Dear Anita:

Are there any ways to shield or release yourself of/from the anger of others if you cannot avoid it? Sometimes I feel like I am being dragged into the problems of others and there isn’t a way to escape except to close off my mind until the storm is over. However, this frustrates me because I have been working on healing myself and I feel like the negativity tries to poke a hole in the walls of my inner defenses and I don’t want to face the adverse effects on my health from another’s pain. how do I let people know that I sympathize with them, but don’t want to carry their burdens for them? The negative doubts and stereotypes other people like my parents try to knock over the structures of confidence I build and I try to rebuild them again. I find this draining on my energy when I could be using my energy for important tasks. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever achieve the goals I set for myself. Another question is How can I be sure I’m not losing myself daily to the expectations of others or that my numbing down isn’t negatively influencing me from being my true self?

I consider myself to be an idealist who always tries to do what I feel is right in my heart, but at times I doubt myself. I try not to let the negative thoughts of others prevent me from paving my way toward my dreams, but the negativity sometimes strains me of energy and makes my progress toward my goals slower. I feel it would be ideal to break contact with my parents because they often place their burdens on me. I feel my inner critic is a representation of me struggling to break free of the stereotypes of society and my parents. It consistently criticizes me for not being enough, that I don’t know enough to be self-reliant on my own. I dislike my parents’ views of certain things because sometimes I think they blow a situation out of proportion in their minds. They complain about how there are so many things wrong with the life they live, but when offered opportunities to improve they seem to think it’s too late or they don’t seem to take the chance. My main focus in life is to be true to myself and figure out how to surpass the negativity of the world. I have become more accepting of who I am and don’t mind my views differing from my parents. However, at times I wish they would understand the person I am and not try to make me into a person I don’t want to be. They seem to think if I don’t follow an outlined path, I will be deviant from society and not be accepted for who I am. I don’t really care about being accepted by society, I just want to find an acceptance of myself being me. It frustrates me that the more I learn about myself and the more I calm my inner critic through yoga and meditation, the more people like my parents will talk about the world and its burdens. I’m not always clear of the path I take, but I believe every road leads to home and I’ll work things out in the end. My parents’ criticisms have made me quite depressed and at times I consider ways to end my life. But I realize that my life is not as meaningless at it seems and at the moments when I feel like death is approaching me I realize that it was the false self that was dead and that only the shadow of my former self would be killed, but there is a light in my spirit that if I committed suicide I would extinguish and it scares me to extinguish that light that I believe when nourished will help me grow closer to my authentic self. I realize when I’m on the brink of taking my life, that I would be extinguishing this inner light within me- the light that tells me to stay true to my heart- and that if I killed that I would just be the shadow self of the world’s expectations left behind. To put it in other words, I have contemplated and tried suicide, but never caused myself to physically die. At times when I feel like I’m losing my spirit- this inner force- that I don’t want to be extinguished, I can be self-destructive because it helps me calm my mind and fears that I may be losing myself. What scares me most is losing myself in the doubts of the world and not being self-reliant enough to achieve my goals. The doubts that run through my mind about myself cause me to over-exercise at times, so I feel light-headed and it brings mental clarity. I also close my mind off at times when there are negative things around me. I enter in a lucid, numb-like state and it seems as if the words of the negativity or actions are being filtered through my ears like I’m breathing underwater and everything seems surreal. However, I realize how bad this numbing can be because it causes me to start to feel like I’m not alive at times and I sometimes question if I truly exist in this world or I’m just an immaterial being of my thoughts. Sometimes I like this feeling because I feel like I can mold myself into the person I see myself as and at other times this gives me anxiety because I feel like I’m not feeling anything but passing through life. The anxiety that stems from breaking away from my parents is the thought of whether I’m breaking away from societal standards and won’t have a place in this world because parents give a child the first solid ground and establish the roots or the fact that I am not self-reliant enough to live independently. While living with them, I don’t feel they understand who I am as a person anymore. I don’t think the path is clear-cut and that’s what makes me anxious, but being stifled from being myself gives me more anxiety and it seems like these two sides are conflicting with each other. Should I work on the path my heart chooses and risk my parents’ anger? I’m sure I would choose what makes me happy, but another question that stops me is whether I can withstand the emotional and financial costs of not having a solid foundation I’ve always thought was there. My parents have given me physical support in food, shelter, and water; but at times I don’t think they make me feel as if I belong in the family. I try to seek love and belonging elsewhere and by finding myself, but in the process, I wonder if I’ll lose the basic physical needs my parents provide and that gives me anxiety. I still try to hunt for jobs that match my interests in reading, researching, and science; but it’s hard to find jobs for a sophomore in college because there aren’t that many job openings and most require a bachelor’s degree. I often question “Am I losing myself more daily living under my parents’ roof? But would it really be worth it to sacrifice the physical comforts I have for a sense of self? How can I make myself self-reliant and achieve my goals when people keep trying to get me to conform to their expectations and I try (often feeling drained) to remove those stereotypes time and again? And when I withdraw from my parents to find myself, they think I’m not being grateful to them for helping shelter me, but I don’t think they understand the emotional self that lies beneath the surface.

