I saw something today and it just struck me, a small thing that seemed to speak of a bigger conversation.
When do you hold hands with a partner? Is it something that instinctively just happens or does it require negotiation. Is there actually a meeting that couples have to have, a sit down affair with coffee and biscuits that requires the TV to be switched of? Do couples actually discuss when and where they can hold hands? What if you’re a same sex couple?
Let me explain I was on my lunch break in Hyde Park and I walked through the shade under some trees. There I saw two girls walking holding hands, relaxed and casual they were chatting away. I watched as they stopped and shared a kiss before carrying on walking.
Care-free gay intimacy something that is supposedly rare or even invisible but here it is. Yet as they leave the shade and approach the entrance of the park they break apart. They walk out to any observer no longer lovers but friends.
Is this just modesty or fear? Not expecting something bad to happen per-say but always better to be safe than sorry, right? In any case its a way to minimise stares, but beautiful as these girls were that must just be a daily reality for them.
My personal experience: when I came out I had no problem with holding a guys hand if he was up for it, but let me tell you there's nothing more publicly awkward than trying to grab and hand that doesn't want to be grabbed!
I was eager to try everything, and consciously not to be fearful. So I'd go for the hand (and often some other things!) of anyone I was 'seeing' not really thinking about it but just to do it, to make a point of it.
Then again this was in Soho and Soho is not the world. Also I was drunk alot. Later on after my first real relationship I started to be more discerning.
I was eager to try everything, and consciously not to be fearful. So I'd go for the hand (and often some other things!) of anyone I was 'seeing' not really thinking about it but just to do it, to make a point of it.
Then again this was in Soho and Soho is not the world. Also I was drunk alot. Later on after my first real relationship I started to be more discerning.
I think it depends on the couple really, how secure they feel about ‘them’ and the statement they want to make about there relationship. Well why should they have to make a statement you may ask, aren’t relationships personal private?
Well like it or not humans are social creatures we are apart of a society and a relationship of whatever kind can never be completely private (anyway why should it), in less you want to go and live in cave or something! We are engaged everyday in social negotiation, be it queuing (or not queuing for a bus) or deciding whether to return someone’s smile on the street or to ignore them.
Holding someone's hand is a public statement of intimacy, it raises the personal between two people to the level of wider social engagment. it says we are apart, not separate.
I think that social engagement is a living process and we can change all these ‘unwritten laws’ about what a couple is, by what we do.
Every time I see a gay couple holding hands it makes me smile (and sometimes a little jealous!). Corny as it may sound it reminds me I’m not alone and that I have as much right to seek out happiness as anyone else.
It may sound like a grandiose statements about combating homophobia with visibility, but on a personal level life got to be easier if you dont let fear knock back everything you do, right? I'm not saying set your self up to be a martyr or anything but maybe a little push out of you comfort zone, it's healthy.
But let me be clear that is not an endorsement for everyone to log of and go and eat face on the back of a bus OK! Gay or straight there’s no need to be a cannibal. But holding hands why not? That’s nice. Goofy, romantic, whatever- nice.
