Touch - A Valentine’s Day Blog
 | Current mood:  melancholy Category: Romance and Relationships When I was in the second grade a surefire way of telling whether I liked a boy or not was to see how many bruises I'd given him. If I really liked a boy in those days I would hit him, and I would hit him a lot. I didn't necessarily hit him hard, although sometimes I did; I just wanted to make contact with him in some way. There was no way in the world I was going to HUG him. GROSS! Then someone might KNOW I liked him and that would be HORRIBLE! God forbid we hold hands or YUK! KISS! But if I could interest him in arm-wrestling or a pushing contest or even a game of tackle tag, I could maybe let HIM know I liked him without spilling the beans to anyone else. I know, I was weird. But there were other girls and boys who did it, too, I wasn't alone! For some reason, at that stage in life, we didn't feel we could be affectionate with people of the opposite sex. It wasn't some psychological problem we were having, this is actually fairly normal child behavior for many kids of that age (I learned that in my Child Psych class at WOU - I'm sure it will save me quite a bit of money since I won't have to dredge that up in therapy). I just think it's so odd that we act so crazy when it comes to love. We go from playfully pounding on people we like when we're young to not touching them at all when we get older. There's a scene from the movie The Village that I love. I mean, I love the whole movie - M. Night Shyamalan has an incredible knack for visual storytelling - but this one scene has always given me a bit of a Mona Lisa smile. Widower Edward Walker has just married off his oldest daughter. He is standing in the receiving line welcoming the wedding guests and accepting their congratulatory well-wishes. Alice Hunt, the widowed mother of the leading man, Lucian Hunt, goes to shake hands with Edward but Edward does not accept her extended hand when she offers it. Alice is left to awkwardly make a fist and drop her hand back at her side. Kind words are exchanged but the tension created in the moment is palpable. As Alice walks away she turns and observes Edward taking the hand of another female guest... What you don't see in my description of the scene is that Edward Walker is obviously in love with Alice Hunt, and Alice Hunt is obviously in love with Edward Walker. Later, Lucian Hunt makes a comment about the fact that sometimes people actually avoid the one thing they really want to do. In this case, for those of you who never took a criticism class or took one and failed miserably, Edward desperately wanted to touch Alice's hand, and Alice desperately wanted Edward to touch her hand. But neither one did a thing. They acted like nothing was going on; like there were no feelings and nothing had passed between them. But Lucian saw it, and Alice and Edward felt the electricity that was left in the air when the thunder storm never thundered and the lightning never struck. I used to think this is what they meant by unrequited love. I realize that it's not that at all. Unrequited love is like love that is offered but not answered or accepted. This… this is something altogether different. I don't know what to call it. Is there a term? I mean, beyond, "sad?" Perhaps "unfulfilled?" It's like a wave that builds up out in the ocean… it has the potential to be a tsunami, but it never crests… it never comes to fruition. Fruition. The root of that word is fruit… a flowering fruit tree blooms but what if the tree provides no fruit… fruitless… that kind of captures it, but not really. It's not that the touch can't happen; it's that it won't… Edward won't let it for some reason. Why? Is it just for the sake of good storytelling and romantic tension? I don't think so… I've been in relationships like this. As an adult (I almost choked on my spit when I read that line out loud) I've had guy friends who were just buddies and it's the craziest thing because I could rough house with them and give them noogies and beat on them and I never had ANY designs on them at all. But you put me next to a guy that I'm interested in and I'll barely talk to him, let alone touch him. As a matter of fact if he sat down next to me and we were touching in any way I would hop right up and move over, even if it was just an inch, to avoid making contact. Now I'm not that bad anymore. I have learned to fake it and I've even been able to overcome it, but anyone who has known me for a while, or has seen me around my nieces and nephews, knows that I'm a hardcore touchy- feely person. I'm a bear hugger, cheek smoocher, back massager, butt smacker, knee slapper, and (my favorite) a get on the floor and wrestle-er. If I like you and you know it, and I know you know it, then you're gonna get some love. If I like you and I'm trying not to let you know it, you're going to get just enough love to make you feel like you're in the clear, but the people who know me will see what's going on. There is a difference… I just wish there wasn't. I wish there was a guarantee that if love is bestowed there is absolutely no chance of it becoming unrequited. I wish that there was a way we could know, without risk, that our love would be reciprocated. My logical half reminds me, however, that love would not be so desired if it was so easily acquired. Hey, that almost rhymes. Bestowed… that's what I can call it: unbestowed love. I remember a long time ago there was a commercial for a telephone book or something – yellow pages, maybe – and the tag line was, "Reach out and touch someone." Oh that I could only reach out and touch the one (and yes, especially the One) I really WANT to touch, and not just the ones I CAN touch. Sigh. |
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