I’m an incredibly anxious person. Crowds terrify me and watchful eyes send me into self-esteem spirals. Combine social anxiety with confusion about your gender and you end up with a contradictory mess. I want to experiment and break out of the norms I’ve been conditioned into my whole life, but the idea of doing that in public… hard pass. It’s like trying to ride two bikes at once, and I can’t even ride one. For years, I haven’t felt comfortable being a ‘man’. It just doesn’t sit right. I’m still fresh out of the closet and putting it into words beyond the gargled episodes in my head is tough, but think of it like being told you’re six foot tall your whole life, and you know you’re not. Like you look in the mirror and see something smaller, different, less definable by numbers than the rest of the world sees. But you can’t make them see it - can’t make them see you.RELATED:Birdo Is The Perfect Metaphor For Trans RepresentationHowever, since I don’t want my family to know, and since I’m not comfortable expressing myself in public, I found another outlet—The Sims.I’ve always been a bit of a boring Sims player. I make myself, and my house, and I get a job as a writer while ticking off all my life goals and aspirations. But when I was a kid, I’d turn the lights off, face my PC away from the door, and proceed tosmooch dudes. Little James in the dark, cramped behind a monitor watching low-poly guys making out, probably should’ve known that they were queer, but looking back, I’m just glad I found an outlet so easily at such a young age. The Sims was a huge part of helping me come to terms with being bisexual. I was around 13 years old, the realisation had clicked, and I tried to bury it for months as I refused to admit I was anything other than straight. But then I smooched dudes in the dark all over again and realised I couldn’t deny it. Now I’m in my 20s and I’m kicking myself for taking so long to realise I could jump into The Sims to break gender norms and be who I really want to be. I made myself, but with a skirt, the long hair I’m desperately trying to grow, dresses, makeup, piercings, and all the other things I’ve wanted to play around with for years.
Something about ‘he/him’ feels wrong. I don’t feel like a man, but I’m not always confident in what I do feel. Something outside the box. Trying to puzzle it all together was incredibly difficult, and it took hard questions and even harder conversations with friends to make sense of it. In between those tough days, I’d boot up The Sims and enter a blissful world where I’d figured it all out. I wasn’t always conscious that it was what I was doing, but eventually, it helped me realise I felt most comfortable usingthey/them pronouns. I don’t think I’d be out right now without that sandbox to figure it out at my own pace at my own comfort, completely safe from everything outside my room.
It’s a break that lets me imagine a world where I’m confident and feel safe enough. It’s a break that has helped me come to terms with something that I put off for so long because the thought of family ostracising or ridiculing me terrified me—the idea of going out in public and having my paranoia dialled up to eleven. I hope one day that changes, and I can go from a fantasy world in The Sims to the real deal, but for now, I’m glad to have an escape. Just having a place to express myself, even if it’s virtual, has kept me going. And importantly, it’s kept me proud of who I am.
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