More Than Friends

How do we categorize non-sexual, “almost” relationships?

Aubrey Hirsch
Gay Mag

--

Illustration by Louisa Bertman

WWhen I think about the singer at all, it’s usually because I had a dream about him. It’s amazing how the details are all still there in my brain, even fifteen years later: the rubbed-thin feel of his band t-shirts, the oakmoss notes in his cologne, the way his hair felt on the soft skin on my neck. If we had had sex, I’m sure those memories would be there, too, but we never did.

My relationship with the singer exists in my brain in a kind of category-less limbo — definitely more than a friendship, but not quite an actual relationship. The singer and I never “made love,” but we did make love, coax it from the air around us, render it in our folded hearts. We made letters and art and songs, we made lists of things we taught each other, we made poetry we exchanged in the middle of the night, walking to the spot exactly between our across-campus dorms, and then walking quickly back in opposite directions.

My relationship with the singer exists in my brain in a kind of category-less limbo — definitely more than a friendship, but not quite an actual relationship.

InIn the winter, he took me as his guest to our college’s winter formal. Our…

--

--