Romance?

The other night, I was heading home on the bus, and as I got off the bus and was walking home, a man asked me for my phone number. It was very late and I was quite taken aback by the question, especially since I've been feeling this deep loneliness around things like romance, but also straight up gender dysphoria. I have been going around with this sense that I'm not woman enough and that's been really upsetting. The constant misgendering certainly doesn't help anything. So when he asked for my number that was a huge ego boost.

I had also just been complaining earlier that day about how I was never going to meet anyone because nobody lives with each other anymore. We just live around each other, our minds jacked into our phones as if the Matrix movies were prophecy. I complained how I'm not interested in dating apps, how they commodify us and reduce us to a superficial game of swiping. I pined for to meet someone in real life who would be interested in how I actually present myself to the world, not some self-curated simulacrum of me that has little correspondence to the real world.

So when a guy in the real world, a real, flesh and blood human, put himself out there exactly as I hoped someone would, I immediately denied him. And ever since that moment, I've been wrestling with the inner turmoil of why I denied him. The literal scenario I had hoped for was standing and walking beside me, and I turned him down. The truth is, as much as I wanted to say yes, I still didn't feel safe in that situation. There are so many questions:

"What will he do when he finds out that I'm trans?"
"Is he a chaser?"
"What will he expect from me if I say yes and give him my number?"
"How am I even datable if I don't have my own room?"

...and a hundred other questions. Questions that are all valid, yet all barriers between me and relief from the ache of loneliness. The truth is, I don't know how to get past my fears and anxieties around dating, and that hurts. There's walls everywhere, and no one can get in to me because I didn't bother to install a door.

They say there's a "loneliness epidemic." Am I at the mercy of it, or am I contributing to it? Is this just the frustration of the modern age? Or is this manufactured alienation designed to keep us divided? All the questions I asked are valid concerns (except maybe the having my own room thing) and I don't know how to get past any of it. Will I say yes to the next person who asks for my number on the bus or while I'm out in town? Probably not. But I will think about how and why I'm so afraid to really put myself out there, and how to keep myself safe while respecting my need to step outside of my comfort zone.