Dear Anita:

Thank you for your advice. I have started a meditation and yoga routine that helps me release tension. Also, I have drafted a temporary schedule which I use to help me coordinate my tasks throughout the day. As long as I get most of my priorities done, I can counter my inner critic and say “See, I was productive today.”

Speaking of stereotypes, my therapist told me that if I keep following the stereotypes of who I should be, I’m never going to be happy with myself. I told her that an underlying factor for my anorexia was the stereotype that males had to be muscular and skinny and since I identified as a male and felt like I was losing myself more in my home environment, I found something I could control which was my weight. I have overcome the stereotype that female cannot be scientists because I don’t care what gender I am, science has always fascinated me and my passion for it motivates me to achieve my goals as a genetic engineer. This is one goal that I know is me being true to myself. I still feel that the more I try to surpass the limitations of stereotypes, the more people will try to place them on me. I find it emotionally draining to always hear people who see only what’s on the surface of who I am and at times I wish I could just close my ears. I have my music player and headphones when I hear people arguing or making assumptions about who I am and I tune into that. At times I feel like I’m being disrespectful, but there is an inner sense of peace because I know I’m keeping myself from picking up the negativity of others that may waste my energy. Another thing about my anorexia is that I believe it is a way for me to “purge” myself of the negative stereotypes that I feel like are making me lose control in my life. If I can control how I look by controlling what I eat, I can stop the negative stereotypes from affecting me, but at times I feel like that it’s not the case. By being anorexic, I’m giving the stereotypes of gender more power over me because I’m harming myself to fit more into the physical appearance of what an ideal body type of a male should look like. Of course, there are many people in the LGBT community who don’t fit into society’s boxes. I feel like I just want to be myself and not care about what makes others happy if it makes me unhappy. A society is made up of individuals and each individual can improve themselves and by their own improvements, they can inspire other individuals to improve and better society. Just because an individual expresses views different from cultural or societal norms doesn’t mean that individual is a deviant from society, it just means that they have a different way of looking at the world and if it harms none and makes them happy then that’s okay. People cannot always fit into the societal roles set for them and sometimes the judgments of others that try to keep them within the lines hurt them more than helps them. I wish this was easier to explain to my parents who feel like there is no individualism within society, but conformity. But there is both individualism and conformity within society since a society relies on the voices of its individuals and if there is something different that one individual sees from another, it is okay because it is these different opinions that once heard may move society forward. Everyone’s opinion is important as long as it doesn’t harm any and people are affected by others’ opinions whether they feel it pertains to them or not because they live within the same societies and what affects one may affect the others. This is why it is important to be open-minded about all aspects of knowledge because you never know how it can play a role in your life, knowledge is power and sometimes you have to see the viewpoints of others to see how accurate your assumptions are. I wish my parents were more open-minded and sought more knowledge rather than kept the stereotypes of their Asian culture which they keep trying to put on me and whom I keep trying to break out of. I don’t want to hear things like “There are only two genders in this world” or “males are the ones who should be outgoing” or “People who don’t fit into specific gender identity or sexual orientation have a mental illness.” There is a difference between true mental illness and someone who knows who they are as a person and is different because they were born that way or choose to go outside the lines, but that doesn’t make them abnormal. I love all aspects of science and will research psychology, parapsychology (includes paranormal, supernatural, etc) and abnormal psychology and how people think in relation to their environment and I find this fascinating. the more research I find and the more sources I see to back up specific points, the more I understand the world around me. I believe everyone has different ways of interpreting the world around them and people should be respectful of that and not tell them that they shouldn’t be this way or that. Some questions I have are: “How do I know which situations to defend myself in and which ones to avoid?” “How do I stop the people who never listen to me and look beyond the surface to my inner feelings from continuing to intrude into my life?” “How do I become more self-reliant?” “How do I stop trying to get entangled in the views of others that will never change and work on improving myself?” “When I am in an argument and I know that person will never see my side or won’t be considerate to listen, how do I remove myself from the situation?” “How do I know that my actions are not being influenced by the expectations/stereotypes imposed on me by others and the choices I make are my own?” “How do I work on disentangling myself from the stereotypes and what’s truly me?” I feel like some of my actions have come about due to the results of stereotypes and I find it hard to release some of the stereotypes because they can be hard to face at times. It may be possible that I dislike parts of my body because I was never taught how to love myself emotionally or supported emotionally, so I had to work on finding myself and seeking support in my own way. My inner critic must have resulted from always doubting myself emotionally because I never felt there was a solid foundation to guide me through life and now learning the life skills I need, it all seems to be happening so fast and it feels like I’m growing up too fast for me to handle and at times I regret the years I was in emotional turmoil and I question myself “Was I an irresponsible person then? Am I an irresponsible person now? how much do I truly know how the world works?” and these questions fill me with doubts about the achievements I have made in life. Do you have any advice? Thanks!

