The Objectively Most Rational Decision

-- Day -18 --

"God. Damn it!" I hissed through my teeth, slamming my tightly clenched fist on my desk, causing my keyboard to jump a little - as if startled. My elo had dropped to 1198 - another hundred barrier I had fallen below. You fucking moron, Eric. How did you not see the fucking bishop?!

I resisted the powerful urge to punch myself, too - it was an irrational action, yet I struggled to find an outlet when I got angry like this. Aren't you supposed to be logical and emotionless? Ugh.

I closed out of the tab. I should've done that hours ago - I would lose a single game due to my habitual tunnel vision, and I'd play another game while angry to reclaim my pride. I'd inevitably lose again, and the negative feedback loop would continue until I'd lost a hundred points of elo.

Online chess was a relatively new pastime of mine - I'd started it a few months ago as another avenue to test my intellectual superiority against the idiots that infested the world, but my fucking anger kept getting in the way, causing me to make bad, hasty moves. I had learned quickly in the first couple weeks, easily gaining elo, but ever since then I'd been stuck at a bell curve centered around 1300 - my highest ever was 1419, and that had been a month ago.

Clearly, there was something keeping me from the higher elo I rightfully deserved. It wasn't a real skill ceiling. I could do better. I knew I could do better, I just needed to get complete control of my emotions. Feel nothing. See the lines.

I took a deep, sighing breath, and leaned back in my creaky old computer chair. I took a final sip of my Coke and tossed the can into the pile. I needed to do something else, get my mind off of it.

Jerk off? Jerk off.

I clicked on a bookmarked webpage and was instantly brought to one of my favourite greentexts. It was from the perspective of one of those degenerate AGPs - males so horny and pathetic that they reconstruct themselves into facsimiles of females. The post was essentially smut, describing Anon being dominated by a superior male, and forced into submitting like a good little feminized male.

The story was almost certainly fake, but I didn't particularly care - the mental imagery it generated was more than stimulating enough to draw me to release within minutes.

It was then, during that post-nut shame that I felt so often, that I had a novel thought. An idea I struggled to even consider. A moment of sudden, beautiful clarity.

***

I didn't believe there was an easier existence in the entire animal kingdom than that of a human female.

While males of the species were forced to put their blood, sweat, and tears into physical and intellectual labour to build our society and just about every invention in human history, femoids were free to waste their mens' money on trivial bullshit while simultaneously cheating on them with any male they saw as more successful. This was not some new, cultural phenomenon: It was biological wiring - even back in the paleolithic, while men were risking their lives hunting dangerous animals, the females were going around picking berries and gossiping with each other.

They lived easy, pampered lives, with barely a shred of effort necessary to attract males. In the sexual marketplace, men got the short end of the stick. Femoids just had to sit there, while men presented themselves to be rejected as the female pleased. It was a bullshit system, but that's just how the world worked.

The realization I had that night required some context: the past, present, and future trajectory of my life. It was a bleak one, practically the whole way through.

I remembered the first day of grade school. All the other kids easily gravitated into friend groups in what felt like an instant. I, socially awkward even back then, sat in the back of the room reading a fantasy book. The only redeeming quality I seemed to have at all was my intellect; I was deemed a gifted kid, put in advanced programs, and was reminded over and over about how smart I was.

That first year was just a sign of things to come. With each passing year, the chasm between myself and my peers grew wider and wider. Resentment grew within me every time I tried to do something with my classmates, and was inevitably rejected for my social ineptitude and general weirdness. While the guys in my class bulked up and talked about sports and other shit I didn't care about, and the girls became vicious creatures who went out of their way to belittle me, I was left by myself as a scrawny, angry, short nerd with no friends.

Meanwhile, I continued to be told by my teachers about how intelligent I was, but the encouraging praise transformed over time into disappointed talks after class about how I could do so much better in school if I just put some effort in. I never learned how to study, or how to persevere when something isn't instantly easy. When my grades slipped from exceptional to painfully average, I knew that I would never fulfill the hopes my parents and teachers had for me.

Unwillingly exempted from a social life in the real world, I retreated to the internet. 4chan, Reddit, and Discord became the only places where I ever interacted with people - though I mostly just lurked on those first two. I spent all my time on there ignoring my real life, which I had already given up on. I was just a failure. A disappointment. A gifted kid burnout.

I was expelled in my last year of high school.

I refused to go to another school, so that was it. The shame of not even getting a high school diploma - let alone the thing I did to get expelled - drew me even further into my shell. I became a hikikomori - a NEET. A worthless drain on society hiding inside my room and rotting away. I was never going to do anything with my life, continuing on like this.

So why did I?

Mostly laziness. However, a large factor was the keen awareness that I was never going to be a high value male. Sure, I could looksmaxx and work out and take steroids, but I'd still just be a 5'8", weak-chinned, slim-shouldered, socially incompetent weirdo with incongruent muscles. No female would want to have sex with me. As soon as I realized this, I gave up on any attempt to improve my life. What would be the point, if I was going to be a pathetic virgin no matter what?

