Y'know it's funny
I was getting really depressed lately about... well... being stuck here for potentially the rest of my life. I'm pretty sure all of my fellow 3rd world furry friends out there especially when it comes to being gay (and especially my fellow SEA friends) all would have at one point made it their goal to leave. We might not think of America as "The land of dreams where the streets are paved with gold" but you would sure as hell think that those streets with pride flags painted on them would be a far more fun place to live in. Obviously after Trumps first election that notion proved itself to be entirely wrong but for a lot in places like this it's still... theoretically loads better.
I started a relationship during the pandemic
"oh with the quarantine here it'd just be like we were in different cities during the pandemic... we can just pretend we aren't miles apart and just quarantining"
but...
The more the years go by the... clearer it is how hard it is to make things work... the difference between us though is that he made it out of his own 3rd world hell and has no allusions that america was all that great a place... which always puzzled me given how he used to describe how he used to live back at his home... And it continued to stump me when I was gettign depressed that I may never leave here but he in contrast... missed home.
I still remember how things were in the 2000s growing up. Sure we got a hell of a lot of visibility especially for trans people and people in drag but you'd never just meet a... regular gay guy that was out of the closet here... or so I thought

I've kind of been living as a hikkikomori during my 20's assuming the world outside hasn't really changed at all since I was in school... but... Even if I've been stuck in the world from a decade ago it... seems my country has zoomed past me... right under my nose.

Turns out all I needed was for somebody to show me that.