It leaves the body gaping
"Ramsay" on the afternoon sun, glinting off the blade of his spear
“R”: I have an incredible amount of muscle memory shielding myself, protecting myself, not wanting to show interest, not because the person won’t reciprocate, but because I won’t have my dignity. I could be as miserable alone as I want, but at least I’ll have my dignity; I’ll be self-sufficient, and I can reconcile myself to that.
So many of the things I do — not showing physical affection, not reaching out to someone, not saying something I feel, not texting too soon, not making eye contact — are involuntary acts that keep me turned away. But I want to defeat these moments of pettiness, sometimes; I want to do something differently.
In those moments, I picture myself as a knight standing on a hill, with a spear in my hand, and a vast army approaching me. It’s always at sunset, and the afternoon sun is glinting off the blade of my spear, and I’m resolute, emotionless, knowing I’m about to get destroyed, and still standing tall on the hill.
This image will help me text somebody, or hold their hand; it’ll help me expose myself over and over again. I’ve learned that there are practical advantages to exposing yourself, to being vulnerable, but arguing with myself about those advantages is not convincing. I rarely win that argument.
This feeling that I welcome being destroyed is melodramatic, but it’s so helpful. When I was in high school, I was always the one texting people to hang out — partly because my friends were stoners, partly because I had no money, and partly because, living in the middle of nowhere, I had to rely on my parents to drive me places.
So I needed to know when we were going to meet; I couldn’t just say, What are you doing? Want to come over? That’s how I developed muscle memory around texting in particular. I’d ration the texts I could send. If a stoner friend didn’t respond for two hours, I’d have to wait for a while before I could follow up.
Everyone endorses vulnerability. That’s the word of the day: you should be vulnerable. You shouldn’t be engaging in dude behavior, being guarded and cold. Every rom-com ever is like, You’re just scared of being hurt… Why don’t you let your walls down? It’s a cliche; it’s obvious. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But that’s an abstraction.
In individual moments, it’s hard to get over the sense that I’m making a fool of myself. If I’m very excited, if I say the words I’m excited, they might reject me. It might actually happen; they might actually leave me. I can’t think, I’m going to embrace the possibility of rejection, and then it won’t happen, because it can.
That’s what lurks behind all the tiny little texts, the tiny gestures and moments: no matter how petty the occasion, I have to confront the whole hulking army, the specter that they’ll stop liking me, that they’ll leave me, that they’ll have contempt for me. I can’t say No they won’t, because they might. They really might leave me.
And if they do, it will feel bad. I will feel sad. Reminding myself that this is part of my growth, of the grand story of my life, won’t really help, won’t take away from the tragedy. I can dress it up however I like, but that’s what’s at stake when I’m being vulnerable: there are real downsides. I can lose what I really care about.
L: What happens if someone leaves you?
“R”: A woman I was dating called things off recently, and I reached out after [some time] to try again. And while we weren’t speaking, there were two things going on in me. One was primarily intellectual, and one was a felt thing, a feeling of loss, like a gut punch. As if I were a child, separated from my caregiver.
It was so physical, so fundamental; really an astonishing feeling. I haven’t felt that many times; I haven’t had to develop callouses there, had someone actually fill that hole, and then be yanked out. It leaves the body gaping… Some of what I felt was sadness, but the rest was very physical.
On the intellectual side, I had all these images of love and romance and what I wanted from a partner, but felt worried that I was constitutionally incapable of having that love and romance, or that they didn’t exist, for me or for anyone. That fear was, and is, all the more salient, because arguably, I’ve never been in love.
I’ve never experienced love with all the elements of infatuation, deep affection, deep trust, mutual care, and the willingness to shape one’s life around a person. I’ve had unreciprocated crushes, and two longish relationships, the first of which was a disaster; the second was nice, but limited in many ways.
In both relationships, I felt from the outset that it wasn’t meant to be; I felt little affection or passion or excitement, and spent a lot of time wondering what those experiences meant. Is passion just a fantasy, a childhood dream? Is it something that develops with time? That’s a common story, that you should give things time.
L: Are you in love with her?
“R”: I don’t know. My feelings are unprecedented. I’m so infatuated; I love spending time with her. The sheer ease of it… And I’m reassured; the passion and excitement are buttressed by my intellect. Whatever I consciously apprehend as being important for a relationship to succeed, this relationship has.
Those two things, excitement and assurance, have never occurred at the same time for me. I had a thing last summer that had all the infatuation, that was very exciting, but while it was happening I was like, This isn’t going to work out… She doesn’t even read. I was struggling to describe to my friends why I was interested in her.
She was a wonderful person, but my mind was not in sync with my feelings. I’ve always been a bit too dependent on pretty superficial signals, like she’s a philosophy major, she likes so-and-so artist, and so on. But those signals are reassuring, right? It’s reassuring that my current girlfriend [has a job I think is cool].
To both those girlfriends I said I love you. With the first, I really felt it wasn’t right, so with the second, I was careful to not say it until it really felt like a spontaneous outpouring. But it was the I love you of affection, for a sister or a close friend. I could tell it wasn’t transcendent love.
So I’m pretty afraid now. If my feelings change for the person I’m seeing, I will be thrust back into this swamp of worries, like, oh, God, I will never be able to square what I think I should be feeling, my want to feel a certain way, with reality. Being back in that swamp would really suck for me.
L: What was sex like with the people you felt lukewarm towards?