Now, however, I had a radical idea. An extreme measure, but what was the alternative - more wasted days blurring by in my bedroom, never doing anything with my life? I hated it. I hated it so much. I'd do just about anything that could set me free from it. So this was the plan:

Become a girl.

Okay, hear me out. My unattractive features for a male - slim shoulders, weak jawline, small nose, shorter stature - could be recontextualized into attractive ones for a female. I had seen before and after pictures of estrogen - the results could be incredible. I jerked off to a few of them. While cosmetic facial surgery to make me look more masculine had to be paid for out of pocket, I could get female hormones for free through the provincial healthcare system if I got them prescribed by a doctor.

Sure, there were a few problems. I definitely wasn't gay, and yuri had never appealed to me. I was pretty sure that the hormones would rewire my brain into that of a typical female, though, so that might not end up being an issue. Even if I didn't develop an attraction to males, I could still exploit those assholes who looked down on me in high school, and then break their hearts when they run out of stuff to give me. It'd make for sweet revenge.

I'd probably lose my high IQ and cold rationality - it's basic science - but while I remained intensely prideful of it, I had to ask: what has it ever done for me? I've been blackpilled over and over about the state of the world. All this awareness had just made me depressed and hopeless - maybe if I was dumber and more emotional, I could actually enjoy living.

I could never actually be a female, of course. My chromosomes could never be altered, nor could I have a functioning reproductive system - though it wasn't like my current one was getting any use. Still, I could make myself close enough to gain the social and biochemical benefits of being one.

It was an overwhelming idea. I remained hesitant, but the burning desire to do anything to force a change welled up within me each time I thought about reconsidering. I was not going to continue as I was. It was time, for once in my life, to actually try at something.

It'll be easier if I broke it down into simple steps - goals to work towards one at a time. Well, alright then.

Step one: take a shower.

***

-- Day -17 --

Waking up, the morning - afternoon, technically - after that fateful decision was made, felt different. I actually had plans for the day. It was not something I typically had - I'd wake up, immediately sit down at my computer, and the day would pass by with the occasional break to fetch a snack or take a piss.

This morning, I had a purpose: figure out how to set up an appointment with a doctor to prescribe estrogen for me. I'd never actually done anything like that - my mother had always handled that stuff, but I supposed I was an adult now. I should learn to do adult stuff.

Maybe I'd just ask her for some help.

The other task I had for today I was perhaps more apprehensive about: the shower. I hadn't showered since I was expelled, so it was... over two years, now. I didn't particularly notice the stench, but I knew that I had become desensitized to it, just like the smell of my room. My room, however, was a beast to slay another day.

I trudged through the miscellaneous trash littering the floor of my room, then skulked through the apartment's living room. I was careful not to wake my mother, who was sleeping on the couch, still in her work clothes - we tried to ignore each others' existence these days, beyond the bare minimum.

A bathroom door, a flick, and a wince at the bright, artificial light later, and I was staring at my reflection in the mirror above the sink. Greasy, matted hair that was left to grown out with zero maintenance. The smattering of stubble on my cheeks and chin that never managed to be a beard, that weak jawline and small nose that I always hated about my face. About the only thing I liked about it were my cold grey eyes, which - as I was told by uncomfortable classmates that annoyed me - could pierce straight to the soul.

I didn't know if I liked it as much, being on the receiving end of that glare.

I pointedly turned my head away from that mirror. What a disgusting. pathetic excuse for a male. I wished I could shower with the lights off, but I'd probably slip and fall and die. That'd be an embarrassing way to go.

Leaving my rarely-washed clothes in a pile in the corner, I stepped into the bathtub and closed the curtain. The porcelain tub felt startlingly cold beneath my feet, unaccustomed to being outside of a pair of socks. I then, naïvely, turned the knob.

Freezing water pelted me across my chest, shoulders, and face. I reflexively flicked the knob back off. Sputtering indignantly and soaking wet, I felt humiliated despite being alone. God damn it.

Trying again, I quickly turned the knob as far as it could go. Too cold. Cold. Warm. Uh-oh. Hot hot hothothot-

I jumped out of there faster than a cat in water. Fuck, I was bad at this. Trepidatiously, I reached my hand into the scalding torrent to nudge the knob down. Once it was at a tolerable temperature, I re-entered the downpour.

Cool, alright, first step down. I knew how to do basic hygiene and self-maintenance tasks. Of course.

What next? Right, shampoo. I didn't have my own bottle, so I supposed I would just use my mother's. She probably wouldn't smell it. I squirted the bottle onto my hand and tried to lather my hair. I struggled to get it through the rat's nest that was my hair - scratch that, it was impossible. My hair was almost like a solid mass; I'd need an industrial strength hair-washer. Is that a thing? I should get a haircut, but that'd be counter-productive to my plan.

Fuck it. I seethed in frustration and brought my arms back down to my sides. I was gonna deal with that later.

