Holding hands in public? Wow!!
Want to get the excitement back in your relationship? Try holding hands in public.
It might be hard to imagine how holding hands with your partner can be electrifying, magical. Big deal, you might say. We do it all the time. OK, well… how about kissing each other in an empty elevator and deliberately waiting for the doors to start opening before stopping?
By now you might be rolling your eyes. These are junior high kinds of things. What’s the big deal? These little gestures are usually just that—little. But if you combine them with a new effort to get closer to your partner emotionally, to be more authentic with your partner, to be more fully present in the relationship, you might find yourself going back in time and doing all the romantic stuff over again, but this time in a way that is thrilling, and scary.
Here’s how it works. After a while, many people in committed relationships complain that the relationship has gone stale. They feel stilted, even bored. Sex is fine, oh, we suppose it’s fine, but it’s not like it was in the beginning. Even couples who still enjoy a lot of excitement together—sexual and otherwise—sometimes have an itch to grow or change in their relationship. The solution to this is not what most people think. It’s not about improving your sexual “technique,” or getting back in physical shape, or trying in one way or another to be a better “performer.” (Though I admit those activities might not necessarily hurt!) It’s about approaching your partner in a whole new way.
Here’s the new approach: you turn off the Censor inside you which keeps telling you to squelch yourself—the Censor tells you, “Don’t ask her to change the sexual routine. She’ll get insecure and offended, and besides, you probably don’t really need to change it anyway.” Or the Censor says, “Your fantasies are weird, and he’ll think so too.” Or it says, “You don’t really need to get closer to her emotionally. You’re together, life is pretty good. What more could you want?” After you turn the Censor off, go to your partner with your deepest desires. You may find yourself saying things like, “I’d like us to open our eyes during sex so that I can get closer to you. I want to see you seeing me.” You’re inviting your partner to go with you into a scary—but thrilling and transforming—territory. We’re closer now, and the other person is really intense, so we’re both afraid of being annihilated!!
Expect your partner to resist. Most people react to this (to quote a friend of mine) “like a forest animal.” They run for cover. If you asked for open-eyes sex, your partner might only take quick peeks at you when you’re doing it. Be kind, be sweet. If your eyes meet, keep looking, and smile! Take it easy, but hang in there. And this is why hand-holding can be so intense. If you’re really getting closer emotionally, if you’re really being more authentic, more fully yourself, in close proximity to your partner, you won’t need sexual acrobatics to get excited. Just doing a small, new behavior (like stealing a kiss in public) is thrilling because you’re doing it with your beloved. You’re doing it with a living, dynamic, intense human being who is really close to you.
