Thank you Oak.
Interesting dilemma.
As I can’t know the totality of all of the feelings between you and your friends, I have no basis to comment on it.
I can only relate it to my own experience.
In the late eighties and through the nineties, in San Diego CA, my extended social group was quite large, there being a thriving gay community, centered in the Hillcrest neighborhood.
The clubs, restaurants and parks in Hillcrest were frequented by mostly queer San Diegans.
When in Hillcrest, or other, smaller neighborhoods that were predominantly queer,( such as where I lived), I, and everyone I knew, even on first meeting of a ‘friend of a friend’, would hug and kiss on the lips.
It was a closed mouth, 'peck' on the lips, such as, in many families, is exchanged between parents and children and siblings.
I can’t be sure, but I think that, unspoken, it was a means of sharing something special, and in large part, showing others, especially in public places, that people with AIDS were safe to hug and kiss.
You may be too young to remember, but many people, the “conservatives” that we still are afflicted with in particular, tended to treat hiv positive people like pariah’s, “untouchables”.
In those days, seeing a human being who had lost so much weight that he looked like a concentration camp corpse, with big sores, basically open ulcers called Caposi’s Sarcoma, many people could only feel selfish Fear. These conservatives were incapable of empathy. They were too frightened, too self-centered, to really see the suffering.
It was understood, without discussion, that the whole group of us couldn’t mob an AIDS victim. That would be super awkward.
One of us would give him a long, close, hug, started with, and topped off with, a kiss on the lips.
The sparkle in his eyes …. just remembering it, my eyes are tearing up now…w a sec
Well, just an old cry-baby 🤫😉
When it comes to being human, reducing the suffering of others, connecting with those whom we love,(just about everyone), petty fears, selfish insecurities such as petty jealousies, are counterproductive, and just plain foolish…
Sorry, I don’t mean to be harsh, it takes time to fully grow up, and it’s so sad that so many never do.
You are great, and you’re going to be so much better, I’m proud to know you at the begining of your rise.
Peace Love Kindness Respect the more you give the more you get 😍 start with yourself 😉 because you deserve it ❤️🙏🏼
--weezi--💖🙏🏼💜🙏🏼🦄🥳🥰
