I was never straight, though for years
I tried to walk in a line drawn by people who had never walked in my shoes.
And yes, I have known men the way bodies know bodies. Skin against skin, breath becoming language, names whispered into darkness that sometimes disappeared with the morning.
There is nothing shameful about wanting.
But I am learning that not every connection
needs to end with clothes on the floor.
Sometimes, the most intimate thing two people can do is sit across from each other fully dressed and say,
βTell me what happened.β
And listen.Really listen.
Some encounters arrive wearing the possibility of desire, but somewhere between the jokes, the late-night conversations, the random kumain ka na ba?, and the stories we were afraid to tell everyone else, they become something else.
Friends.
Not because attraction disappeared, but because connection became more important than conquest.
Because relationships were never meant to be built only on beds.
A bed can hold bodies. But can it hold silence without making it awkward?
Can it remember your favorite childhood story?
Can it ask how your mother is?
Can it stay when there is nothing left
to take off?
I want people I can talk to comfortably.
People whose presence does not come with an expectation.
People I can meet without wondering what happens after dinner.
People who understand that sometimes
the best kind of intimacy is laughter until 2 AM, talking about life, sharing fears, and going home with nothing exchanged
except honesty.
I am not against desire.
I am simply no longer confusing it with connection. Because sex can introduce two bodies. But communication
introduces two souls.
And maybe love, in all its confusing forms,
is learning the difference.
Maybe not every man I let into my life has to become a lover.
Some are meant to become the person I call when life feels too heavy.
Some are meant to stay on the couch,
in the conversation, in the laughter.
Fully clothed. Fully seen.
And somehow, more intimate than anything that ever happened
in a bed.
Open ChatGPT, send it this image, and type:
"Fill it with things that represent me and color it with my favorite color."
Then show us the result in the comments π