Short Stories

3) Daniel

"So this is the place where we tend to hang out in between classes and I figured we would eat our lunch here, sounds good?" I asked my long time friend Robin. I was giving her a tour of my campus since she had been close by.

"Sure, sounds good. I really like the vibe here, even though some of these wall panels are ugly," she replied.

"Yeah, I'm in love with the plant walls, but the walls without plants could use some improvement," I agreed, while grabbing my lunch from my bag. "Did you take any lunch with you?"

"Yeah, I have it right here." She showed me her sandwich. We ate in silence for a bit, until one of my classmates approached us.

"Hey Daniel, do you know when we have to hand in that programming assignment?" he asked me, as he moved his hand through his hair.

"Sure, we have to hand it in on Friday evening, how so?"

"Oh, that's a relief, I got stuck and thought we had to hand it in tomorrow night." His shoulders lost some tension and he noticed Robin. "Hi, I'm Vincent, who are you?" he asked kindly.

"Hello, I'm Robin, Daniel is giving me a tour," she replied.

"Is he doing this place any justice, or is he just showing you the boring parts?"

My eyes widened a bit, and I tried to distract both of them from the pronouns Vincent had used, "Of course I'm also showing her the interesting things, I started with those! I just finished explaining all about the different sports we can do here, like fencing, climbing and bouldering." Vince grinned at my tone, but I ignored him. "On a side note, did you manage to finish that new climbing course?"

"Almost, I fell only a meter from the top," Vince answered, frustrated.

"You climb as well? I climb in my hometown," Robin inserted, interested in the topic like I expected her to be. They continued talking for a bit, until Vincent had to leave for his next class.

"I liked him, he seems nice. Why did he use he/him pronouns for you though?" she asked. I tensed up, I had hoped she hadn't noticed that. She watched me tense up and gave me a side hug. "Hey, don't worry, you don't have to answer, it is none of my business. If you want to tell me, I'm here to listen though."

I froze with indecision. "Uhmm, I have to go to the toilet, I'll be back in a moment." I fled, like a coward. But I needed the time to think, and I couldn't do that while Robin was watching me. Giving myself that time didn't make me a coward, it made me brave. Brave. I stopped in a hallway close by and leaned against the wall.

I hadn't thought this through. I had not spent a single thought on my pronouns. Not one. I'm enby, actually agender I guess, but I like the label enby better. Most of the time I was comfortable with that, and didn't think about my pronouns at all. I never corrected anyone on my pronouns, because they were all comfortable for me. I let my head fall against the wall I was leaning on.

With me doing a course in computer science, and often wearing wide clothing, my classmates had assumed me a man. And Robin knew me before even I knew I was enby, and thus assumed I was a women. Neither assumption was correct, but I wasn't bothered by either, so I left them as is. And now these two assumptions had collided. I moved of off the wall and began pacing the hallway.

Nobody in real life knew about my gender. I had told internet friends, but I did not feel the need to let anyone else know. I never even wore any pride stuff or put my pronouns anywhere. So what would I tell Robin? To ignore it? To use a specific set of pronouns? Everything?

I walked back to where I left Robin. She was looking at something on her phone, her sandwich still in her lap. "Hey, sorry about that," I said, still a bit tense. She looked up and put her phone away.

"No worries! I was just looking if I could quickly find some information about different genders, but I didn't get far. We can ignore what happened if you want to though." She picked up her sandwich and took a bite.

Somehow she managed to make me relax a bit, but I still didn't feel wholly comfortable. "I, uhhh, am enby I guess." I couldn't get my voice to go louder than a whisper. "Ummm. Look up agender?" I continued, sounding intimidated.

She grabbed her phone, so I did the same. I could text her about the pronouns, that might be easier. I opened our texts and started writing one, not feeling comfortable about texting while I was next to her, but talking about this was difficult. It read: "I use any/all pronouns, and just let people assume my gender. I don't mind talking about it. You can ask questions, but please wait until tonight or later, and ask them via text? I'm sorry." I pressed send.

I heard the notification come in, and she opened the text immediately. She finished reading it and smiled at me while saying, "Hey, of course that's okay. You don't have to be sorry for anything, I get it's nerve wracking to come out, even if it's me. You don't owe me anything." She hugged me, and I relaxed into it. "After I get home I'll look into stuff and ask any questions I have. Feel free to scold me if I'm being ignorant somewhere."

"Thank you," I whispered. I finally continued eating my sandwich, still feeling awkward, but feeling better at the same time.

The rest of the day continued as normal, but when I said goodbye as we normally did, "Bye bye pretty!" Robin startled me by replying with, "Bye bye handsome!"