The Type Of Love I Need For You To Offer
By Shawn Binder
I don’t need you to have abs I could hand wash a Burberry scarf on. It’s not required that you have blinking white teeth or hair that blows in the mind like you’re in a Garnier Fructis commercial. I know that these things are fleeting and I need us to not be temporary. I need you to feel safe belting Miley Cyrus with me on the highway, I won’t even mind if you’re off key because your voice will still be joyous and lovely.
I want you to be adventurous with me. No, I’m not asking you to be ready at a moment’s notice to stop your life and travel to New Zealand with me. All I am asking is that you push yourself out of your comfort zone. Order the new Panini instead of soup bread bowl at Panera just because you feel like getting a little crazy today. I want you to try knitting and water polo and deep sea diving because I hope you’ll constantly be finding new passions in your life. I want you to constantly be discovering new things about yourself because I selfishly want to discover them with you.
I need you to be vulnerable for me. I need to you to let yourself feel everything you want to feel and never be afraid to share these emotions with me. I need you to yell, I need you to simmer. I want you to cry and to laugh and smile and to sulk in the three-dollar movie theater because I refused to hold your hand.
I need you to offer me a home. I mean home in the sense that when you hold me, it feels like i’m in my very own living room; the fireplace blazing, socks off warm-kind-of-home. I want you to be the home I build a life for myself in. A home where i’m unafraid to fail miserably and feverishly grow and change.
I need you to call me on my bullshit when I tell you i’m not jealous that other boys adore you or when I tell you I don’t need you to spend the night. I need you to realize I will push you away during the times I am truly grasping for you the most.
I want us to fuck and to make love. I want our sex life to be exciting at times, boring at others, and obligatory at others. I want us to giggle and laugh and probably fall asleep during sex when we’re exhausted. I want you to eat sandwiches naked in bed with me and burn the stove-top popcorn because we’re too busy making out.
You must be kind to and treat your mother in a way that is more lovely than any woman I see you interact with. I need you to not take her for granted and no matter what your personal relationship is with her, a certain level of respect must be given. It may sound silly, but it will say a lot about your character. I need you to offer me the love of a gentle-hearted man. I need you to treat your friends with reverence and a gentility that shows the full force of how human we are, and how compassionate your heart can be.
I need you to offer me this love unhibited. I need you to throw yourself at your own speed into our future. I need you to make me be the brave man I know I would be with you at my side.