From: fjvwing@cs.vu.nl (FJ!!)
Subject: Missing the heartbeat
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 19:18:53 GMT

My every limb was wrapped around him as I played with his
tongue-piercing, running my fingers through his hair. Somehow I felt
very vulnerable, eventhough it was dark. We were whispering our lives.

"....a lover with whom you can connect mind, body & soul" 
- "But I am already so blessed." I like my voice when I whisper, no high
tones, just articulation. "Asking for that as well would be selfish."
"That is why I wish it for you."

It would be nice. I remember that feeling. I don't know anymore wether
I should call it love or limerance or being in love or idealization,
but I do remember how it felt, back when I had a crush in high school.

I remember my heart missing a beat when he walked by, I remember it
pounding in my throat when he was near, I remember excitement when he
noticed me, whoever the current 'he' was. I remember one instance when
we were in a group, and I was saying something, and he was standing
right in front of me, and i looked into his eyes, and I lost every
single though in my mind. I went an utter blank, I remember some part
of me finishing that sentence, I remember another wondering who the
hell was doing the talking, but mostly I remember staring into his
eyes, drowning. Fortunately, I can't remember looking away, I can't
remember how much time I allowed myself to let that moment last. You
see, someone might have noticed.

I can hide that feeling. Nobody ever knew when my mind couldn't hold a
thought for longer than one minute without him creeping in, nobody ever
knew when my bed felt empty at night, nobody ever knew which morning it
was that I woke up, realizing that he had kissed my lips that night in
my dream.

It felt so good. It felt so bad.

I hated feeling like that. I thoroughly, thoroughly hated it, whoever
he was, for those were the moments I felt alone the most. In the grand
scheme of things, a puppy-crush is not exactly something that deserves
a high priority, but to me they felt dreadfull. Whilst all my friends
were talking about how they felt, I felt the need to keep silent, as I
didn't want to be out just then.

I looked at my options, and decided I didn't want to take the risk of
coming out on a chance he might be gay too, or the even smaller chance
that he would like me back. I decided to make the most out of it, and
resigned myself to cherish what I could get, like friendship and
attention and sharing stuff with him. I knew even then that it was a
poor substitute for like it really should be: me and him discovering
what it was like to be in love during our teens, discovering a world
inside.

I have few contact with the set of 'friends' - doesn't friend imply
some degree of honesty? - I had back then, apart from a few that have
grown real close. It was from one of them that I heard that she had
gone to birthday where there were a lot of the people from the old
crowd at school, and one of the boys had freaked when he heard there
that I was gay. "What! Fabian? No! Was he ever in love with any of us?"
My first reaction when I was told about this was to laugh about his
astonishment. The second was to laugh a bit more; wasn't it painfully
obvious even back then that I was a fag? The third was to think about
his last sentence; if I ever was, you would never have known.

My heart was singing the sky-blue song it needed everyone to hear, and
I rendered it silent. The things we do to ourselves...

I couldn't escape from it: every day I went to school, he would be
there as well. When I left to come to Amsterdam to attend the
University, one of the things I decided was that I wouldn't have any of
this any more. No self-torture, I had had enough of it. Whenever I
would feel my thoughts dwelling to much on one particular person, I
would take a break and cool down.

I've discovered a whole new set of feelings since then, I am exploring
my body, my sexuality, my friendship. I am exploring being free, being
out, letting myself walk and move and talk without thinking all the
time about what it would look like to others. I am exploring allowing
myself occasionally to think of myself as sexually desirable.  I am
exploring what it is like to let myself be a healthier peson than I
was.

And when I started to get a crush on someone, I would walk away for a
while. Even my time with Ed was a marriage of fun and convinience and
companionship from my point of view.

I have very good friends. I have actually more playmates than I know
what to do with right now. I have an absolutely delirious life, which
is right for me.

But lately, I've started to miss that warm glowing funny love feeling.
It may have been the pits at times, but there was so much happiness in
the crumbs that were thrown to me. I feel like there is an emotional
part of me that is waiting to be explored.

Whenever one of my friends tell me that they've found somebody new, I
ask them everything about the moment, trying to pinpoint that one
moment in time when they find out that that other person feels as wild
about them as they do about the person. That split-second-moment when
the coin drops, when the knowledge hits, yes, it is mutual, my center
of the universe tells me his or her universe revolves around me,
surprise.

I want puppy-love. I want to know what it is like to have someone as
crazy about me as I'm about him, I want the moments racing through my
veins, I want those fields of my emotional landscape back but I want to
explore the part I know is there but where I've never been.

We are all alone. If a man tells me he loves me, I can't know how he
feels, all I have are his expressions of that love to interpret, and
stuff gets lost in the translation. I'll never really know if it is as
big for me as it is for him, all I'll have is what I percieve. So I'm
actually always basing my actions on an illusion of what I think other
people feel. That illusion may or may not be correct, but it is all
there is to go on. These assertions are actually very elementary, but
everyone seems to act as if they are not true.

If I ever get caught in something that goes warm and fuzzy both ways,
I'll never really know, I'll only really know my end. But based on what
I hear, when I'm in love, my emotions don't differ too much from what
the rest of the world seems to feel. So, I _can_ make a good guess when
it is mutual. Wouldn't that be grand? A real swept-off-your-feet
first-sight-hit hearthrobbing love-affair?

I may be idealizing things but still...I've started to miss the missing
of heartbeats.
						FJ!!