I have a subject :))

He said yes! He said yes: I HAVE A CAPSTONE PROJECT THANK YOU DEAR GOD IF YOU ARE ACTUALLY OUT THERE!
So we met at a public place, we talked about the project and he said YES. I would have been in a considerable amount of trouble otherwise; ´cause the project I presented to my advisor is sort of “designed” for this guy´s story!!

But there is one thing: he was like “yes,” “yeah, that sounds fine,” “sure, we could do that.” I mean, almost no questioning of my motives, my resumé, my persona. And I was prepared to “fight back” and sort of “win” his trust as a subject so he would let me do the video. This piece is about really personal stuff: It´s about body issues, gender, sexuality, coming out... I´m sure he understood that, I made it very clear that I will ask all sorts of questions and that this is not a one-time interview, that I´ll be following him a lot and stuff. So his reaction is weird. Maybe he´ll become trickier later, once we are in the middle of an interview. Maybe he doesn´t care about the project at all and that´s why he´s like “oh, yeah, that sounds fine.” If that´s the case, I´m screwed: the interviews will go nowhere and I´ll get no intimacy. But that can´t be! Seriously, we are talking about a hormonal process that changed his life!

So, how is he? Well, I told him I was going to wear a pink scarf so he could recognize me. I sat in some sort of bar (cafeteria, of course no alcohol) and waited for him. He didn´t see me; I recognized him instantly and I turned around. I can´t describe the moment really, but it was a bit awkward.
 I think maybe he is a bit shy, I felt he had already seen me, but felt shy and let me do “the job” and encounter him, like, come to him and talk to him. Then we sat and talked about the project. I was insanely nervous, but managed to hide it well. Getting good at that.
At some moment, he stood up to make himself a coffee, and I had a moment to really look at him. He was wearing gray jeans, snickers, typical guy clothes. The jeans were a bit skinny, but in a “guy´s way.” His body language is masculine, the way he stands, his gestures. Sometimes, it looked studied. He probably knew I was looking at him, and was probably being more careful with his body language.

Tiding things together, if he is shy AND this piece will be so intimate, I guess I´ll have to handle the whole thing very carefully. Maybe he is saying yes to everything I propose because he is too shy and doesn´t have the strength to say “I don´t think I´ll be OK with that.” I don´t want to do an exploitative piece: if this is what’s going on, I would have to be really careful. I mean, if he is not setting boundaries about his own privacy, I will have to take that responsibility and do it myself. Yes, he´s older than 18, but still. This guy has gone through a lot. But he really doesn´t look like he is not stable enough to handle being featured by a journalist; he actually has been interviewed before, so we should be fine. I haven´t even filmed, I haven´t even reserved the cameras yet, and the ethics issues are already kicking in! Jeez!