Warmth

In my last year at high school, one of the girls wanted to talk to me. I was walking home from a swimming lesson that had taken place at the local leisure centre. From the other side of the footbridge I had just crossed, my name was called.

As I turned, she called for me to wait for her. She increased her pace; her long hair billowed out behind her and, coming closer, her smile broadened. After the customary pleasantries, and an acknowledgement that we hadn't really had the chance to talk before, she told me what was on her mind as we walked together.

That evening, she would be going on a date for the first time. She was nervous. She wasn't sure how she should act, what she should wear or whether she would meet the expectations of the young man in whose company she'd be spending some time. She had been thinking about cancelling the date, because she was sure to make a fool of herself.

I took a brief look at her, walking next to me. She was tall, slender. Her dark hair provided a contrast to her pale complexion. She was quite attractive, not just in outward appearance but also in her mannerisms, the tone of her voice, the pace of her speech and other things unique to her. Hearing that she doubted herself came as a surprise.

None of the girls had spoken to me in this way before. A number of the boys had, for reasons known only to them, walked at least part of the way home with me and talked about things that had been troubling them. A girl wanting to open up to me was new.

I knew that I was seen as a little unusual. It was, unfortunately, a particularly lonely time for me. Adolescence can feel like a limbo, in which we are neither a child nor an adult - neither one thing nor another. It's a time when many of us find our "crowd": the people with whom we identify as having similar traits or interests.

For some of us, it's a time when we come to realise that we don't fit in. We find no one with whom we particularly identify. In truth, I identified most with the world cinema I'd watch in the early hours of the morning. Using the small TV in my room, I'd watch numerous subtitled films which two of the available stations would broadcast at unsociable hours. They had a profound effect on how I perceived the world around me.

What I didn't want was to reinforce in any way the idea that I was odd. Actually, hearing a girl talk openly about her concerns to me, as we walked home, felt like a chance moment of connection with someone who might not otherwise have been too aware of my existence. Her eagerness to make a good impression, on her imminent date, mirrored my own eagerness to leave a good impression at that moment.

I asked whether she had asked her date for the evening to go out with her, or whether he had been the one to ask. She replied that he had been the one to ask. I said that I admired his courage. The possibility of rejection was something he had been willing to accept, I reasoned, in exchange for the mere possibility of spending some time with her. He had seen something in her which had made him want to spend that time with her.

How nervous did she think he might be about their date? She answered that he was probably feeling much the same as she was. She smiled. At that moment, we had come to the place where our paths home diverged.

She suggested that in future I might spend some time with her and her friends, and talk with them, during breaks in the school day. Knowing that some of the girls she thought of as friends would object to that development, I made excuses I can no longer remember.

The hug was unexpected. I didn't know how to respond. Much of the discussion I'd heard regarding such situations had suggested that males should be especially careful with the physical boundaries of females. As much as I resented the implication that some bodies were inherently more valuable than others, I didn't reciprocate. My arms hung limply by my sides.

She felt soft and warm. There was the feint scent of a musky, floral perfume. She released her hold, and said she'd see me at school. I only managed to nod in response, and watch for a moment as she crossed the road and walked down a side street. The impression left by her being next to me remained long after she had gone.

No one, as far as I could remember, had hugged me before. It seemed strange to think that it had never happened, but I certainly couldn't remember it happening. Until this isolated display of affection, I had been okay with that. After, I wasn't okay. I wasn't okay at all. In terms of my mental health, I went off the rails for a while. You can't miss what you've never had, I guess. After experiencing it, it was missed greatly.

Within a space of about ten minutes, I'd experienced more warmth from another human than I had for as long as I could remember.

If we experience, early in our lives, a lack of warmth and affection, it can be difficult to know how to respond. It can feel so disconnected from our experience that we find it hard to accept, and we may find it equally difficult to give to others.

It's all too easy to fall into the trap of believing that we must not have deserved warmth and affection, or it would have been offered to us. We dismiss the thought that those around us, for reasons entirely their own, may have struggled to show warmth towards us.

In more recent times, I've had to come to terms with the emotional response I have to any suggestion of warmth and affection from others. Speaking to a counsellor helped me to see this as something akin to a man crossing the desert, and suddenly being given a glass of water. Leaving behind the notion that I must have been somehow unworthy of love is a battle that continues to this day. The messages we receive in childhood have a profound and lasting effect on how we see ourselves.