“R”: There were so many fucked up things about my first relationship. I don’t think I’m an angry person, but she was really worried about making me angry and upset. A lot of that was her previous boyfriend, but the whole thing was a mess. My intentions were good, but I lacked the emotional intelligence and bravery to do the right thing.
I should have recognized that the situation wasn’t great for me, but was certainly leading to all sorts of harm for her, and ended it accordingly. I made it worse by trying to keep the door open for her to leave, like, I don’t know if you really want this. And especially towards the end, I would try to break up, and she would talk me back into it.
All this meant that sexually, there wasn’t the equality and honesty and high-bandwidth communication I would have preferred. She was fundamentally shaping herself, her behavior, in order to be what I wanted, all the more so because the door was open like that, and she felt horrible that I would let her go so easily.
With my second girlfriend, it was great. It was fun. We laughed together, we were friends; we had a good time. There was always chemistry, but it wasn’t totally natural, because I’m not a huge top person, and she wanted a top. I was playing that role, but I didn’t want my hand on the steering wheel.
One reason it’s great with my current girlfriend is that she’s down to steer. I can be different versions of myself in the bedroom. There’s a lot of creativity there; we can try on different roles. We communicate effectively, but it’s not in a fucked-up, over-psychologized, prescriptive, consumerist way; it feels so natural to me.
L: What do you like about not steering?
“R”: Oh, God. I spend a lot of my time performing. I feel the need to be a particular thing, or to accomplish particular things, so I can have worth. With her, I don’t need to do anything; I can be valued for who I am, not just for what I’m doing. I’m allowed to be lazy. I don’t have to put on a show.
L: How much of your gender presentation is part of the show?
“R”: I’ve never had hangups about being identified as a man. Some traditionally masculine behaviors were never a great fit for me, like hanging out with the boys or talking about sports, but I lift weights; I default towards traditionally masculine clothing, and most of that doesn’t actively feel like a performance.
This has been very relevant in my current relationship, because my girlfriend is bisexual, and has mostly dated women. It’s an active question for me: which norms and behaviors of heterosexual dating could I, should I, allow to drop away? Even as an enlightened, well-trained lib dude, I haven’t found a complete answer.
But things are working themselves out. I find that when we’re cuddling, I can shape and pose my body in completely different ways, because I don’t need to be the sturdy man. I can wrap myself around her in ways that are novel, and satisfying, and comforting, and joyful. It all feels really easy.
L: What else does this relationship let you release?
“R”: I feel completely unafraid that she’s not into me. She’s at eleven out of ten, so I can show perfect, complete excitement. And usually, on the first couple of dates, I don’t know who the fuck I am. Everything is so artificial; I’m like someone piloting a robot. I’m just trying to get all my red flags out of the way.
Because a lot of my interests are kind of insufferable, right? I have two shelves full of first editions of [a certain female author]. My favorite musician of all time is [a certain female musician]. I love [certain female philosophers]. [A female pop artist] was my top listen on Spotify.
I’m really into [a certain culinary hobby], which is a famously insufferable trait. If I get enough time with someone, I can slip it into the conversation in a cool and relaxed and chill way. Then they see, Oh, this is just a guy, right? But there are just so many things. I golf sometimes… So I have to police myself.
I have to ask, Is this an acceptable thing to share? What will they think about it? But she’s genuinely into me. She seems to genuinely be down for my shenanigans. She might end up liking me for who I am, and everything I’m putting down. I just have to embrace that she might hate me being me, and that this possibility is part of life.
Because there are these insufferable behaviors, and then there are the real ugly ones. I was unpopular and fat in high school, and I had a tough time. The only friend I’d had went to be properly homeschooled, and I was like, fuck, I need to engage with the rest of the high school class. At that point, I was wearing sweatpants.
I was overweight. I was playing Minecraft, the early versions of Minecraft. I had a Minecraft server. I cannot emphasize this enough: I was great at Tetris. But I started going to the gym, lost a lot of weight, gained a bit of muscle, and one of my friends’ older girlfriends took me out to Forever 21, so I could get new clothes.
I learned that what people care about most is confidence, and if you fake being confident, that’s functionally equivalent to the real thing. It worked so well; all of these little behaviors and stratagems were wildly effective. At high school reunions, they still talk about my crazy glow-up.
But that also taught me: it’s one thing to say, I’m sad and struggling. It’s another to be insecure. No one fucking wants to hear that. Or to have body dysmorphia… There’s a class of very tasteful, fun, shareable party conversation flaws that seem ugly, but are really OK, and there’s another class that’s just unpleasant.
L: What are your ugly flaws?
“R”: How much I care about what others think of me; how I feel like this little hollow boy, wearing clothing, with nothing inside me. How I feel inauthentic all the time. How afraid I am of being found out as such.
Most of my life to date has been crushes and fantasy and second guessing; imaginary experiences. I feel very young in many ways, and very immature, and I’m embarking on this journey with someone more mature and experienced than me.
The only thing I can do is keep up my courage, because as soon as I slip, I will fall back into cowardice. I will commit little acts of self-betrayal, petty acts of cowardice. I don’t know enough about love; I don’t know how to be happy.
It feels like a game of chicken, like gradient descent, finding what exposes me to the most hurt and doing that over and over again, until I get married and live my life in bliss. If I keep up my courage, this could be happily ever after.
And even if it isn’t, I’ll still have done something right.
Post image from Conan the Barbarian (1982), dir. John Milius.