One (Really) Nice Comment...

I wrote a blog entry a few months ago titled "One Nasty Comment".  I won't go into the specifics, but if someone really needs to know the specifics of that, the entry was from October and can easily be found via the blog archive on the right.  But this isn't about that, but rather about a very nice comment that was relayed to me this morning.

When M came home from work this morning she asked me if I knew a particular lady - which I did not; but apparently this person knows J from her time there before she took her promotion and transferred.  Well, M went on to say that this person had ran into her this morning and had asked about J and then said she saw a photo of J and I on Facebook and asked if that was me.  M told her it was and apparently her comment was how pretty I looked and how she'd never have guess that I was P's biological father.

Now I know some would take offense at the latter part of that comment, but I am not one of them.  Don't get me wrong, I understand why some people don't like comments along those lines, but I really and truly believe that the vast majority of people who do make comments like that are honestly trying to be nice.  And the first part of her comment about how nice I looked, well that would have made my day regardless.  I, like plenty of other trans-women (and plenty of cis-women for that matter) don't really see myself as pretty or looking nice.  Yes J tells me I do plenty of times, and for that matter so do plenty of others such as M, and even random people from pictures I've posted here, on Reddit, on Facebook, etc.  But when J and/or M do it, I always wonder if they are just saying that because they care about me.  And when others do it in response to photos I've posted I also don't always put a whole lot of weight into it simply because the majority of those people are either friends or they are also trans-women (or trans-men in some cases) and I believe we as a community go out of our way to accentuate the positives when it comes to pictures.  I'm not saying that's a problem, in fact just the opposite as often times those kind words provide a much needed confidence boost.

But when somebody who is for all intents a stranger to me goes out of her way to say something nice, to me it just means more.  Now some who are more cynical than I tend to be might question her sincerity in what was said, and since I wasn't there I can't necessarily say with 100% certainty that they were genuine, but from what M has told me of the person she believes they were and that's good enough for me.

So long story short (or tl;dr for those who like Reddit) - a random person made my day this morning.  :)

With that I'll wrap up, and since I like to have a thumbnail when possible and I ran across some pictures on the camera that I haven't used here before here's one from early December - I believe I was going to a therapist appointment.

- M