Work Text:
I used to go by my days normally. The regular schoolwork, games, videos, friends… Friends—that’s the problem now. Or rather the lack of something more. The thought never really occurred that I should want more. I had always seen myself as normal. The others were the weird ones. Why would I think of otherwise? Whenever there were talks of romance or sex on the tv my parents would immediately switch the channel, or clearly show their disapproval with a loud “ew”. So whenever those topics came up, I’d just sit there awkwardly, but not painfully. When my friend and I were sitting on the swings, just the two of us, and she listed all her crushes, with her first in elementary school, I thought she was the odd one out, not me…
It’s crazy how your whole perspective changes. With one small fact, a tiny tidbit, your entire world can turn upside down. “You’re supposed want more, anything, just something”. It’s not the voice in my head, but comes from deep down. How did you get there? I thought my upbringing would safeguard me from you. I thought my idea that I was normal that has always been deeply imbedded within me would safeguard me from you. I thought my repulsion from you would safeguard me from you. But in trying to find a community like me, I seem to have isolated myself more. Sure, they’re more like me than the others. The values on different types of love are flexible here. But they’re still different from me. I still don’t like physical affection, won’t initiate it. Many of them are in relationships that include loads of physical affection, regardless of the label. Many more want that, long for that. I’m part of that community, right? I should be like them, right? I should want that, right?
When someone comes close to me or makes physical contact, I start overthinking. I start thinking about what it could be. I start thinking about what the other might be feeling. I start thinking about how this could be interpreted in a different way from an outsider. Even though it couldn’t. It doesn’t have any meaning. But you keep telling me how it could. You make me focus on how I don’t like physical affection. You make me focus on the possibility of random people as my romantic lovers. You make me focus on what I don’t want and what I’m lacking. But I don’t want it anyways, why should it matter if I have it or not. Why do you keep telling me that I need it. Why don’t you go away?
Please, let me have this. Let me have my friends the way I always have. It is enough for me. I don’t need physical hugs for me to feel the love. I don’t need to feel more to feel their love. Platonic love is still love. And platonic is enough. Platonic love is more than enough. Just interacting with people—smiling, laughing with them—is enough. That’s all I want. Please stop trying to convince me otherwise. Stop trying to sell me this fake dream, this unreachable utopia. Stop trying to tell me that I can reach it when I know I can’t. I don’t need it to be happy. Stop trying to tell me that I do.
Being different has been okay until now, what’s the difference now?