Gosh darn it, Stephen. This is why I love your posts. I have friends I keep yearning to tell how much I love them and yet I swallow it down for fear of the shame it would bring. It's like I'm a cat happily bringing them a precious hunting success and yet I expect they'll react like it's actually a half-dead bird I'm laying at their feet.
So your post will encourage me to do the thing after all and might therefore be life-changing.
Update: So I sent my deepest love by Whatsapp message (slight cowardice, but still...) and it was received as hoped. No recoil 🙂 - deep thanks and a subscriber's love ❤️
Good question. What I notice, when you ask that, is that I feel more alive. It feels expansive, as if a long-locked door has been opened and now a new room is now light, airy and available. I wonder if it feels the same to be on the receiving end - maybe different door, same room. Hopefully my friend and I can discuss all this now.
[stands up clapping] Yaysss! Down with loneliness! Up with love!
Strong invitation, brother.
At fifty, I can attest to the challenge of regaining that more romantic version of self that I used to embody as a younger man. You've said it better, but I've long attested to the romantic arc of love shared between friends.
The confusion with intimacy has been central to my failures in many friendships, specifically with women, but also with gay friends who either wanted more than romance from me or vice versa. A younger version of me was often confused. There is a distinction worth knowing, and you walk us through it wisely, Stephen.
One thing is for certain. The older I get, the less I care what people think about my expressions of love. On the back of someone's bathroom door in the States, I found one of those pithy signs that people hang up. It read something like, "Of course I can love you. If people can hate people they've never met, then I can love you."
Thank you so much for sharing. Yes, deep male friendships are complicated for gay men and those who love them. It requires really solid boundaries and self awareness. I think it’s a pain point that isn’t talked about enough.
This is a deeply moving article, a summons, all the more given your own transparency on your own internal struggles. There is something earned here, as well as yearned for. For your transparency, your careful articulation, Thank you.
Oh Stephen, I loved this one. I was just describing this to a friend yesterday. I'll be going through this post a few times to fully soak it in. The world needs more comfortability and openness to this depth of friendship. Love you brother!
Thank you for this article! I've been thinking about this ideas of love and friendship for the last couple of years. I am constantly thinking of the small speech about the idea of love in the movie "Adaption." I think the short clip sums up love perfectly. It has helped me tremendously. He says "You are what you love and not what loves you."
A good way to start is remember their birthday and do something to commemorate that day, even if it is as small as a phone call or a text or mailing them a birthday card. One close friend and I have a tradition of FaceTiming each other around our birthdays and we eat ice cream together on that call. We live far away, so it isn’t possible to get together in person, but we do the best we can.
Agreed with all as said, very convincing and direct.
One doubt, about separation of sexual feelings, from the very start.
It does exist stably sometimes, this separation, and there is no issue, really.
But other situations happen, especially with queer life, that bring multiple attractions into one bouquet. When multiple moons pull the tide. We have many “Loves” in us, they have names.
“When multiple moons pull the tide.” Beautiful, yes, I totally agree. I’m planning a follow up to this article on the topic of male friendship and gay men. It complicates things.
I had a very strong friendship which began as a sexual one, he was a straight married man at that time. However when he decided to come out, it seems our friendship suffered with the ‘adolescent’ pull of many new tides. I remained clear that it was friendship but the terror of being trapped by love (without the sex as we were in different countries)washed him further and further away with every tide. Even when we are in the same city it seems there are to many possibilities to warrant having a good friendship.
I currently have ambivalence toward that friendship with our values now being so very far apart that it renders it obsolete. Turning away from love for chasing as many glimmers of “lovelets” from many others has become the pursuit of the newly gay friend.
