"Wow. Cool, Thanks!" He took the giant chocolate bar from me and turned it over in his hands.
I shifted slightly on the bed. There was silence. He looked up at me.
"Do you get what I'm trying to tell you?" I fumbled awkwardly, shifting again and hoping he couldn't tell how much I was sweating.
He looked thoughtful in the way he did when he was discussing Kierkegaard and existentialism.
"Oh. Um, no?"
"I like you."
"Oh."
Let's talk about how uncomfortable it is to be vulnerable. It feels exactly like walking out to the edge of a cliff and hanging out on a wobbly rock while someone pokes you gently with a stick to see if you're able to balance. You're excited by the sheer thrill of being somewhere you don't often find yourself. You're terrified of falling, of getting hurt. You're angry at the stick-poker for making you uncomfortable. Whether you walked out onto the wobbly rock of your own volition or someone sort of cornered you out there, you're not much in a position of power. So what are you supposed to do? You hang out on the wobbly rock for a while, for as long as you can. But at some point, you either fall, or you grab the stick and pull yourself in to safety. Maybe you shove the person holding the stick onto that rock on your way back, so they can see how it feels. But being wobbly is not permanent.
I guess what I'm trying to say, what I'm trying to tell myself, is that you should hand out Toblerone bars your whole life if you can. No matter how sweaty you get. It's hard to not be dissuaded when you get a blank stare or a long pause or your candy handed back to you. But you can't give up chocolate.
Writer Rachel C. Lewis says it better than I can:
"Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands. But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate. And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care. We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans."(Read her whole post here.)
