When I was a student, back in those far-off days when we geeks were still excited about Gopher, I had a mate who bought some of that after-shave with the pheromones that are supposed to attract women. I think it was called "Endros" or something, he ordered it from an advert in a dodgy magazine and it came in an absurdly small bottle for the then-astounding price of twenty five quid. So, bathed in this stuff he sallied forth to collect his guaranteed shag-fest from the students union bar.
Nothing. Not even one of the legendarily "easy" local girls from the estate.
Which meant he was doubly annoyed that I, who had similarly zero success in attracting women, found no problems in engaging them in conversation as I unwittingly developed my "girly chat" defence against the fog.
I've seen an equivalent product marketed to transvestites, supposedly it contains female pheromones, the choking clouds of which are supposed to confuse any passing blokes into thinking that the seven foot girl with the bushy eyebrows and the blokey voice is actually a drop-dead-gorgeous genetic girl. Ooh, passing in a bottle, I'll 'ave some of that! I think I'll pass on the "admirers" though thank you very much.
It's all rubbish, of course. My money is far better spent on ladies shoes.
Personal experience has led me to be curious about how pheromones work though. Not how they work on attracting people, but how they work on a transgendered brain like mine. Let me explain. I live with my wife, a lovely genetic girl who I spend as much time with as I can. I get ups and downs of girl fog, but normally when I can control other factors like sleep and exercise an up follows a down pretty quickly.
For most of the last couple of weeks she's been away, on another continent visiting her mother. As normally happens when she goes away for a while, I crash. My brain goes spiraling into gender-dysphoria-land and I'm in trouble. I kept it at bay during the weekends by doing girl stuff, my local support group and visiting friends, but during the week I was in a somewhat sorry state.
Now you might say with some justification that I'm missing my wife and that's what does it. And it's true, I do miss her. But I'm not convinced that's at the root of the girl fog because I've noticed the same effect at other times when she's been here but for whatever reason we've not been spending so much time together. The odd occasion when I've had to spend a few days disappearing off every day to my parents place to tend to farm animals, for instance. I'm sleeping alone and not breathing in all those handy girl pheromones so I nosedive.
At this point it would be convenient to ask a tame endocrinologist. Sadly all the doctors I know tend to be specialists in arcane areas of medical research and anyway I'm not out to any of them so I couldn't ask even if they had the answer. But I have an advantage here. I'm an engineer by training, not a scientist. Which means that if there's a case in which I find something works the way I think it does, I don't necessarily need confirmation of exactly how it does it, I just need to know it works.
So here's another entry in Jenny's Book Of How To Be a Bloke Who's Transgendered and Remain Sane: spend as much time as you can with the genetic girl in your life. Something I'm perfectly happy to do.
I don't usually wear any scent at all (my brother's allergic), so pheromonal enhancement's probably out too. When it comes to passing, I've learned that most people see what they want to see, regardless of how I present. That's led to me being "Ma'am"-ed a couple of times when I was in drab with visible facial stubble. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteAs for spending time with a gg, it's been so long since one was in my life I've almost forgotten what it feels like, so maybe that's where my sanity went.
Most ad's aimed at men seem to carry the implicit suggestion that you'll get your leg over if only you'll buy them. I think one of Desmond Morris' anthropological documentaries had a long section devoted to pheromones.
ReplyDeleteLucy x
@Jaye: Mrs. J would probably remark that my sanity departed long ago. With respect to people's perceptions of me, it has come as something of a shock to me that I can be perceived as female just by my presentation, despite being at the outer edge of credibility when it comes to size for a bloke, let alone a girl. Another brick removed from my defensive wall.
ReplyDelete@Lucy: I must trawl YouTube to see if I can find that. You reminded me of the advert for the distinctly unglamorous Daihatsu HiJet people carrier, featuring a man and his girlfriend next to a Ferrari alongside a much geekier man with his HiJet containing his wife and all his children. The caption: "One says you're virile, the other proves it!".
Congratulations to Swindon Town on reaching Wembley BTW. Let's hope they do what Oxford United did. (it should pain me to say that, but it's not as if we're in the same division any more - yet!)
Now that you have mentioned it, my GID is never bad when Mrs.H and I are spending lots of time together. It's hard to believe I never noticed it myself.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is a bit like 'girly chat' on performance enhancing drugs; the mrs will talk to me the way she does any friend, except we are best friends so I get all the juicy bits, just like a real girlfriend.
You are a genius Jenny!
As far as the other drugs, the human animal is probably way too overloaded to notice pheromones except at the most primitive level. GG's who live together all end up in monthly 'sinc' apparently (there's is a scary thought, eh?) :P
I would be interested to know how girly my girly chat mode with Mrs. J is. How much different I am to be with through being TG than how I would be if I wasn't. I must quiz her on this when she returns.
ReplyDeleteWell said! You KNOW I agree with your last sentence.
ReplyDeleteCalie xxx
Thank you. I thought you might.
ReplyDelete