the hand-hold that wasn't

Centuries from now, humans will look back on these times with incredulity and horror, not understanding how any living, breathing, flesh and blood people could have lived like this...so thoroughly disconnected from our sexual nature, and so debilitatingly cut off from intimate touch. Touch is essential to health. Without air or food, we die relatively quickly. Without touch, we can survive...but not well. Though it takes a great deal longer, the absence of touch will kill us as surely as asphyxiation or starvation.
For my reader centuries from now, i offer a day in the life...an example of how we fail to give each other the touch we're so obviously (and literally) dying to give and receive.
Yesterday was brutally stressful. I was thrust into the middle of a conflict between my landlord and a fellow tenant. I care for both of these damaged people. They are alike in their inability to control their anger when they feel threatened or uncomfortable. I was with the landlord as they talked on the phone, quickly escalating one another to yelling and threats. At one point, the landlord threatened to throw me out of my home for "siding" with the tenant. In the aftermath, i felt literally sick to my stomach.
Soon after, i biked to the post office and waited in a long line. I didn't mind, particularly as there seemed to be an instantaneous connection between myself and the person ahead of me. Heightened eye contact and body language directed at one another. It was subtle enough that i couldn't be 100% sure it was happening...in these sexually repressive times, very few sober people ever openly display instant feelings of attraction (which explains why there's a bar on every corner).
We spoke a few polite words. As i stood or knelt by her, i so much wanted to say, "Excuse me, but i've been having a horrible day. Would you hold my hand while we wait?" My hollowed stomach and light head screamed at me of how healing it would be. I didn't say these words, primarily because of the possibility that such a socially inappropriate request might make her uncomfortable. For the next ten minutes, the words almost escaped my lips...but additional reasons piled on the first one to stay my tongue.
Physical intimacy in this society is preponderously associated with sex. It should not be so...in a healthy world, i could have asked a stranger to hold my hand, and we'd have done so, perhaps without even a single word of explanation, and then gone our separate ways. But in this world, with almost no exception, the only context in which we are allowed intimate physical touch is in the sexual arena. The main problem with this is that the sexual arena is groaningly, cripplingly overloaded with psychological baggage. Our lives are identified by our romantic status. As a result, sex becomes an unending negotiation...and virtually never a simple act of love.
And a simple handhold means so much more than most of us can even begin to imagine. So much more than emotional comfort. In ways we're only beginning to understand, our bodies are walking energy fields. When we get close to someone, our fields interact. A simple touch can set in motion a million chemical reactions...most of which, like the stimulation of endorphin production, are crucial for health.
Back in the post office, i imagined that this stranger might hold my hand...and that perhaps the spark between us was even strong enough that we might end up together for hours to come. I'm not one for sex with a stranger, but i was so broken and raw yesterday that i might have gone anywhere she led.
But then i thought about possible outcomes...a prerequisite in this world, for anyone with a conscience. She seemed like the kind of person who would want any physical intimacy to develop into a monogamous relationship. A relationship wherein my sexual and financial fidelity would be directed at her, and no other.
Knowing that, i still might have spoken up and let the chips fall where they may.
But then i noticed that she wore makeup, had unnatural hair, and painted nails. None of which i find attractive, physically or philosophically.
Then i noticed a doctor might say she could afford to lose a few pounds.
I DON'T WANT TO BE A PERSON WHO USES THESE KINDS OF SHALLOW ASSESSMENTS WHEN DECIDING WITH WHOM TO SHARE LOVING INTIMACY!!
But i could feel the weight of the price tag that might come with loving this stranger, before we even knew each other's name. Feeling that weight, what recourse do any of us have but narrow our selectivity beyond any reasonable level? Consciously or subconsciously, we know that sexual relationships eventually bring stress and discord, if not outright animosity or hatred. So we feel compelled to confine our love only to those who fit some ridiculously narrow standard. We know we'll face the misery eventually, but at least for a while our hormones will be somewhat pacified, or (more often to the point) our social status will be raised by the "quality" of the person we're fucking.
I ask you, oh person from the future, can you imagine a more degraded state of human affairs?
Back at the post office, she finished and left. When i got outside a minute or less later, i scanned for her. She was walking to a car. I unlocked my bike, and spent some extra moments arranging my pack as i watched her across the street. Finally she drove by. We looked at each other again, and in that moment i knew for certain that the spark between us had been real. I was also very nearly sure she actually would have held this poor stranger's hand, and more.
But i let her drive off, silently hoping she might feel compelled to turn around and find me.
Never mind me...who knows how healing that hand-hold would have been for her?
I don't, and never will.
That, dear friends and future readers, is how we are today, on this little hunk of space dust we call home.