Communication

Texting is not communication. Texting is the passing of a cooler friend in a crowded hallway on the way to fourth period French.

Texting is the “lifting of the chin” reverse-nod. High school hallways can do as much damage as anything else, but it was a quick way to learn rejection, surrounded by hostile and vibrant energy. I never knew if I was going to be swept up into an embrace and swung around until I laughed with delight or ignored entirely, that uncertain fragility and fear. That is what texting feels like now. High Fucking School.

I am so long done with that. One discovers that what other people think is none of your concern, so you’d best be clear expressing one’s open-ended love and avoid damaging the feelings of others. The sign says: Be kind or be gone. I mean it and will not live by less.

Sometimes I’m down for being the one texted when one is bored and possibly aroused. With you that pays such lovely, extraordinary dividends. Our chemistry is amazing and, as you said, rare. I have loved every moment spent with your kind, talented and marvelous self. Meeting someone who likes the adventure of sex on equal footing has been a gift and has sweetly undone more damage than can be described. I have never met anyone like you.

As fragile as this friendship may be, you have importance to me. I like you very much for who you are and the joy that follows you around. I will do this as long as I can or, more likely, as long as you will allow it. Sometimes it hurts and I do not know why. Perhaps under normal circumstances, for me, it would not be enough, but this is not a normal situation. For now, it is sufficient, a gift. I am grateful for your generosity and candor, to say nothing of the doors you have torn open showing me the way out.

Yesterday I was rude and dismissive when you texted to check in on me. I was so surprised and did not know what to say. In a text. In a limited amount of characters, read off a tiny computer in a checkout line, on the way to somewhere else. Too much risk for a quick dismissal.

I was full of sadness, illness, despair, loneliness, and rage. How does one convey that kind of broken on a tiny keyboard, on a phone? If I could express it, what could you have done and why would I put you in such a place?  The only thing that would have made any difference was companionable silence, some soup and a big box of tissues. It wasn’t something one could ask of you so please forgive my abruptness.

Snot, tears, cat drool and a questionable old bathrobe are not the hot evenings one is looking for on Tinder. Sometimes one needs a porch, a night sky, and a few Valium to quiet the hysteria of grief and loss. There is no other way out but through and I can’t risk asking for more from you, my darling stranger and friend when I am so low.

Thank you for being kind and for understanding.