Over the weekend, I visited a friend for her birthday and the two of us caught up on some streaming stuff that she was behind on. I was also behind on some of it, on account of having promised to watch it with her and waiting until we had the chance to even think of watching it, but I’d already seen Nimona. I saw it the week following its release, resubscribing to Netflix for the first time in years to do so. I figured my second time through the movie would be less impactful, mostly because the moment-to-moment tension of the movie would be gone after the first viewing, but I figured I’d be familiar with it enough the second time around that I’d start to look for things I missed the first time. More background details. What the other characters in the movie are doing when the movie is directing my attention to a specific place. Subtle nuance I missed in the course of the raw emotions I experienced the first time through. That sort of stuff. Instead, the only difference was that I knew things were coming and was able to eagerly await them rather then be surprised when they showed up. Sure, it was a bit less tense and a bit less moving, but I still felt the same way as when I watched it the first time. I still experienced the same swells of emotion at the same parts, even if they never quite reached the peak of my first time watching the movie. The only thing that was different was that I was watching it with someone else.

Part of watching a movie with someone else is talking to them about it afterwards and my friend and I are no exception. My friend commented about the high points, about the way that identity is displayed and how the assertion of the self, Nimona saying “I’m NIMONA” in response to anyone’s queries about “what” she is, was something she could relate to. It made sense, as she explained it, given the way that modern society expects women to be a specific sort of way and to have specific feelings about their looks and their bodies as a result of those expectations. It’s a very real thing, to eschew society’s definition of something in favor of defining yourself as yourself, and it seemed very relatable to be me, both Nimona’s experience and my friend’s, even if it was in very different ways. Back when I was in high school and college, and for a long time after college, too, I defined myself as myself. I took comfort in knowing that, ultimately, my fundamental nature was something I understood even if it wasn’t something I ever shared with anyone or that I ever really projected beyond the self-acceptance required to live in peace while performing an appearance and gender identity that I did not feel belonged to me. I did not have to fit a metric or compare myself to an average. I was just me and as long as I stayed focused on that, then it was fine. It’s not like there were any other versions of me running around to compare myself to.

On the other hand, when I hear Nimona say “I’m Nimona,” I feel it resonate with the parts of myself that yearn to be free of labels and any kind of definition. I have accepted a specific gender identity and I’m made peace with where that tends to get placed under the various identity umbrellas. I am still struggling with how to define my sexuality even though I’ve found some words that mostly fit because they only mostly fit. Like my chosen pronouns. Labels help a lot of people relate to other people and while I might wish to forgo them, I understand that people will constantly sort each other into boxes as part of their attempts to understand each other (and for a lot of much worse reasons as well, but I’m trying to be generous here). It seems better to me to have the labels I’d prefer ready just to make sure I wind up in the right place when other people consider me. I understand the societal desire to have things pinned under glass and clearly demarcated, but it is not one I share myself. I’m attracted to the people I’m attracted to and while there are a lot of broad categories I could use to describe the sort of person I’d generally be attracted to, they’re not rules I live by and they’re not even true all the time. My gender identity is currently defined as a lack of one. I do not identify with any particular gender I’ve seen or considered, though I still tend to present pretty specifically masculine. Mostly because that’s a lot easier for day-to-day life, because it’s my genetic default at present, and because I live in an area where fifteen minutes of driving will get me around people who would absolutely and actively wish harm upon me if I presented as anything other than “standard masculine” given my baseline appearance.

All of this ran through my head (albeit in a rather less verbose way) while I listened to my friend talk about the movie we’d watched. Her analysis was not wrong. Her ability to relate to the movie is not unearned, unreasonable, or without merit. I just found it difficult to do more than listen as she spoke and eventually joke that, since she did not exercise and had no self-confidence issues and I exercise regularly and have tons of self-confidence issues, we’ve clearly disproven the general society adage that one must regularly exercise in order to build self-confidence (it was a topical joke, I promise, and not nearly as out-of-left-field as it seems here). After all, as supportive as she is, this isn’t really an experience that she shares with me, the way that differing from the labels the world puts on you can cause a lot of constant friction. Sure, she absolutely understands the way that some labels are value more than others and that failing to fit one of the molds society provides can make your life incredibly difficult in a lot of painful and unfortunate ways, but she fits within the broad categories society attempts to enforce on the world. She hears “I’m Nimona” and, at first look, understands “I’m ME” but misses the other elements contained within it. She does not catch “I’m not what you say I am” or “I will not allow you to define me as anything less than my full self” or “I refuse to play into your small-minded questions.” Well, I mean, I suspect that she would hear and understand those things if I asked, but those are not the parts of the message she relates to. She has not had to war with her identity because it was something deemed heretical (thanks, Catholic upbringing and the incredibly enforced gender roles of the various English translations of the bible on top of every incredibly gender-specific religious ceremony that was a part of being raised in my parents’ church) or because she fits in a specific society box in a way that causes her daily pain since allowing yourself to be confined in wrong shape means allowing everyone you meet to shape you into something you aren’t.

Those aren’t really conversations I’m ready to have with people at ten in the evening, following a long, tiring day of work, a three hour drive, and a fun but emotionally complicated movie. I’m barely capable of having those conversations with people who I know absolutely get it, let alone with people I know could be understanding if I’m capable and willing to expend the energy required to help them get there. There’s a reason all of this stuff comes out in blog posts, where I’m talking to myself and have the time to carefully consider my words and edit myself before anyone sees it. I mean, I’ve got one friend I talk to about this stuff and even that’s a bit fraught sometimes because they’re not always up for these kinds of talks and they’re on a very different journey. They get it, though, which is why I always talk with them when we have the time. I’m just not very practiced at talking about it with other people and I’m STILL figuring out how I feel and what I want, so I wind up feeling frustrated every time I run into a barrier of being unable to express myself. Given how supportive my friend is, though, offering to make me any kind of clothing that I want to wear once I figure out my desired presentation, I don’t want to have a conversation with her that ends with me frustrated and out of sorts through no fault of hers since I’m not certain I could keep the frustration out of any talk I have that turns to my own experiences and feelings. Especially not when the I’m not out at the place where I spend most of my time around other people because I’m not up for the constant need to remind and correct everyone who will likely get my pronouns wrong not out of maliciousness, but out of a sheer lack of effort to change their behavior or challenge their prejudices.

All of which means it was a rather unsatisfying experience. Throw in some sleep difficulties (I am a bit too large to comfortably sleep on the futon at her home without a bit of luck) on top of the general exhaustion I’ve been dealing with for the last few weeks (which has definitely become a fresh layer of burnout) and it really paints a picture of a rather disappointing second viewing. The movie was lovely, of course, as was spending time with my friend, but I wish I’d been in a better place to talk about it afterwards.