Welcome to the Summer of Awkward!

Not gonna lie: when you said you were having a casual “we’re all vaccinated” shindig at your place, I wasn’t sure what you meant? Ha, not like casual sex, right? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. I mean, does casual refer to the attire? What does casual attired mean to me, someone who has been alternating between day pajamas to night pajamas and sometimes, hell, I just wear the same thing, in and out and back into bed again because time is meaningless, and who is going to judge me? Sorry, was I rambling? After a year trapped with the unfettered assery of my own thoughts, like a hamster running around in a plastic ball that it has repeatedly defecated in, I have forgotten how conversations work. Is it that I go and then you go again? Do we just take turns talking or what?

Sorry, should I be doing something with my hands? Do I just stare at your face the entire time? That can’t be right. Do we make eye contact? Do I stare at one eye? You can’t stare a two eyes at once, they are two distinct things, my god, how do humans with two eyes even look at one another? Do I flip between both of your eyes like watching a tennis match? That can’t be right and also now I have a headache, I’m just going to stare at the bridge of your nose oh god oh god, oh god, did you just ask me a question?

I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking about how much I missed you. How much I missed everything. And now I’m scared it’s somehow going to go away again. Is it weird if we hug? Like, right in the middle of our I’m not-quite-sure-this-is-a-conversation? Yes. Let’s hug.

Hugging. Wow. This is nice. You smell nice.

Huh. Never realized how much, like, contact there is with hugging. There’s a lot of contact, huh? You’d think it just involves your arms, but like, man, my boobs are just all pressed up against you. I just talked about boobs while hugging you. So, yeah, that’s a thing that happened.

Is this a normal length of time for a hug? Should we stop? When does a hug end? Is there a specified amount of time? This has gone on for too long, hasn’t it? Are you pulling away? I can’t tell. Maybe that’s a regular hug thing? Or did I freak you out because I tried to maintain eye contact while hugging?

I think the problem is that I’m not at home right now, so I’m sort of out of my comfort prison. Maybe you should come back to my place. Ha ha ha ha ha, like in the 70s! Like Rand and I are swingers! Come back to our place. Oh, god, not that we’re swingers. I mean, it’s okay if other people are. I’m not going to judge someone else’s lifestyle choice. Wait, is it a choice? (Oh, god, did I just say something super offensive?) It’s totally great if they are. The world needs swingers, right? Ha ha ha ha, maybe we should swing.

Oh, god, I mean, not really. Please don’t tell people that I suggested we should swing. I do not want to swing. I mean, it’s fine if you do. And it’s not personal. You seem like you’d be a very kind and generous lover. Not that I’m looking! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. You know what, maybe we should skip my house. I’ve been there for a year and a half, and I’m worried I have olfactory exhaustion and can’t smell my own house, and what if it smells weird? I’ve been lighting a LOT of incense. A lot. How much incense is too much incense? I go through a few sticks a day. I think maybe I have olfactory exhaustion from the incense? Oh, god, is incense culturally appropriative? I grew up Catholic, if that helps at all. I should probably just stick to candles. I have a lot of those, too. How many candles are too many candles? Oh, god, are the candles culturally appropriative? (Again, I grew up Catholic, if it helps.)

I think the church’s views on homosexuality and women’s rights are very antiquated and I don’t agree with them. I just want to be clear on that. But man, they really got the incense thing right!

…

I just want to be clear that I’m saying incense and not incest. I am not okay with incest.

Okay, I just need to take a deep breath, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, you know, I think the problem is that we’re inside, together, that’s the problem. Let’s go sit outside. Yes! Outdoors. You know, they say transmission is virtually impossible outdoors. But we’re vaccinated! So we don’t have to worry about that. No. Except there’s this new variant which they’re talking about. I tried reading the news story about it but I kept crying too hard to finish it. Ha! Typical me with my pandemic-related-trauma, amirite? The outdoors are nice, aren’t they? Look how much space we have. And the ventilation. That hug went on for too long before, huh? I’ll give you some space. Six feet, right? It’s really a shame, because you smell nice. Man, even with olfactory exhaustion, I detected that. Not that I’m like, a swinger or anything. But if I was, boy, howdy, you’d be first on my list! I mean, with your consent of course. Is it your turn to talk? I think it might be. You go ahead.

I’ve really missed you, you know.