anxiousamphipod

[anxiousamphipod]

A conversation over tea - on sensitivity and being a man

The Friday night crowd slowly starts leaving the bar, while the bartender brings over their teas. “Thanks”, they say in union. He sighs to himself and he takes the warm, comforting tea cup in his hand.

His gaze focuses on the steam rising upwards, and he continues where they left off. “I don’t know. I’m missing something, overlooking a detail somewhere. I’ve never felt enough but I can’t figure out why.”

”You can’t always think yourself out of a problem. Sometimes all you need to do is keep doing what you do, and you’ll figure out what feels right. Trust your gut.”

He sighs to himself. It’s always the same explanation, but that’s not how he works. He lifts his gaze and glances at the man before him. “But that’s the thing. That’s not how everyone works. That’s not how I work. I’m a rational person, I don’t feel, I plan. I ...”

His conversation partner interrupts him. “Do you believe yourself on that? Or do you rationalize, or try anyway, to avoid feeling too much in the moment?”

He’s taken aback, both by the unexpected interruption and the comment itself. He hesitates. Tightly gripping the hot cup in his hands. Why did the question take him by surprise? Why did it feel like reached an aspect of himself that he didn’t know existed?

Shit, he doesn’t like being this exposed and doesn’t understand why either. After a slightly too long pause, he sits up straight and blurts out “Ah, it’s interesting that you say that.”

A simple response used to deflect and distract from what’s happening internally. Usually these responses work, people like talking and love affirmations. But his conversation partner seems lost in thought as well, and does not react.

“I’ve been there as well. I recognize your thinking process.” He finally looks up from his tea cup, carefully sips his tea and continues slowly: “Therapy helped. I never felt like myself. My therapist asked if I was an HSP, and that turned out to be the missing piece of information that I was looking for.”

“Turns out I was a sensitive guy and that I learned that it was a bad thing. In elementary school I was the cry baby. In high school I labelled gay in an homophobic school. All because he hugged too much to be considered normal. At university, I was not what I seemed to be for one of my exes. When we broke up, she tried to make me angry through jealousy, but all I could do was break down there and then. I didn’t act like she expected me to."

Suddenly, his mind hears his bullies loud and clearly. ”Too short. Too fat. Not interested in sports. Too weak to stand up for himself.” He suddenly remembers all it again, and it hurts just as much as it did back then. Was it all because they noticed a sensitivity that he hadn’t seen in himself?

“And every time, I learned that I was wrong. Different. Not the way a man was supposed to be. So, I taught myself to be the man that I was expected to be.”

"What movies say or what my friends did. And through it all, I ignored what I felt. Always thinking, never feeling. Only anger was appropriated. No more hugs, just games. Flirt with everyone, pretend to be fine. Pretend to like one-night stands. Drink, smoke, whatever. I did it all to feel less and fit in as prescribed. And in hindsight, I hated every second of it.”

His foot is nervously tapping on the ground, but listens without interrupting.

“In that aspect, we seem to be quite similar. We’ve learned to hide the sensitive side. Thinking over feeling. And that’s what my therapist showed me, we are okay. We are enough. We can just feel, that's alright."

In the noisy cafe, the silence returns at his table. His conversation partner seems lost in thought too. Going over his own past just as he did.

Usually when he talks to people, they give advice, but this was different. He didn’t want advice. He didn’t need it either, or not in the way that he’d received it before. What he missed was recognition, an ally. He was longing for understanding, not for solutions. And through this glimpse into the person in front of him, he found something that united them both. Sensitivity.

~

It will probably take time before he’ll learn to accept it, but now he knows what to look for. What to learn more about. He takes a sip from his now drinkable tea, and sighs.

A sigh that feels different somehow. Comforted by this new understanding, he glances at the man across from him and smiles faintly. “Ah, that’s actually really interesting that you say that,” he repeats, but this time, they indicate a step toward something new.