[Dirk notices that well enough. Not the sports references, those are a lost cause. But the rest.]

Okay. Uh... I'm going to lapse into pure binarism here for the sake of the discussion. To start, I want to mark a distinction between my identity, meaning who I am and can't not be, and my habits and behaviors, which I can change. Rose's accusation hits its mark because of something she doesn't know about, which is that I tried to change who I am, immutably, for the sake of a friend once. I spent years trying to do that because I felt they deserved it, and I wanted to be able to give them everything they deserve.

I couldn't, since conversion therapy is kinda not a real thing. I had to be true to myself. But it isn't unreasonable for you to fear me trying to alter my identity for your sake when it is something I've tried to pursue in the past. Ultimately, though, I couldn't and can't. No matter how much I might want to be something else, I have to be what I am. We could probably put 'trying to change who I am' into my 'work on it' column pretty readily since I've generally accepted that it's a problem for myself and others.