Next goal: washing the body. Ugh. While I had always been perilously skinny in the past, my youthful metabolism was beginning to falter under the weight of two years of total sedentarism and a piss-poor diet of instant ramen, chicken tenders, and various snack foods. As a result, a layer of chub was growing around my stomach. I needed to exercise. Or eat better. Neither option sounded appealing.

Okay. Body wash. Again, I didn't have my own, so I used my mother's. I rubbed it across my body, unsure of what technique I should be employing. I wasn't sure exactly what it was doing, but my skin looked shinier. I guess.

Getting fed up with the hot water raining down on me, I turned off the shower and stepped out of the tub. Task completed successfully. Mostly.

I didn't like being wet. Without the heat of the water constantly being reinforced, the stale bathroom air felt intolerably cold, and my hair felt much heavier and more annoying when soaked and dripping. I grabbed a towel from the shelf and started aggressively wiping myself down.

Once I felt decently dry, I wrapped the towel around my waist and picked up my discarded clothes. I opened the bathroom door and-

"You actually took a shower? Never thought I'd see the day," my mother said, eyebrow raised and arms crossed, standing outside the bathroom door. She looked permanently tired these past couple years, with heavy bags under her eyes - which faintly shone with an uncharacteristic sort of wary hopefulness. I gulped.

"No shit," I sneered. I never understood the tendency of people to point out things that were patently obvious.

She rolled her eyes, then sniffed with a weird look on her face, "You need to get your own shampoo, you know."

I narrowed my eyes, "I am aware."

My mother pinched the bridge of her nose, "Can't you just... not be so difficult with me." she sighed deeply, "So, you showered. That's good. Can I ask what finally motivated you to do it?"

Her exasperation nearly made me feel guilty about the way I treated her, but I didn't spend years learning how to feel no emotion for nothing. I bottled all that up, and threw it away. "Felt like making a change," I shrugged, "I need to set up an appointment with a doctor."

She furrowed her eyebrows, "Why? Is something wrong?"

Should I tell her? Not yet, probably. She'd be - understandably - suspicious of my motives, deciding to transition out of seemingly nowhere. Nobody did that. It wasn't a thing. "None of your business," I replied.

"Well, if it's 'none of my business', why don't you make the appointment?"

Ugh. Seriously? Fine. I could do that. I was an adult. It'd be so easy, actually.

Maybe I'd just play some video games first.

***

The feeling I hated most in the entire world was the overwhelming sense of shame and guilt I experienced after masturbating. The more degenerate the material, the worse it got. This was, most certainly, not my proudest nut.

No, I'm not going to tell you what it was. Fuck off.

When I leaned back in my chair and sighed dejectedly at the state of my existence, I glanced at the clock on the sidebar. 2:30 PM, already? It really didn't feel like that long - I hated the way that the past couple years seemed to slip through my fingers in the blink of an eye.

Fuck. I only had a couple hours left to book an appointment. I was smart enough to check the calendar last night, and today was Friday. Okay then, do it now. Get it over with.

I had done some research during the past few hours; I didn't spend the whole afternoon jerking off and gaming. Just most of it. Anyway, I had found a local clinic. There was a doctor - nurse practitioner, technically - who worked there and specifically dealt with mental health and trans healthcare for youth. How serendipitous.

I had done some light digging on the NP and discovered that she was a trans herself - or to be biologically accurate, himself. It was hard to think in those terms, though, since in her photos she definitely passed for a real woman.

This could act as both a blessing or a curse for my goal of obtaining hormones. On one hand, a trans person would be more likely to sympathize with my 'plight' and prescribe hormones with less substantial evidence required. On the other, I had never actually met a tranny, and I wasn't quite sure how to pass myself off as one of them. What if she saw through the fabrications, and could tell I wasn't really trans?

I knew a bit about trans people, from pure scientific curiosity about the phenomenon. There was a mental illness called Gender Dysphoria, which caused its patients to experience severe discomfort from being seen as, or acting as, their birth sex. The only scientifically validated treatment is for them to 'transition' to living as the sex that they mentally feel they are. It seemed a little pathetic to me - after all, I learned to suck up discomfort about shit ages ago - but science was science. So whatever.

Despite this, the majority of 'trans' people - in my experience - were actually autogynephiles: males who felt so sexually aroused from fantasies about becoming females that they felt a compulsion to make it real. I understood that - I, of course, had the average amount of erotic fantasies about transforming into a female. I wasn't actually an AGP, though, because I was doing this for purely rational reasons, not sexual ones. It just logically followed from my circumstances.

Anyway, I didn't know this particular trans person's views towards the latter, so I figured it would be easier to pretend to be the former. I could construct a narrative that would be very hard to disprove, and gain access to estrogen supplements. Simple.

With a plan established, I dialed the number listed for the clinic. I'd never liked phone calls - I'd never liked any social interaction, really, but phone calls felt particularly awkward. Whatever. I needed to do this.

"Hello, I'd like to set up an appointment?"