Waiting for the day

One thing I've realized is that I have a lot of problems with physical contact.

I was never abused or hit.  I think my grandmother once told me (as a teenager) that even as a kid, she and my parents had only ever spanked me once; normally just knowing I'd done something bad was enough punishment (which... indicates other issues, but later for that).

I do have sensory issues, in the sense that I've had heightened sensation for almost every sense.  Not in the Daredevil or superhero sense - nothing so useful.  It's probably just related to my ADHD, and I'm sure I've talked about it before.  But it means, among other things, that I'm very aware of physical contact and touch.

But that's just a small part. Most of it is, really, because of high school.

I came out as gay as a Freshman in high school.  I didn't really have any major negative reactions (in fact, it was mostly positive, albeit very lonely).  But one thing I internalized very quickly was that I "had to" behave in a way that couldn't ever be considered as compromising for another guy.  I mean, "everyone" knew I was gay, so anything I did with or around guys had the potential to make people think the other guy was gay, and I both didn't want to put people in that position and didn't want guys worried that I would.

So, I essentially went totally hands-off, physically distant, and as un-suggestive a possible.

It was just the start of the whole "hugging" thing, at least in more-liberal SoCal, and guy friends would often greet each other with a hug or a shoulder squeeze or whatever.  I rarely even shook hands.

I went through extra effort to try and use restrooms that either only had one urinal or that no one else ever really used, just so that I couldn't ever be thought of as trying to "check out" anyone else.

I explicitly avoided changing in the locker room whenever anyone else was in there and would often just walk home (track was last, after school) and shower and such there.

I don't know that most people noticed.  I had one old high school friend comment about it decades later, but he was a close friend and, so, perhaps more attentive to such things.  It also fit into the general "calm, cool, brainer/geek" reputation I had, so maybe that led to people not really thinking about it.

But the truth is that I am a *very* sensual person.  I love physical contact with other guys.  Not sexual per se - I mean, sure, fun and all - but even just giving someone a massage, someone's head in my lap for a movie, whatever.  I see guys - straight, gay, whatever - being able to do "bro" stuff and I love that they have that freedom, that it can be so casual.

But 30 years of practice is hard to break.  If I *do* get to the point of actually trusting someone, like really trusting them, then it's all-in and I'm relaxed doing anything.  It's like a switch flips in my head.  But until I get to that point, there's this barrier in my head that I always throw up.  And that of course makes it so much harder to get close to people.

It's something I need to work on, though I don't exactly have much of an opportunity to do so - especially now during the quarantine, but even in general.  Too many other walls in the way usually, not all of them mine.  But still.  To quote an old George Michael song, "All these insecurities that have held me down for so long; can't say I've found a cure for these, but at least I know them so they're not so strong..."

Momentary lapse of reason

Please note, I'm not writing this as a pity session.  I'm not looking for sympathy or anything.  I'm mostly putting this here because it is, in fact, pretty close to shouting into the void.  One doesn't expect the void to shout back, just to shout out and let the void absorb it.

There's this vintage photo posted on Reddit the other day.  Shows two guys in lifeguard shirts, seemingly from Coney Island or somewhere similar, and the back has a note dated 1949 that is pretty definitively a love note.

You see things like it pop up all the time: little things from the past that seem to float the message, "yes, there was love, even when it wasn't obvious"...

I keep looking at it over the last few days.  Not because the guys are cute - I mean, they are - but because of what it signifies.  And because I know it's something I won't have.

That's not to say I haven't been there.  I've had moments in the past that are snapshots in my mind.  A face laying in my lap in a back seat as streetlights flash by.  Walking down the boulevard holding hands during Pride weekend.  Hearing a song come on the jukebox, and turning to see him smiling as he comes up the stairs towards me.

But the truth, the real honest truth, is that I haven't had anything even remotely in the same class in 20 years, almost half my life.  And given where I am, what I'm doing, and the specifics of my life, I'm not likely to have it again any time in the near future.  There's a certain kind of attitude and approach, a certain kind of no-strings, just-enjoy-the-moment that is the core of how I approach romance but seems completely alien to anyone over 30.  Maybe that means I'm childish; it's not unreasonable.  Maybe it means the rest of the world is just too serious.  Maybe it's just that I haven't looked in the right places or hung out with the right people.

It's just a momentary bit of loneliness.  It doesn't hit often.  Maybe it's being magnified by this whole quarantine, though to be honest my life hasn't changed all that much since the quarantine started.  I'm not going to give up my longer-term goals or change much of how I'm doing things at the moment.

It'd just be nice, you know?