When Repulsion Feels Like Touch

They measure us against labels. You know, boyfriend, husband, that kind of stuff. Exclusivity, it means you’re doing things right. Nonmonogamy, probably not. You’re either being sold short in your relationship or you’re the side chick. Why settle for less, right? Aspire to more, know your worth, etc. But maybe Nora didn’t measure herself, or them, against those standards. Maybe she just liked being with him. Maybe he was her best friend here. Maybe she was learning that love was not possession. She, she was the side chick; and he, in an open relationship.

“He’s using you,” said the stranger, popping a fry in her mouth.

“It isn’t like that.”

“If he’s already got a girlfriend, then he’s just playing with you.”

But this stranger, she hadn’t seen Sofiane running to the pharmacy to buy her eyedrops. She hadn’t seen him show up consistently, board games in zip seal bags. She hadn’t seen his surprise when Nora kissed him on the third outing. I didn’t think you liked me like that, he’d said. No, she’d replied. I didn’t.

This stranger, leaning back in her chair, hadn’t seen them talking until three a.m., Googling debunked physics theories and the cosmic microwave background. She hadn’t heard Sofiane’s musings—why doesn’t everything just melt into each other? — hadn’t seen his surprise upon learning we don’t directly touch anything, that it’s electromagnetic repulsion. Wait, are your electron clouds at least touching mine? Raised brow, childlike wonder glowing orange beneath the desk light. Nope. Repulsion feels like touch. At least, I think that’s how it works. Double click. Scroll. Both leaning in to learn something. (God, I hope we learn something!).

This stranger, she hadn’t seen how much they laughed, or the crinkle by his eyes, or the way he played with her hair watching Love is Blind. He hadn’t seen Nora on his lap wiping his tears after the mention of his grandmother – has she forgotten you yet?

Use her? Use her for what? For her company, her conversation, laughter, discussion, support? They’d hardly even been intimate – not physically, anyway.

And it had undermined Nora’s agency, her intelligence. As though she were naïve, the stupidest person in the room. Friends burying their faces in Uno cards, sipping at pints, pretending there wasn’t an elephant before their very eyes. The condescension in assuming she was some kind of plaything, not a consenting participant, that she hadn’t actually connected with somebody and possibly, probably, couldn’t. At least that’s what Nora’s subconscious heard. And maybe that’s why she blocked him, why she left all her WhatsApp group chats. Kind of wanna kill myself, anyone doing anything fun? No reply. Nora has left the group. Too drunk to regulate herself, but if she didn’t believe what she’d heard, what had caused the dysregulation?

The next morning, she awoke with a sigh, with the knowledge that things had gone awry, and she’d have to bury her nose in books again. Authors, her only friends. And she started to justify it in her head – she wouldn’t burden anyone, nobody cared. But instead, she apologised to her friends for having left abruptly, and when they said it was OK, she wrapped herself up in her duvet and sobbed. She was allowed to be messy and still be loved – she didn’t have to extract herself, like a splinter, from the lives of those around her. She could coexist with shame, she could be seen and still accepted. And Sofiane, he wasn’t blocked. Maybe she’d dreamt it.

She made herself coffee. Classical music. Why had she been affected by a stranger’s projections? Downed an Ibuprofen, water. Back to bed with her dirty mug. Her core wounds, she realised, had heard she was stupid and unlovable. Not that anybody had said that. But the stranger had spoken to her worth, and suddenly she’d been less than because she’d accepted something other than an exclusive relationship. She’d settled for Sofiane walking her home, for his coat on cold nights, for that detour to the supermarket for throat lozenges. She’d settled for that safe space in which nothing was expected of her but the present – a handful of instances in which she felt connected, grounded, present, and safe.

Home screen alight. I think you blocked me last night.

A girl got in my head.

And so, you proceeded to block me? Those people don’t know me or my intentions. You question my integrity whenever you see fit.

I just wanted to disappear. Didn’t want to be here. It was more to do with self-loathing than a judgement of your character. I’m sorry.

Nora, she was long accustomed to unburdening others long before she was ever a burden. She thought herself incapable of hurting anybody. How could she? People would have to care to hurt.

Home screen flashed. Can you imagine if I did that to you?

She sighed and melted into her pillow. Beads of the birthday bracelet beneath her thumb. Oh, this is for you by the way. A box he’d pulled from his pocket like an afterthought. Goodnight, and a kiss goodbye.

It had felt safe, not suffocating, with Sofiane – at least to someone as emotionally volatile as Nora. The built-in limitations of his relationship had felt like training wheels. It was exactly what she’d needed not to idealise, or project, or fall into limerence. It was exactly what she’d needed to just be with somebody without her happiness hinging on it. To explore those possibilities, without the doors falling out their frames. But how do you communicate that to those who think exclusivity alone legitimises connection? To those who couldn’t see how she’d be derailed entirely by someone who demanded more. That she could only trust people in parentheses. Buy her a bracelet, a book, and it felt like a ploy. Rupture and repair, a nascent trauma bond. At this point in her life, she wasn’t aspiring to the same labels as others, the same labels as the outspoken stranger who, admittedly, had been pleasant, who hadn’t done much wrong besides stepping on the core wounds, like cracks, of a fellow stranger. How was she to know that Nora herself was emotionally unavailable? That she’d rather test the waters with somebody who showed up consistently albeit in a limited capacity; albeit, perhaps, ephemerally.

And now she was asked to wait after that drunken night in which she’d blocked Sofiane—for what, two hours? —wondering if it was punitive or if he really needed space. Three days? Really, over this? And given her multiple apologies? Maybe it was all a mistake, but it had been nobody’s but hers to make.

Because repulsion, it feels like touch; and touch often feels like love. And by God, isn’t it all worth it to shower someone in kisses sincerely, non-performatively, just because? Because it’s there, because it takes hold. I mean, how often are you gripped by that affection? Not lust, not the carnal, but tenderness? And how do you turn it off when and if you’re disrespected? He’s using you. Is he? But how do you use a willing party?