that's how high the stakes can feel sometimes. "either i turn women on or i don't even get to feel human"
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the first time i started dating a girl i could kiss and cuddle with it was the best thing that ever happened to me. she was the first person i felt like i had permission to touch freely. i wouldn't have known how to say this but i didn't feel fully human until we touched
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(it is perhaps relevant background here that asian parents don't really hug their kids or tell them that they love them. i didn't have the vocabulary for this until a decade later but i grew up extremely starved of touch or really loving attention in general)
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i don't know that i can really describe to a woman how desolate it can feel to be a man in this position. one time i tried and i said "it's like i'm dying of thirst in the desert and the thirstier i am the less anyone wants to give me water"
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i've also tried writing poetry about it, twice, based on both my experiences and those of men i've talked to
thicketforte.com/2018/03/03/a-p
thicketforte.com/2018/07/30/who
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anyway, i did manage to get out the desert, it is in some sense the arc of the last 5 years of my life and it's a real long story. some of it involved crying while being witnessed by women (who agreed to do so). much of it involved crying alone
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some of it involved crying while being witnessed by men
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what i did instead was roar "I WILL NEVER TREAT ANYONE THE WAY MY FATHER TREATED ME. I WILL BE A BETTER MAN THAN MY FATHER AT ALL COSTS."
then i burst into tears
the workshop lead said "take a knee, gentlemen."
and everyone else - staff, participants - knelt around me
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i don't want to intimidate anyone but i do want to be honest - the bridge i had to cross from where i was to where i am now involved something like 10-50 hours of crying. i haven't kept careful track but it's been a *lot*. sometimes one must grieve many things
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Seeing this number made me think it was way too low
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I'm reading it in the tone of voice of a boy racer explaining his car has 500 horsepower
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compared to how much i was crying before it’s a lot jeez guys 😤
Aww I’m sorry .. I did not mean to imply … just been thinking lately that a consequence of a wide open heart is a equal amount of crying as it is of feelings of love
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