The Rules of Attraction

Humphrey shook his head in mock disapproval. “You’ve got to stop messing with that boy, Anne.”

“Why?” I asked.
“Because he’s young and you’ll just confuse him.”
That he was young couldn’t be denied, but at 21, Tom was definitely an adult, so I was not taking advantage of a teenager. Besides which, I wasn’t about to pull an early-onset Iris Robinson – I had no intention of dragging him home. That was never an option.
Nor was he confused. After all, he’d kissed me.
It was my birthday. We were having a great time. Much laughter had been laughed and spotting a stray sprig of mistletoe left over from the Christmas clean up, Tom suggested I give him a kiss. So I did; and very nice it was too. We both knew what it meant; the only person that was confused was Humphrey.
“But isn’t he gay?”

Well, yes, Tom is gay. Not bisexual-and-confused; not in denial; not closeted – he’s gay, no two ways about it. But that wasn’t a problem. Although it was a proper kiss, it wasn’t sexual – it was more of a nice, warm, fuzzy thing.

For me, you see, there has always been a nebulous grey area between affection and attraction because sometimes they feel an awful lot similar.

When I was younger, I frequently found it impossible to tell the difference. The first person I ever fell in love with was a school friend. Weekends apart were a wrench, Monday mornings a joy, every hour spent together was filled with laughter and music. Unfortunately my friend happened to be a girl. I liked boys, I knew that, but I wanted to kiss her too.

My feelings towards Christine were not particularly sexual – or at least not as far as I remember – yet I craved physical contact with her. I was not yet emotionally savvy enough to realise that some friendships take on many of the hallmarks of an infatuation: obsessive thinking, jealousy, attraction and the desire for physical closeness with the ‘beloved’.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was perfectly acceptable for close female friends to act in ways we would consider more appropriate to romantic relationships today. Of course, some of these same-sex friendships were sexual and romantic; others were not; and some, like my friendship with Christine, were passing infatuations. Either way, these friendships were more physically demonstrative than most equivalent relationships are today.

Fashions in the moral and social code may change, but the desire for physical affection doesn’t. At my school we got around this by setting aside one day of the week for mild girl-on-girl action. At any other time, holding hands or sitting with your arms wrapped around each other would have been looked at askance, but on Thursday it was perfectly acceptable, because, well, it was Thursday.

For me, the problem of confusing affection and attraction is compounded by the fact that I’m physically demonstrative – if I like someone I want to touch them. If I’m in a good mood and suffused with joy and happiness – as I frequently am – the urge is all that much stronger. Obviously this can result in what some people might see as mixed signals.

I was happy to learn I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. I asked, and from the replies I got, I’d imagine that about half of you have felt the same thing too. Interestingly, neither gender nor sexual orientation was a factor. It seems large numbers of us crave physical intimacy with others both with and without a sexual agenda.

“You’ve summed up my life in one sentence,” said my friend Victor. This didn’t surprise me, because I’m pretty sure Victor has kissed just about everyone he knows. Male, female, gay, straight or undecided, if he likes you, he’s going to kiss you – you might as well pucker up.
Rachel felt similarly: “You have pretty much summed up my entire existence there, or at least described about ten crucial scenes in my life. It’s awfully confusing and causes too much trouble. But after years of it, I have learned to resist and hug it out instead.”

That’s the problem with confusing attraction and affection – physically it looks like the same thing. The only difference is what’s happening in your head.

This was brought home to me quite recently when a friend I hadn’t seen for ten years spent a day in Dublin. After half an hour together it was like no time had ever passed, and at some point in the evening, I had a strong urge to climb into his lap and give him a kiss. It wasn’t lust; it was love, but of a platonic, yet touchy-feely variety.

“It happens all the time and can turn sexual too,” said Florian, and of course, he was right. By getting physical with a friend, you may mean one thing, but what they experience is an entirely different matter. What’s more, you may end up being surprised by your own reaction. I know. It’s happened to me.

Because of this I resisted temptation and, like Rachel, decided to settle for a hug. I honestly believe my wish to kiss him was simply the result of the excitement of seeing a dear old friend, but who knows? After all, it’s possible that there was a subconscious streak of sexual tension hidden in there; and seeing as he is a married man, that’s a Pandora’s Box I wouldn’t want to open.

The thing is, the more you think about it the clearer it becomes, that attraction and affection are not completely separate feelings. Instead they are a continuum and I suspect that on some level we are always attracted to the people we chose to have in our lives, it’s just the degree that changes.

When you are in the throes of romantic passion, nothing less than getting naked and having sex repeatedly will quench your desire for physical contact; but then again, it’s perfectly possible to be that sexually attracted to someone you barely know. With some people you love, you may spend ages kissing and hugging hello; with others a warm handshake or a pat on the back will suffice.

You can have lust without love, and love without lust or some variable combination of the two; perhaps a bit of affection and a lot of attraction or vice versa; sometimes both, often neither. It’s all very confusing. At least I think so. My ex-boyfriend disagreed.

“That’s easy,” he texted me. “If you feel that way, just kiss them.”
“If I launched myself at you and kissed you because we are old friends and I’m very fond of you, wouldn’t you find that strange?” I asked.
“I’d say woo hoo!” he replied. Hmmm… interesting, I thought to myself before responding. “I’ll remember that next time I’m back in South Africa.” “Can’t wait,” he said and sent me a virtual kiss.

Platonic? My arse! That sounded pretty flirtatious to me. Which was a bit of a relief, to be honest. Not that I necessarily want to have sex with him, but female vanity being what it is, it was good to know that I could…

Platonic kisses are all very well, lovely in fact, particularly if you have a beautiful young gay man to share them with, but I couldn’t be happy with this and this alone. Yes, that’s very demanding of me I know – but really, there are times in a girl’s life when only an age-appropriate straight man will do.