Dear Anita:

I find it hard to communicate in person at times when speaking to people because I am tired of not being heard by my parents when I speak my voice. I think this has caused me to be a bit shy when speaking to other people because I’m not sure how they will react or whether they will be active listeners. When I try to explain things to my parents and express my feelings, it’s like they don’t hear the emotions and the underlying meaning behind the actions I do and they just see the stuff on the surface. I tend to express myself much clearer in writing rather than speaking to others, but I would like to learn how to be more assertive. However, I feel like there are some people like my parents who no matter how I say things or explain things will never step outside their views and the question is “How do I stop their negative views from influencing the person I want to be?”

I know that disengaging from people who harm me is a good idea and I have become more withdrawn from my parents. However, if I am in an argument with someone and it is going nowhere and just draining my energy “How do I disengage from it and also be considerate of the other person’s pain?” I was thinking something along the lines of “Sorry that you are feeling hurt. I’m sure we both made mistakes and I hope things will be better. But, let’s not waste our time and energy with anger. I wish you healing from your sorrow.”

Also I realize that there will be people who will try to drag me into their arguments, place their burdens on me or conform me to their expectations. I often hear people talking about the person they think I am and it makes me feel irritated that people who are strangers judge me and seem to think they know what is going on in my life or can figure out my personality. People change over time and I feel like I have grown and learned much throughout the years and at times I just want to spend three months (longest that I’ll go currently because I have college courses to take) just away from the judgments of other people. I have been going to spiritual cleansings and retreats in my spare time to ground myself from any negative energy I happen to pick up from my environment. However, it seems the more I want to disengage from people who don’t serve me well in life, the more they want to associate with me. There are people who see that I am working my way to living a life that is truly my own and working on being happy and they aren’t happy themselves so they try to tell me all their troubles thinking I can help them. I have started to learn reiki healing and it helps heal and clear my energies and I think this has caused many other people who know I can heal to press me to teach them or heal them. I am still in the learning process and I need a break and although I don’t want to be inconsiderate I can’t help but turn most of them away. I feel a mix of guilt and irritation when I do that. Another thing is there will be people who expect me to get all the resources for them and have me map out everything for them because they are too lazy to do it themselves or say they don’t know how to and aren’t willing to learn how to when I try my best to guide them. The question is “How do I know who the people in my life who truly care about me are from the people who just want to take my time?”

