, but he was also just one of many men who saw only her, and not me.
"How I wish you'd become part of that other world. When all is said and done, you and I aren't quite cut from the same cloth. Society still considers you a normal woman. Your love for me was a feminine, maternal love that can just as easily be extended to any man. Basically, the only difference between you and other women is that your heart is more open. But me, our relationship has left me fundamentally altered. You tore me open and exposed the man inside. That new me has no rightful place within humanity. I don't think you've been cast out. You can still return to that place where I'm no longer allowed."
My head is tortured by this narrative of them running off together. I'm possessed by it. Sexuality is so fluid. Perhaps it has nothing to do with her, and everything to do with my rage and gender presentation. I can't help but feel like his mere interest, no matter how casual and unrequited, disrespects my entire bond with her. I hate that he's even around as her friend when he sees her in this way, and that she permits him to be. He will never understand what we shared; how dare he try to even come close, so soon after we broke up? He can grasp her trauma, but I held her entire soul. But then, I keep thinking things I know I shouldn't: I wonder if he thinks an intimate connection is possible because she's already shown him a part of herself that she hasn't shown anyone else.
We used to occasionally discuss how it would feel if we ever broke up and dated men vs. women. Lesbian connection is a total eclipse of minds; she told me she'd only be hurt if I dated a woman and accomplished that with someone else. It would cheapen how special it was for her to be her true self with me. But for me, the most harrowing thought is her being with a man, how it would mark me as inferior. My gender dysphoria was a prominent part of who I was in the relationship, and she loved me despite it. Her loving a man would be proof that I was a burden; it would stain the way I knew her. Before, I was unbothered by men because I knew she loved me, and they were strangers that she didn’t even perceive. Neither of those are true now.
She and I are not bound by a relationship anymore, and that's partially a direct result of our nature. None of this tragedy would’ve happened if I were just a man, but it's also because I'm not a man that it was so precious to begin with. But maybe that's why my brain imagines she wants him instead, so she can return to that "rightful place" in society and erase my existence, concluding just another chapter in her life. She is free to fall for him if she wants because our love is over. It would obliterate me completely and she has no obligation to care. It's ridiculous to say this, but I simply want to tear his guts out.