Excellent post! And it just makes me think of how tragic our situation has become, that we can't express our feelings or even often let our love for our friends grow! I wrote a post awhile back on letter writing in Late-Antiquity--sounds banal but stay with me. I quoted the beginning of a letter written by Gregory of Nyssa--a still influential Christian theologian and bishop from the 4th century--just to show how much affection was expressed in these letters and how much time people took in those days, for they would not see each other for long periods of time, writing letters that now are considered literature for an audience often of one person or a small community. And though it was conventional to offer a bit of niceties at the opening of letters, often you see Gregory and other writings soaring to great heights trying to express to the one they are writing to things like "even though our bodies are separated by distance our souls are united as one". For the Greeks and early Christians and it seems for many cultures for long periods of time, often male friendship was more valued, without any sexual sort of thing factoring into it, than friendship with one's partner. And even if that wasn't the case fully, think of the knights with their chaste love for a lady. All of history provides us with examples that healthiness requires us to love deeply not just those we call our partner or have sexual relations with or love "romantically" (I'm using it here in a different sense I think than you did), but who we nevertheless could be said to be actively "in love with them." The highest form of love other than agape or self-giving love, has not been seen often throughout history as marital love, but rather as philia--love for family and friends. Eros was often coupled into both what draws us to God and agape and even could be seen as not erotic in our sense, as much as the impulse to go out of ourselves philip as letting others into the bond of friendship. This is part of why sometimes I hate those who try and find out who was gay or straight or whatever in history, because our standards are based on ideas that were victorian at latest for the most part and it insinuates that to passionately love the same sex and adore them and to receive joy from them somehow, must necessitate some sort of sexual orientation, but it doesn't. We are so confused!
Thank you so much for this. I feel so validated and seen by this article. I have a friend back home that I share this level of affection with. We have known each other for almost 30 years and our love for each other is so deep that people actually used to think we had something going on despite the fact that she was dating other men. This whole article resonates deep.
Gosh darn it, Stephen. This is why I love your posts. I have friends I keep yearning to tell how much I love them and yet I swallow it down for fear of the shame it would bring. It's like I'm a cat happily bringing them a precious hunting success and yet I expect they'll react like it's actually a half-dead bird I'm laying at their feet.
So your post will encourage me to do the thing after all and might therefore be life-changing.
Mission accomplished ❤️
Also, LOVE the cat metaphor.
Update: So I sent my deepest love by Whatsapp message (slight cowardice, but still...) and it was received as hoped. No recoil 🙂 - deep thanks and a subscriber's love ❤️
That is beautiful, friend. I’m proud of you for taking that leap. It’s huge. How does it feel to show your friend affection?
Good question. What I notice, when you ask that, is that I feel more alive. It feels expansive, as if a long-locked door has been opened and now a new room is now light, airy and available. I wonder if it feels the same to be on the receiving end - maybe different door, same room. Hopefully my friend and I can discuss all this now.
Beautiful ❤️ thank you for sharing. That’s exactly it.
[stands up clapping] Yaysss! Down with loneliness! Up with love!
Strong invitation, brother.
At fifty, I can attest to the challenge of regaining that more romantic version of self that I used to embody as a younger man. You've said it better, but I've long attested to the romantic arc of love shared between friends.
The confusion with intimacy has been central to my failures in many friendships, specifically with women, but also with gay friends who either wanted more than romance from me or vice versa. A younger version of me was often confused. There is a distinction worth knowing, and you walk us through it wisely, Stephen.
One thing is for certain. The older I get, the less I care what people think about my expressions of love. On the back of someone's bathroom door in the States, I found one of those pithy signs that people hang up. It read something like, "Of course I can love you. If people can hate people they've never met, then I can love you."
Thank you so much for sharing. Yes, deep male friendships are complicated for gay men and those who love them. It requires really solid boundaries and self awareness. I think it’s a pain point that isn’t talked about enough.
This is a deeply moving article, a summons, all the more given your own transparency on your own internal struggles. There is something earned here, as well as yearned for. For your transparency, your careful articulation, Thank you.
Thank you for receiving what I have written ❤️
Oh Stephen, I loved this one. I was just describing this to a friend yesterday. I'll be going through this post a few times to fully soak it in. The world needs more comfortability and openness to this depth of friendship. Love you brother!