“How do I remove myself from conversations that make me feel uncomfortable or tell someone that I have changed and their view of me is just the surface without seeming to be rude?” I have met people who will still see me as the person I used to be, a smart woman who is hard-working, healthy and seems to be perfect, but that’s only on the surface and that was the person I used to be. Now, I am still recovering from anorexia, depression, struggling with gender dysphoria and know for certain I’m going to make a medical transition to become a male (I feel happier and more comfortable as a male) later in life. My former self is only a shadow of who I once was and I am working on removing the shadow and stepping into the light of my true self. My therapist told me that I can’t live my life doing what other people tell me to in the hopes of keeping them happy while I hurt and hide because I wouldn’t be truly living. Also she said that it really isn’t anyone’s business when people will ask uncomfortable questions like “Are you a boy or girl?” or just assume “You can tell by looking or from previous experience and how others refer to them.” However, my parents are not accepting of my gender expression, so of course their views would contradict what I feel about myself on the inside. But my parents have never been open-minded to the faults of others and never seem to see beyond the surface to see that every individual is a human being and there is a reason behind every action and feeling. Going back to my therapist, even though she did say that it isn’t anybody’s business to know the changes you are going through, I still feel dysphoria when people I once knew meet me and they assume that I am the same person they knew over the years when I’ve changed much. When I correct them by saying “Sorry, but I no longer fit into the gender binary.  Please refer to me with gender neutral terms”, they either ignore me, change the topic (my parents often do both or they will override my voice with their voice and not listen) or they say things that may be hurtful or embarrassing like “I thought transgender and nonbinary people had to undergo medical transitioning before they establish their identity.” however, that is not the case, many transgender and nonbinary people need the financial resources and some time in therapy before they make the transition and most of them socially transition first.  Most will wear clothes of the gender they identify with and adopt practices of the other gender as well as telling other people what they prefer to go by and this social transition is often the first step. The cost of this social transition is not physical as in it doesn’t require money, but it is emotional because many people lose their friends’ and families’ supports. I wish there was an easier way of explaining to people who once knew me about how people change without incurring the embarrassment. There will be times when I will just ignore people who do that, but as they carry on with their conversations about who they think I am, my inner critic will think since I’m not correcting them, i’m not strong enough to defend myself and I’m not valid being the person I identify as. My inner critic also gets most of its comments from my parents who are always making me feel invalidated one way or another. They tend to compare my achievements with my brother and they have always believed he has achieved much more in life and is because he is in computer science career. also my parents are Asian and many cultural stereotypes play a role. Asian families believe that children should be loyal to family traditions and the male should be the one who gets high career positions. I also did a research on how Asian culture views LGBT people and I looked specifically at transgender people and learned that there are 4 million transgender people near Beijing that are in the closet and 43% of them are oppressed by their community, only 6% have access to therapy and 1% have the financial needs for medical transitioning. In fact, transgender people have the highest risk of suicide in the LGBT community with 40% higher risk. I have stopped trying to get my parents to understand who I am because i’m not sure i can make them understand. However, while I am getting resources and working on understanding myself better I need to find ways to dissociate from the inner critic who seems to come up at any turn when the opportunity arises. I don’t want to isolate myself from everyone, but these days I feel like I need to work on finding out who is really there for me and will help me. I need to work on learning to express my voice in person and talk without being suppressed, but I’m not sure how currently. I realize I want to be true to myself and remove the expectations of others. Lately, I have been meditating for an hour at times to clear my mind and relax. During the times I’m meditating, I start to focus on who I was told to be and who I am and lately I feel like the lines between the two selves are not as blurred as they used to be. I am still establishing my confidence and sometimes the negative remarks of others will shake me and I have to reestablish myself. I wonder if there is a way to shield myself from the negativity of others without trying to become isolated. Is there a way I can listen to the pain of others and sympathize without taking it on as my own? What about if people are angry at me and I don’t want to be a part of the fight, how do I make it seem like i’m not acceding to their demands, but just removing myself from the situation? Sometimes people like my parents who are angry will rant on and on and they will bring about every flaw that they can think of and use it against me, but they allow their emotions to cloud their reasoning and i know that i don’t want to add fuel to their fire. during those times, it seems like if i try to explain things to them, they won’t hear it and if i remain silent they either think i’m not listening, acceding to their demands or being inconsiderate. how do i deal with an angry person without adding fuel to the flames, remove myself from the situation and protect my self-esteem?

Dear Anita,

Thank you so much for your wisdom that helps me reestablish my self-confidence. Ocean County College that I attend has career advising services and I just updated my resume. I applied for a scientific research job and hoping I get an interview. I am thinking that if I can get a job, I can start saving for my financial independence and needs so I don’t have to rely on the allowance my parents give me. Lately, I have been feeling like my inner critic is trying to get me to take on more projects I can handle. It has been saying things like “If you acquired more knowledge in these areas, you could be more independent and would have more respect from others” or “You spend too much time doing assignments that aren’t necessary.” I think my inner critic stems from my parents criticisms about me and sometimes it makes me emotionally drained because I try to take on many projects at once. The question are “How do I take time for myself without having the inner critic think I’m being unproductive?” “What are good ways to teach yourself new life skills?”

