Touch me. I’m starving.
A wildly inappropriate essay on touch starvation.
The moment the light burned through the window of her backseat, I came.
At first, I thought it was Jesus Christ or an oncoming SUV piloted by a deranged ex-lover, but the raps against the glass put two and two together — the light was burning from a hefty metallic flashlight wielded by a police officer motioning to me to get the fuck out of the vehicle.
The gal sitting on top of me jumped off with a shriek, reaching for her clothes to cover up her breasts and her ass and her waist.
I reached for the door.
The door was locked.
I was forced to climb over the center counsel, which driven by an almost overwhelming sense of fear I hurtled like Aries Merritt in the London Olympics.
I fell out of the driver’s seat into a frightfully cold Southern Indiana winter with not a single parchment of coverage on me save for the condom, now filled with cum, drooping from my flaccid dick like a tattered battle-worn flag.
I asked the officer what the problem was. To which he responded that I shouldn’t be fucking in a church parking lot.
He let me off with a verbal warning. I climbed back in the car and jetted out of there like a fallen angel.
Sometimes, I find myself wondering how strange the event would be if it were to happen today.
In addition to a condom, my date and I would have been wearing face masks and when I exited the vehicle, the cop would have stood six-feet apart from me not because I was stark naked but because of the Coronavirus.
Life for me and for most people is much stranger now. I imagine surgical mask sales have exceeded condom sales by 1,000-fold as humankind has become more concerned about catching a cough than the clap.
For obvious reasons. The clap, while certainly problematic, can’t kill you. The Coronavirus, on the other hand, might not take you out but it could very easily be the end of Great Grandma Susie and while you might only see her once every couple of years, you never want to become known as the family member who caught the Coronavirus from your Hinge date and brought it home to Great Grandma Susie’s 90th and were, ultimately, a domino in a much larger sea of dominoes that lead to her not making it to ninety-one.
None of us need that blood on our hands.
And, if you find yourself appalled by my gutter humor, please know that it is a desperate attempt at making these times a little less grim and ultimately lead to the point in the article where I discuss something called Touch Starvation.
A millennial-birthed disease that holds more water than you would at first-glance believe and is ultimately one of the many repercussions of mass-quarantining and social distancing a species that’s very physical.
When I first heard about Touch Starvation it was difficult to take seriously.
A very good friend of mine named Jennifer said she paid a visit to a masseuse to get some physical touch.
(Not in a sketchy happy-ending kind way… like a legitimate massage.)
Apparently, she was going through a bit of a dry spell in her romantic life and was feeling exceptionally lonely and when she really thought about it, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had put their hands on her.
So, she paid someone to.
At the time, I didn’t get it.
But now, several months into quarantine and extraordinarily single, I get it.
I really fucking get it.
Surprisingly, I don’t find myself longing for sexual intimacy. But, instead, physical touch.
I miss burying my face in a woman’s chest. Pressing foreheads together. Snuggling. Nuzzling. Cuddling. Hand-holding. Leaning, up against one another.
For a long time, this was something my girlfriend and I would do — but you know how those things go, they either last forever or they don’t.
So, that ended, and hear I am feeling like a hopeless romantic because I’m looking at pretty strangers on the street thinking to myself…
I don’t want to kiss you nor lick you nor fuck you, I really just want you to hug me and not say a thing.
Apparently, there’s some science that backs up this sentiment. When people aren’t experiencing physical touch it can give way to anxiety and depression and stress.
I adopted a 12-week-old puppy a few weeks back. When I set a bowl of food down in front of her, she will bounce back and forth from the food bowl to me — dancing between snuggles and nourishment.
I’d say both myself and the rest of humanity is feeling much the same way — craving the touch of others like a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
But, I digress.
By Cole Schafer.
I run a weekly newsletter. It’s called Chasing Hemingway. It’s about writing and life and how the two exist so wonderfully together.
Originally published at https://coleschafer.com on August 9, 2020.
