I Wanna Hold Your Hand (In The Car)

When I was young, the only affec­tion my par­ents ever showed for each oth­er was occa­sion­al­ly (maybe five times ever) hold­ing hands in the car. They nev­er kissed, nev­er hugged, nev­er said “I love you”. Aside from sit­ting down to eat din­ner, their lives were com­plete­ly sep­a­rate. They would­n’t even sleep in the same room.

Now that I have a car, hold­ing hands while dri­ving has come to define a rela­tion­ship for me. I leave my right hand on the shifter, tap­ping it to the beat of my music, but I always have this urge to hold some­one’s hand, as if it’s some strange ide­al I’ve nev­er been able to expe­ri­ence.

7 comments

  1. I was won­der­ing if maybe you have issue with show­ing affec­tion to peo­ple in your life since you weren’t wit­ness to much as a child? I real­ize that I pull away from my own kids because I nev­er saw much grow­ing up. I’ve since made it a point to not be the first to let go when my daugh­ter or my son hug me. I only hope that it won’t be a case of too lit­tle too late as they are 11 and 14.

  2. They would­n’t sleep in the same room? I know my par­ents weren’t the poster cou­ple for affec­tion either but the only times when they would sleep sep­a­rate­ly is when they would have a big­ger argu­ment than usu­al.

    Odd though, I know the idea that peo­ple who are deprived of this kind of affec­tion grow up to be par­ents who do the same thing. I have a feel­ing my par­ents are one of them as is and I sus­pect, my girl­friend (because her par­ents are also less than affec­tion­ate).

    But I grew up crav­ing for that phys­i­cal affec­tion. It may take me a while to get over the embar­rass­ing bits in the begin­ning, but I always make a con­scious effort to be touchy feel­ie with the peo­ple I care for. I always attrib­uted it to nev­er been held or shown to be loved much as a kid. I always feel like I’m mak­ing up for those times along with the eter­nal quest to find cama­raderie and friend­ship among my peers.

    I won­der which part is the nor­mal route peo­ple take when deprived of affec­tion when young.

  3. @Lucy — I’ve nev­er had an issue with show­ing affec­tion myself. Not sure why, because I cer­tain­ly did­n’t recieve any when I was young. Actually, I can be a lit­tle bit smoth­er­ing, per­haps I’m over­com­pen­sat­ing in this way.

    It’s great that you’re able to rec­og­nize your lack of affec­tion in your­self. If there’s one thing we can do for the bet­ter­ment of human­i­ty, it’s to learn from our par­ents mis­takes.

    @Edrei — Yeah, not just sep­a­rate beds, but sep­a­rate rooms too. By North American stan­dards it’s con­sid­ered emas­cu­lat­ing for males to crave phys­i­cal affec­tion (just as it is to cry). But that’s just what is dic­tat­ed in the media. To be able to see past these sil­ly stan­dards means that you’ve become con­fi­dent with who you are, and I’m sure those you care for appre­ci­ate it too. I can total­ly under­stand being very affec­tion­ate in my rela­tion­ships, for exact­ly the same rea­son as you.

    My child­hood lack of phys­i­cal affec­tion made the ear­ly part of my life very con­fus­ing. I had come to learn that any phys­i­cal con­tact was sex­u­al, so it was a mixed sig­nal when pla­ton­ic friends would hug me, male or oth­er­wise.

    I don’t think there’s a nor­mal route of devel­op­ment, as both cir­cum­stances and genet­ics play a part, but cer­tain­ly more under­stand­able rea­sons why we become the way we are when we have to deal with our own per­son­al bag­gage.

  4. I’ve nev­er wit­nessed much affec­tion in my grow­ing-up years because my par­ents sep­a­rat­ed when I was 9 years old. But I can’t help but believe that it was because of that that I am now uncom­fort­able witnessing/showing affec­tion in pub­lic.

    But yeah, we do hold hands in the car, even if it’s a short (5 min) dis­tance. And yeah, even if Mum’s sit­ting in the back seat (!!!).

  5. I’m some­what uncom­fort­able with pub­lic dis­plays of affec­tion as well. It’s always been strange to my girl­friends, and an odd men­tal block that I’ve nev­er got­ten over, even though I know how sil­ly it is. Makes you real­ize how much our child­hoods affect us.

  6. WOW. Your par­ents were real­ly just like mine, sep­a­rate rooms, all of it. I remem­ber only one occa­sion of them kiss­ing in front of me before my father left in the morn­ing, and that was after a huge fight the night before. I remem­ber view­ing that kiss with a kind of sick­en­ing feel­ing, because that meant that they were try­ing hard to stay togeth­er, and that they were in dan­ger of fly­ing apart at any moment.

    When my father remar­ried, I felt some­what odd, and yet hap­py for him, because he and his sec­ond wife were noth­ing like that. They held hands and kissed often. I guess he made the right deci­sion, since they’ve been mar­ried about 33 years now.

  7. Having your par­ents kiss as a warn­ing sign must have been a scary thing indeed. I don’t think my par­ents ever did that, they would just go to bed or go to work with things unre­solved. I’m not sure which one would be bet­ter.

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