Hey Terri,

It’s good to hear from you. Thank you for your advice as well. I was bullied throughout middle school into high school. I suffered from depression and anorexia which I am currently recovering from in college. There were many times when I felt ashamed of myself for being the way I was like there may have been something wrong with me because of my gender expression. But starting college, I’ve found resources to make me feel like I’m not alone. I agree that it’s not right to blame yourself for bullying and the hurtful actions of other people. There was a time when I felt that the reason why others didn’t understand me in junior year of high school (that’s when I started expressing my gender expression as a nonbinary transmale) that I was the one losing my mind. I lost many friends who I realize later when I entered college weren’t really truly my friends and I blamed myself for that. I think I felt like I was losing control of my life so the thing I could control was my weight so I became anorexic as a way to cope. I built many layers to protect myself and hoped that college would be better. Now at Ocean County College, being part of Ocean Pride LGBT group has helped me access the resources I didn’t have throughout middle school or high school and it has helped some of the false layers to fall away. Sometimes I feel like our thoughts are not really our own, but the limiting thoughts we hold are those that have been programmed into us by society and our experiences. It can be hard at times to recognize and accept those limiting beliefs and question them because at times they feel so entrenched in our being that they feel as if they are part of who we are. I’m sorry that you suffered abuse when you were little. You are a strong person and I hope things are better now. I tried to cover up the shame I felt from the sexual trauma when I was sexually harassed by a guy in seventh grade because I thought things would get better. It caused me to lose aspects of myself that I am working on getting back. I realize the more I try to hide my flaws or numb the pain, the more distant I become from myself as the layers build up and the shame becomes buried within and when it’s triggered it’s much worse. Working with my therapist, I have begun to remove some of the layers of shame and began to question my thoughts as to who I am as a person. I feel like, even though I’m still unsure of my personality, I have found some parts that I have lost and brought some of the shame out into the light for it to be released so it doesn’t control me or cause me to lose myself more.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for your advice. I have started a blog on google blog https://lgbtcreate.blogspot.com/ where I will collect all the inspiration I’ve written in my life and post it to inspire others. The LGBT community at my college plays a big role in my life and I feel like I’ve found acceptance there. One of the members gave me the idea to start a blog and list all the poems and quotes I’ve written over the years and invite others to see it and also post on it in hopes that it will provide a guidance for those who are struggling to find themselves. Lately, I have been able to formulate words to describe who I am as a person and I realize that my special friend was right when he told me (I think it was in middle school when I was depressed) “I believe in you, someday you’ll find the words and they will inspire others in their truth” because I feel as if I now know what to say to help inspire others as well as myself and no longer feel like a lost person. I feel like I’m getting closer to finding myself daily and continue to learn many things that benefit me. I have become more confident and not letting the opinions of others influence me and am working on being a light for others. The thing is there are some people who will take advantage of the  positivity I give to them. And this makes me feel angry and then I feel selfish for feeling angry because I think “Am I not supposed to be helping them?” And then I think “But all they do is take and take and burden me with their troubles and don’t give me anything.” So I feel conflicted with some of the people I think are fake friends or fake supporters, but I’m not sure how to say no to them when they ask me for help. So the question is “How do I be more assertive without looking  like a bad person?

