I love foreplay. Lingering hands, deep kisses, exploring ways to undress each other. It's the most exciting part, but also the scariest. The idea of seeing someone in a completely different light, undressed and vulnerable. But my favorite kind of foreplay? Words. There is nothing like a real, stripped conversation with another human to makes me the happiest. I love knowing how people feel and sharing intimate thoughts. It's not always easy; it's sometimes awkward and scary, but it's the most exciting part of friendships.
"Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing." - Miranda July, "The First Bad Man"
And it's true. I find my best friend and me communicating this way all of the time. Before we rant or confide in each other we usually use a disclaimer: "Can I just be really annoying for a second?" or "OK, don't hate me but..." followed by something we feel insecure about or something that's been on our minds all day.
The end of the rant is usually, "I don't know. I'm just gonna do/say/feel and be the worst person ever." In reality, neither of us has said anything that would make the other think that we are, in fact, the worst person ever, but it feels like we have.
Why do I feel the need to apologize to the people closest to me about who I am before revealing more of who I am? I have found that in the Haitian community it's common not to talk about inner turmoil. The idea is to deal with these emotions privately or ignore them completely. Growing up with this mentality, I never really used to confide in people because I figured I could deal with it on my own. I couldn't speak to my parents because I felt like they would overreact, see me differently, and love me less. I didn't open up to friends because I didn't think they could possibly understand. Slowly but surely, I've unlearned this way of thinking. But the unlearning does not eliminate the guilt I feel in sharing myself. I think that, now, I crave validation. Good or bad. If I preface a conversation with "You're going to think I'm the worst person ever," by the end of the conversation, I probably want you to agree that I am absolutely the worst person you know or convince me otherwise. In other cases it might be the need to eliminate judgement from the other person because I've already judged myself and feel guilt. Perhaps now, I'm just looking for insight, advice on how to deal with a situation, or just someone to be vulnerable with. The disclaimer is there because I want the other person to know that I know that I am not perfect. My thoughts, feelings, and actions don't always match up to what I think they should be, but that only makes me human and I want to be seen and loved as human, not as perfect.
"I don't want your love unless you know I am repulsive, and love me even as you know it." - Georges Bataille, "My Mother/Madame Edwarda/The Dead"
My best friend and I know each other very well. We've seen each other at our highest and lowest points, learned each other's ticks and insecurities, and know some of our deepest thoughts. There is no need for a disclaimer. I know that she is not an awful person, and she knows that I am not God's worst creation. I also know that when there's a disclaimer, she is about to show herself to me in a completely different way that might be scary. We always assure each other that our image has not been tarnished and if anything, we are more understood, and somehow closer. Still, our way of communicating remains. It is our foreplay -- our undressing.
