I met up with three different people yesterday and came away from both questioning my method of expressing affection.
One of my coolest friends stopped by my mom's house to drop off a comic he borrowed from me a while back (Casanova Luxuria; I didn't even realize how much I missed it till I had it again) along with a letter he wrote. I love getting mail (excepting of course bills and spam) but I rarely get letters. It's become a once-in-a-really-good-year thing for me. Naturally, due to my general impatience with everything, I opened it forty seconds after we parted. It was sweet, encouraging and funny but left me feeling anxious. I wasn't sure if I should reply via a text or phone call or e-mail but after reading it again several more times I decided it was best to just write Aidan a letter of my own.
On my walk home from the Blue Line, I decided to call my Twitter friend Joe (though I always call him Waan) just to shoot the shit. Usually when I call him, he's in Ohio (he's a trucker) and from what I can gather, Ohio is one of the most boring states of all time so I decided to free him from his boredom.
For some reason, I tend to make at least one bad/stupid/inappropriate/awkward joke a day and yesterday, it just happened to be while I was on the phone with Waan.
Waan: "What's up."
Me: "Nothing. I got bored and thought 'Who do I call when I get bored? Waan.' So here we are."
Waan: "You get bored like twice a year. What a nice life. I wish I could get bored that often."
I know he didn't mean anything by it but after he said it I tried to recall the last time I called him. It'd definitely been a while. I started to feel badly but we both kind of waved it off and started talking about movies and shit like we usually do.
When I got home, we hung up and I started cooking way too much food cos I was so hungry. My cousin Heather had been texting me so when she came over, too much food turned out to be the perfect amount of food. We sat on the couch and talked about work, hobbies, plans and then relationships which I'm horrible at. I'm not just horrible at talking about relationships (I tend to rant about honesty/self-respect/insecurities/choosing your SO over your friends/etc), I'm horrible at being in them. In every form.
Romantically, I'm terrible with affection. I'm no good at the PDA part and thank the gods for that but even in private I can never just kiss someone. Kissing should be simple but some asshole in the back of my head always talks me out of it and I panic inside and just wait to the "fooling around" portion of the evening reveals itself so I can just go crazy on you.
With friends, I'm not giving and warm. I'm reclusive and selfish. Aidan wrote me an endearing and genuine letter and here I was, "Should I send him a thanks text? Do I call and make it weird?" Waan is not the only person who has ever vaguely complained of my lack of contact. My best friend Jeanette has mentioned it, too. The only friend I really maintain a steady contact with is Tenetia and only cos I'd get Wednesday texts that say "Call me, we gotta talk about Game of Thrones".
.....
Just realized I may be mistaking intimacy with affection.
I DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE AND THIS WORRIES ME. Please tell me I am not alone, Internet.
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