I have also begun to make peace with myself and have gone to a therapist who has helped me understand my gender identity.  I think that my parents also feel like things are happening so fast that they feel I’m not taking an adequate time to think things through. They told me that they have always known I have a more masculine form of expression because when I was younger I liked to have short hair and also enjoyed wearing boy’s clothes and my favorite activity when I was younger was camping out in the wilderness because I loved nature and still do. I don’t think they ever realized that I would discover myself as transgender and seek to transition though which is why it is hard on them. Lately, I’ve been bringing home resources from the pride group at my college and the LGBT community and sharing them with my parents explaining to them how these things and people play a part in my life and have helped me in discovering who I am. It is emotionally and financially straining for my family when they realize that I am seeing a therapist to help me better understand myself as a person because they feel they have lost the person they knew and I feel like I am in the process of finding myself. There is a rift in the family as my parents and I clash over things we aren’t totally on the same terms with. I think cutting my hair and telling my parents to use he/him pronouns for me was hard for them to accept, but in a way they could see it made me a happier person. I think they are working on coming to terms of me identifying as a male and understanding what it means to be transgender, but when it comes to asserting my gender as male by seeking resources and doing little things like therapy, pride groups, cutting my hair and/or transitioning; they still are against it. I feel like many parents feel their children make these decisions quite quickly like I am currently reading “At the Broken Places” about a mother and transson who have just picked up the pieces of their relationship after years of the rift between them by writing the novel to share their experiences. One felt like they were ready to transition and that the other was hindering who they were as a person and also that they never intentionally wanted to hurt anyone by seeking to be themselves and I felt like I connected with the transson Donald Collins in the book. The mother Mary Collins was against the transitioning and afraid things were moving too fast which is like my parents and this caused a rift in their relationship. Donald may have felt resentful and trapped that his mother would not help him financially or emotionally with the transition or wasn’t ready for it and that is how I sometimes feel with my parents. Within the story, they try to listen to the concerns of each other but neither one is willing to give in with their opposing mindsets,  one continues to think this is a impulsive decision that requires more thought while the other feels like they are trapped being a false self and wants to change which seems similar to the arguments I have with my parents at times. In my neighborhood, the cisgender (gender identity matches birth sex) guys who used to bully me for being a tomboy now are quite accepting of my gender expression because they understand what I’m going through and they make me feel like I am valid as a male and a person by including me in their friendship circles and inviting me to play sports with them.

So after trying to find myself I realize I am a nonbinary transmale and I experience gender dysphoria because my birth sex doesn’t match my gender identity. But i have become more accepting of who I am as a person and starting to get the resources for me even though it’s hard on my parents. I still have doubts about whether I can be self-sufficient out in the world and fear losing my family’s support, but I never had theu support on many things. They also dilike the fact that I want to be a genetic engineer because they feel that it is too masculine and too hard for me to pursue as a career. I’m working on trying to make them understand who I am as a person and becoming stronger so they don’t hurt me as much, but it can be so frustrating when they think I have a mental illness because of how I identify or the fact that I’m not smart enough to pursue my dream career.

They have been saying that I have become irresponsible and making all the bad decisions in life. I’m tired of arguing with them, so sometimes I ignore them, but that makes them criticize me even more and their voice to go louder. I feel like if I try to tell them and explain to the who I am and how I feel they don’t actively listen, but will interrupt with their opinions and when I don’t tell them they yell at me when they think I’ve done something wrong or against their wishes. I don’t mean to hurt anyone intentionally, but  I’m tired of being criticized when I argue with them and not being heard and also being berated at when I don’t say anything. The trust and connection in the family has gone downhill more over the years and I feel like the family thinks i’m an emotional and financial burden. What should I do?

Dear Anita,

Thank you for your advice. My special friend broke up with his girlfriend in October and we have been hanging out.  He is studying health and wellness as well as environmental science. He is fascinated with how the environment affects human health and has been going on class trips to study ecosystems of the Pine Barrens. I wish I could go to see all the wildlife of Pine Barrens with him, but the class trips are expensive if you are not taking the class. I started with biology and chemistry as my sciences and he started with environmental. We both love nature and I may take an environmental class as well, it would be a fun elective.  I am working on becoming more confident about expressing myself without seeking approval from others for my happiness. Sometimes I feel like I am putting too much strain on myself to be there for the people I care about. For example, if a friend needs help with a homework assignment, I’ll take time out of my schedule to help them. But lately it seems like some of my friends are taking advantage of my help and trying to get me to help them with every assignment they have in a subject and it’s exhausting. I feel like I am being selfish telling them I need time to plan things for myself, but I’m also tired of being the crutch that they lean on. So the question is: How do I help them develop an independent understanding of the lessons by being a guide and not a person who just does the work for them?

Another question: Since my special friend and I are both quite shy, could we write our feelings down on paper and give it to each other? I do wish we could talk more face-to-face because there seems so much to say. Yet, spending time together and just enjoying the moment has always helped show our appreciation towards each other even if we can’t find the words to say. I want to take my special friend on a nature hike over Thanksgiving break and am quite nervous. How should I act? What should we talk about? Should I ask him ask friends or as a relationship?

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Janus.