Love you too, brother. Let’s hang out soon.
Thank you for this article! I've been thinking about this ideas of love and friendship for the last couple of years. I am constantly thinking of the small speech about the idea of love in the movie "Adaption." I think the short clip sums up love perfectly. It has helped me tremendously. He says "You are what you love and not what loves you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x90GleSXqIg
A good way to start is remember their birthday and do something to commemorate that day, even if it is as small as a phone call or a text or mailing them a birthday card. One close friend and I have a tradition of FaceTiming each other around our birthdays and we eat ice cream together on that call. We live far away, so it isn’t possible to get together in person, but we do the best we can.
Agreed with all as said, very convincing and direct.
One doubt, about separation of sexual feelings, from the very start.
It does exist stably sometimes, this separation, and there is no issue, really.
But other situations happen, especially with queer life, that bring multiple attractions into one bouquet. When multiple moons pull the tide. We have many “Loves” in us, they have names.
💓
“When multiple moons pull the tide.” Beautiful, yes, I totally agree. I’m planning a follow up to this article on the topic of male friendship and gay men. It complicates things.
Yes it sure does.
I had a very strong friendship which began as a sexual one, he was a straight married man at that time. However when he decided to come out, it seems our friendship suffered with the ‘adolescent’ pull of many new tides. I remained clear that it was friendship but the terror of being trapped by love (without the sex as we were in different countries)washed him further and further away with every tide. Even when we are in the same city it seems there are to many possibilities to warrant having a good friendship.
I currently have ambivalence toward that friendship with our values now being so very far apart that it renders it obsolete. Turning away from love for chasing as many glimmers of “lovelets” from many others has become the pursuit of the newly gay friend.
Beautiful. Already all about this.
Excellent post! And it just makes me think of how tragic our situation has become, that we can't express our feelings or even often let our love for our friends grow! I wrote a post awhile back on letter writing in Late-Antiquity--sounds banal but stay with me. I quoted the beginning of a letter written by Gregory of Nyssa--a still influential Christian theologian and bishop from the 4th century--just to show how much affection was expressed in these letters and how much time people took in those days, for they would not see each other for long periods of time, writing letters that now are considered literature for an audience often of one person or a small community. And though it was conventional to offer a bit of niceties at the opening of letters, often you see Gregory and other writings soaring to great heights trying to express to the one they are writing to things like "even though our bodies are separated by distance our souls are united as one". For the Greeks and early Christians and it seems for many cultures for long periods of time, often male friendship was more valued, without any sexual sort of thing factoring into it, than friendship with one's partner. And even if that wasn't the case fully, think of the knights with their chaste love for a lady. All of history provides us with examples that healthiness requires us to love deeply not just those we call our partner or have sexual relations with or love "romantically" (I'm using it here in a different sense I think than you did), but who we nevertheless could be said to be actively "in love with them." The highest form of love other than agape or self-giving love, has not been seen often throughout history as marital love, but rather as philia--love for family and friends. Eros was often coupled into both what draws us to God and agape and even could be seen as not erotic in our sense, as much as the impulse to go out of ourselves philip as letting others into the bond of friendship. This is part of why sometimes I hate those who try and find out who was gay or straight or whatever in history, because our standards are based on ideas that were victorian at latest for the most part and it insinuates that to passionately love the same sex and adore them and to receive joy from them somehow, must necessitate some sort of sexual orientation, but it doesn't. We are so confused!
Poetic!
Thank you so much for this. I feel so validated and seen by this article. I have a friend back home that I share this level of affection with. We have known each other for almost 30 years and our love for each other is so deep that people actually used to think we had something going on despite the fact that she was dating other men. This whole article resonates deep.
I love this. Reminds me of Hanif Abdurraqib's wonderful work https://www.instagram.com/p/C9s5uoAOJ7I/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
That is wonderful, thank you so much for sharing