Just a little animatic I made detailing how my boyfriend and I got together, in honor of pride month, because our relationship has only gotten less straight as time has gone on. I credit him almost entirely for my discovery that I’m pan and largely for my realization that I’m trans. He’s also trans, and it was largely conversations with him that helped me understand myself. So shout out to you, darling. Love you. Fun fact: I made the first half of this as a vent before I even knew he liked me back, up to the start of the second chorus. — Little summary of our story: I met my boyfriend (henceforth “Proio” - not his real name) and his then-girlfriend, our now mutual friend, at the very beginning of our fall semester of freshman year of college. From the moment I met him I wanted to be his friend. We had similar interests, similar goals in life, but were still different enough that we could talk endlessly about different things, and we shared a Chem 101 lecture where we sat next to each other every class. At some point, during the middle of that fall semester, I developed a little crush on him, but I resolved to stamp it out (because of his aforementioned girlfriend). And it worked—by winter break, I had successfully suppressed the feelings. At least, that’s what I thought. Fast forward to spring semester. I got back from winter break and resumed classes and found out that Proio and I shared a class together, followed by an hour break and another class in the same building. We were already friends at this point, so we started spending that time together, generally alone walking around campus talking, and we got even closer. It was around this time that I fell for him again, but where my crush on him in the fall was more “fast fashion” style, this new one was serious. I got giddy every time I saw him, even across campus. He had, and still has, a tendency to lean on his friends’ shoulders and cuddle with them, as he’s a big fan of physical touch. Every time he did that to me, which was pretty often, I’ll tell you that, I’d get butterflies. Through the rest of the spring semester, this just kept ramping up, and by the end of it, I was just about losing my mind. Every time he so much as looked at me, my heart jumped into my throat, and I felt so completely head over heels. Needless to say, given that he was still together with his girlfriend, I was trying desperately to suppress it, but nothing seemed to be working, and by the time I was leaving to go home for the summer, I was glad for the break just so I could have a chance to put my brain back on right. So summer came and went, and everything was fine. I got over those feelings, though it took all of June and some of July. By August, when I returned to college, I was bound and determined to be normal. But what is it they say about best laid plans? The very second I saw him again, everything came rushing back. We had more classes together, including the best bio class ever where we would go on field trips to look at plants every Friday (as well as 3-day camping trips every couple of weeks), and those times really allowed us to grow closer as friends. At that point, I was just happy to get to spend time with my friend; forget my crush. Just before the first 3-day trip, we planned to share a tent due to limited space at the campground. The night before the trip, I got a message from Proio: his girlfriend had broken up with him. He almost didn’t come on the trip, but he decided that the distance would be good for him. That trip created the foundation for our relationship. It was torturous for me, a bit, because I was sleeping basically shoulder-to-shoulder with him in a tent that was way too tiny for two people, but I was able to ignore those feelings in favor of comforting him in the wake of his breakup. (Cont. below)
Art and Designs: @Tiki-Draws Music: Jenny by Studio Killers Key: Lysinder - orange character, representation of myself. Uses any pronouns. Proio - brown character, representation of my boyfriend. Uses he/they pronouns. Other colors are our mutual best friends who were VERY involved with (and instrumental in) our getting together. They’re awesome. -- (Cont. from above) For the next few weeks, I was his primary friend, for lack of a better term. It was rough on him, but I stuck by him as best as I could. At some point, I realized I’d kind of fallen in love with him. I remember at this point little things that made me confused. He’d call me cute, call me his—things I almost thought nothing of but couldn’t quite ignore. I remember feeling “knee deep in the delulu” because I couldn’t stop thinking that we seemed to be caught in each other’s orbits, but there was no way he could like me back. Well. Couple weeks later, it was the beginning of October. We had another 3-day trip and were sharing a tent again because it had worked out the previous time. We got there in the early evening, set up the tent, and sat down inside to get our stuff organized. He turned to me as we were putting the tent up and said, out of the blue, “Do you think our class thinks we’re a couple?” And I had no idea how to respond, so I just shrugged and said, “Probably.” He asked if I minded, and I again had no idea what to say, so I just said, “Nah, not really.” We then went into the tent and I flopped down on my air pad to stretch out. Next thing I knew, he came over to me, seemed really happy, and just draped himself completely on top of me. I froze. No idea what to do. I don’t remember this very well because I was so incredibly nervous. All I know is, at one point, he held my face up to his and I really honestly thought he was going to kiss me, but then just smirked and asked if I wanted to go down to the beach. Dude. The next day was pretty normal, but I was a nervous wreck and he miiiiight’ve noticed. Then I realized how silly I was being—this, if it was what I thought it was, was something I had wanted for almost a year. I got over the anxiety pretty quickly, but it spiked again that night when he leaned in towards me in front of the whole class next to our campfire and I REALLY thought he was gonna kiss me then, so I kinda fell over. I went to bed early, and that night was when pretty much everything changed. I was mostly asleep when he got back to the tent, but woke up a little more when he got in. I was definitely very physically sleepy if not mentally. He got in his sleeping bag and scooted over to me and curled up in the crook of my shoulder. He talked for a little bit about something or another before telling me that he had a crush on me, and that he had for just about as long as I’d liked him. I had no idea what to do, so I used my sleepiness as a shield, and at some point, we both went to sleep. My brain was completely active, though, and I was in complete shock. The next morning, he was worried about what he had told me and that I wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore. Keep in mind that I hadn’t told him I liked him back yet. I promised him that nothing would change between us that he didn’t want to change, and he seemed incredibly relieved and hugged me. From there, we just spent the next month slowly developing our relationship. This happened at the beginning of October, and we were basically dating by the middle of the month (though not officially). I finally came clean about how long I’d liked him sometime near the end of the month, which seemed to come as a shock to him. He cared a lot about not letting me be a rebound because of his breakup, so we didn’t start dating until the beginning of November. That night was also when we had our first kiss in the prettiest part of our campus. Anyway, since then, we’ve had our ups and downs like any relationship, but a lot of our struggles have been good for the strength of our relationship. We’re completely in love and things are only looking up. This summer is and will be very hard (long distance because of the break, and we miss each other so much), but come the fall, we’re moving into an apartment together right next door to our best friends. Sometimes, things do turn out.
