The Former Traveling Spotlight

The tales of a "30" something gay former stand-up comic living in NYC who is searching for his soul mate or soul...which ever comes first.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Under Armor

"Careful! You might break that." We heard those words almost every time we went into a store as children. Our parents taught us an important lesson, things that are fragile have value. Put those things are onto a high shelf and never touch it again. That can be a good thing, except some of us, put our hearts on that shelf. It's too fragile. It could get broken.

The thing is, love is full contact sport. If you want play the game, you have to risk getting hurt. The best you can do is put on your protective gear. In football, it's padding and a helmet. In the dating age, it's all about technology.

On the eight day, god created Google and it was good. With just a search on a name or an email address, you can find all those little details about someone. And those little details are what give you the clues about the bigger things. You can find where a person went to school, what they studied, prior addresses, and even sometimes prior boyfriends. Everything to prepare you for the potential heart crushing defeat of an ended relationship.

But what I find particularly interesting is that we don't put on the same protective gear when it comes to sexual relations. I've yet to meet a single person who hasn't hooked up at least once. Some of us do it often, some rarely, but most every one of us does it. Satisfying that sexual need is necessary, but isn't it odd that we will take home a perfect stranger from a bar, one who we've had only the shortest of conversations with, perform very personal acts with them (yeah...I think shyness is out the door once his dick is in your mouth), but not dare risk our hearts. In a time when sexually transmitted diseases can kill you, I would like to think that we would think our physical health is at risk. Then again...I'm just as guilty of hooking up.

When did our emotional health become more fragile than our physical health? Perhaps rather than developing a better armor...we just need a faster healing process for broken hearts.

Patrick - 1:33 PM -

---