My social media feeds are awash with yearning. I can’t spend longer than 10 minutes on Twitter without being affronted by a “who up yearning?”. Not me. Never.
I’m not even sure I know what yearning feels like. I have never longed intensely for someone, never pined, never even scrawled the name of a crush in the corners of a journal. Even as a teenager, I didn’t have crushes.
Yearning for something means it is just a little out of reach, inaccessible. You can’t long for what’s already yours.
And I only know how to want men who want me – who are already mine, if I want them.
I cannot conceive of developing romantic feelings for someone who may not reciprocate them. I guess it just wouldn’t make sense to. Why would I ever jeopardise my feelings (read: my pride) like that?
Because if he doesn’t want me, that’s fine, I don’t care. But then… if he does want me, that’s whatever – not my problem. I can barely even abide being the object of yearning.
A pathological pragmatism rules my love life.
I reason my way out of romance. I think my feelings out of existence.
If I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. And if it doesn’t matter, there can’t be consequences to letting so many people in and out of my life. It’s simply a revolving door of new experiences that needn’t go anywhere. What goes around doesn’t always come around – especially when you put blockers in place to make sure of it.
In fact, I make an effort to keep my difficult questions and desires to myself.
For anyone who, like me, squashes their feelings as much as possible, I would highly recommend Clementine Morrigan’s essay on the humiliation of desire. She writes beautifully on how desire is often front-loaded with shame. She writes that, even at 5 years old,
“I had already deeply engrained the message that I should not ask directly for what I want, but instead set up the circumstances that seemed most likely for me to get what I want without having to ask for it.”
Because to ask for what you want, to express feelings that may not be reciprocated, could very well lead to embarrassment – humiliation even. My fragile ego cannot withstand even the slightest wobble.
Instead, I stare intently at my phone, willing a text or a date into existence. I can barely bring myself to initiate the conversation. I couldn’t possibly ask about their day, or their plans for the week ahead. And there’s no fucking way I’m going to request that they spend any of their precious free time with me.
I’d sooner compartmentalise my desire, pushing romance down to the same depths I do trauma, than express them. Alternatively, I contemplate schemes or create scenarios that might result in a “date.” I make myself weary just thinking about it.
I envy the depth of other people’s emotions — even when they’re drowning in it. Maybe it comes from a place of morbid curiosity, but I wish I could feel so deeply. Whenever the glimmer of a crush, the flutter of a singular butterfly crosses my body, I recoil. I flinch at earnestness – compliments, affection, emotional directness.
I’m aware that, in many contexts, I present simply as a sexually liberated young woman, lighthearted and unfettered by inhibitions or shame.
So then why do I feel so trapped?
By building the proverbial “walls” I not only prevent people from getting in, but I also prevent myself from getting out. I worry that I’ve made a prison of my body, keeping my emotions behind bars lest they — GOD forbid — make a fool out of me.
Because the truth is, I do feel a lot of shame. The shame just doesn’t stem from my sexual exploits; I have no qualms, no hang-ups about sleeping with whoever I want, whenever I want. I’ll have sex every which way, try anything and everything, but don’t make eye contact with me. What if I see myself the way they’re seeing me? What if I detect some hint of darkness or disgust in their face? What if I fart?
Don’t say my name. I don’t want to be reminded that the sex you’re having is with me.
Because the shame stems from a much deeper place. It stems from some un-nameable place, where desire and vulnerability sit side by side.
And so I am obliged to turn away from my desires. They brown, develop thin, flakey crusts and specks of mold, so that – by the time an opportunity arises wherein I might enjoy them – it’s too late. I throw them out, move on.
It’s easier to live, laugh, whore-about when you’ve spent years subconsciously unpicking your body’s relationship with your brain. Detangling, analysing, intellectualising, and neatly packing every emotion away. I don’t know what I feel. I only know what I know; what happened, where it happened, how it happened, what was and wasn’t said.
“But how does he make you feel?” the exasperated follow-up my best friend prompts me with whenever I’ve finished forensically delivering the details of a recent date to her.
I’m never really sure if the answer I give her is honest or not.
Thank you for this (perhaps ironically) really vulnerable piece. Self awareness can sometimes feel like a burden, but I do think our recognition of our incredibly deep fears of vulnerability are pretty transformative, or it has been for me at least. You do a really great job at putting into words feelings that are quite hard to verbalise, and if it is something you feel you're struggling with, I hope in time you're able to verbalise them to yourself. Best wishes <3