Right now there is someone I am missing. And because of the kind of stories I usually write, I imagine you think the next thousand words are going to describe a kind of urgent, aching desperation for them. Fair enough, I write that stuff so often. The intensity. The horn. The trembling need for somebody that borders occasionally on similar tingles to ‘fight or flight’. I want to fly to him, then fight him naked on a big soft bed before tumbling into sweaty giggles. That sort of thing. I do it so much that my fingers almost instinctively want to type that story, but this one’s different. The way I am missing this person right now is softer and calmer than that.
It pulses in the background of my day, like a gentle heartbeat. Resting rate, not post-run or pre-job interview. It’s a constant, steady, comforting thrum: I miss you. I think of you. I hope you are doing OK.
Ironically, the only comparison I can think of when trying to describe the timbre of how I miss this person is something none of you will have experience of to compare. I want to tell you that the feeling of missing him (it’s a him, of course it’s a him) is comparable to the sensation of being held – firmly but gently – in his arms. The warmth of it surrounds me, stroking my back and neck with a peaceful rhythm. I miss him. I think of him. I hope he is doing OK.
I will see him this week on Friday. And I know I get anxious sometimes, and worry that a man might be angry with me, but this time I don’t have that feeling. Even though I’ve had it with this man himself in the past. For some reason, right now, the way I miss him is very calm and clear. I can allow myself the pleasure of missing him – sliding all the way into it like a good, deep bath – because I have the confidence that I’ll see him again. On Friday, this week. I don’t know what we’ll do yet, we’ve discussed a few possibilities – actual Date Stuff, not just pure fucking (though I’m sure that will come, as will he, as will I). But the day itself is certain. Friday. Not a moment later. Come hell, highwater or hot weather, I will see him on Friday this week.
I miss him. I think of him. I hope he is doing OK.
It’s nice, this feeling. If I examine it in detail, I think it’s one of my favourites. I know some people enjoy the novelty of casual sex, or the thrill of chasing a ‘yes’ from a brand new hottie, for me there are few joys quite like that calm heartbeat of missing somebody who you’re confident misses you back. The pleasure of knowing you can allow yourself to miss someone – wallow in the feeling like a fat, happy hippo in the mud – and the happiness won’t be snatched away before the ‘missing’ comes to fruition.
‘Snatched away’ like… something more important came up at the last minute, or they forgot you were supposed to meet and accidentally double booked. Or, more often, in the case of the men I apparently choose for myself, some perceived slight makes them snap at you, so the next time you hang out you’ll have to focus on apologies and placating rather than the joy you had imagined. The reunion and connection you’d been looking forward to so much.
I don’t have a lot of stuff on this week – the last few have been so busy they made my head spin. So although I will see a couple of people I love for drinks in the sunshine and gossip, most of my time will be spent catching up on work for this website, pottering around the flat, and allowing myself to luxuriate in missing him.
During idle moments, I’ll probably catch myself thinking about what we might do when we hang out on Friday. Trying to picture it all – poring over the weather report and comparing that to his suggestions for activities, then painting in the detail about what I will wear and the route I will cycle to get to wherever we go. Lining up the most fun news I have to tell him and maybe even a few jokes I’ve been working on or ideas for filthy things I could whisper to him in bed… yeah. I have planned it. Wait, not so much ‘planned’ as ‘explored’. I’ve been on a cosy meander through a selection of possible universes – each one containing a different possibility for the time we’ll have together when we meet. It won’t turn out the way I plan, and that’s OK, because it’s impossible. I have dreamt of so many different options, after all, and we are just two people.
But this dreaming brings me happiness in and of itself, even though I know that most of it is fantasy. A significant amount of the fun in the actual moment will come from the surprise of it.
The way that all those possible universes in which we did different things suddenly collapses into one reality. The sparkling excitement of realising that no matter how much I anticipated, I could never have predicted exactly what he might say or how he might smile or the way that he’d touch me. The pleasure that blossoms when dreams become real life.
I’m experiencing pleasure right now too, in this sandbox of anticipation. I miss him. I think of him. I hope he’s doing OK.
I am wrapping myself in this, this missing him. Like it’s a hug or a nice warm blanket. I am drinking it down in slow sips, savouring it on my coffee breaks and unwrapping it late at night in bed. Not when I’m trying to come, this is a different kind of missing: this is the emotion I take out and unwrap after the sex toys have been put through their paces. When I’m spent and exhausted and ready to turn out the light, that is when I explore this emotion. Pulling it deep from within the chambers of my heart and allowing it to flutter free inside my brain.
There is someone I am missing right now. And I’m enjoying missing him. I daydream about it the way I daydream when the end of the month rolls round and I get to think of all the people I could give money to if I won the premium bonds. The way I let my mind wander over cycle routes I might take when I next go to Europe, or meals I might make for myself when the Sainsbury’s order arrives on Monday.
I toy with this missing, I play with it. I hug it close to me, inhale it like a boyfriend’s t-shirt.
I miss him. I think of him. I hope he’s doing OK.
And I will see him this week on Friday.
I read this piece to Patreons on Friday, along with a sexy story about something that happened the last time this guy and I hung out. If you want to hear that, join and check out the June update.