To what extent do our expressions—verbal, facial, and even the impersonal written—betray us? In the absence of a practical way to have a live feed of our faces sent directly to our brains, how many of us can even detect any incongruence between our words and facial expressions? Many of us can easily detect it when someone else is struggling to prevent their face mirroring their true feelings that they are trying to couch with words. We can sense our own failure at such an attempt as our cheeks go flush and ears get uncomfortably warm. But what about those instances when we are certain about the coherence of a lie? What about the times when we lie to ourselves, and not just to others?
Can a text message betray us? Is there a group of tiny Righteous Rebels spread across one’s being—in one’s veins, bones, skin pigments, hair follicles, remote corners of consciousness—who from time to time foil one’s attempts at dishonesty by using methods so devious and subtle that they have successfully avoided detection by our paleolithic brains? For instance, when one sends a text message outlining reasons for one’s disinterest in a prospective romantic companionship, do these Invisible Insurrectionists for Integrity intercept the brain signals on their way to one’s fingertips and corrupt it just enough to cause a tiny mismatch in tone, grammar, or vocabulary so as to create a vague, inexplicable suspicion in the recipient’s mind?
I was compelled to ask myself these rhetorical questions after an eventful night I had recently. These questions had to be framed with such unnaturally pompous metaphors because I am trying to write a piece. The day went quite well, even better than I expected. The mild anxiety generally associated with hosting a bunch of people slowly evaporated as the meats got cooked, munchies got delivered, and the first guest arrived. The afternoon progressed leisurely as gradual inebriation calmed nerves. The conversations went from nervous to relaxed to intimate to humorous while the food kept the palettes satisfied prompting repeated praises that I humbly accepted. I talked about my breakup, Sam about his stalled companionship that he was quite invested in, and Ben discussed his plans of coming out to his parents as an atheist and a pansexual. As he sought our views on the topic, it turned into a long discussion during which we all learned surprising new things about his family.
The evening took an unexpected turn after everyone except Ben left. Ben was in a state of inebriation that one reaches only a few times a year, the kind that completely removes all filters from one’s vocal chords and hands control of one’s speech and actions over to the aforementioned Rebels fighting to preserve honesty in human expressions. But few rebels make effective administrators. With the usual, self-improving command and control system in abeyance, the rebels run amok. Their inexperience and their sole focus on honesty at the expense of all other aspects of one’s behaviour result in one experiencing severely diminished cognitive and motor abilities. This manifested hilariously in Ben’s failed attempts to eat his dinner, find his spectacles, and find a cab home followed by his long rambling trying to articulate his attractions towards me. The relevant parts of his long monologue, which went back-and-forth and round-and-round, can be summarised as thus: he was sexually attracted to me, and if I so wished, we could engage in any form of intimacy that might seem appropriate. He was also attracted to me intellectually, and if I was also interested, we could together explore it further.
While he was professing his affection and confessing his desire to have sex with me, it also became clear that he’d hoped I’d reciprocate or that he’d sensed a hint of interest from me.
If I keep my own instinctive denial aside for a moment, he was completely right. I have indeed thought about him, have allowed myself a flight of romantic/sexual fantasy that involved a young, tall, thin, precocious man; an arm candy who’d bolster my own credentials as a desirable and sexually evolved elder millennial. As with many of my relationship fantasies, predictably, this one also originated from my deep-rooted insecurities and revolved mostly around potential opportunities to show off and virtue-signal among a non-existent bunch of peers whom I am always looking to impress (I am trying to impress the same group of people with my metaphors that this piece opens with). Although I like his shapely face and slender build, which I do in many men, they don’t evoke sexual feelings in me. I like them because I believe if I had those features I’d be more attractive. Also, his patchy facial hair brought back memories of stubble scratching against my face, quite opposite the sensation I desire. His offer didn’t have the effect it would have had if a woman had offered it. Instead, it put me in a bit of a difficult spot because I couldn’t say a straight No due my tendency to avoid conflict. I also liked the idea of the prospect of sex being on offer although I didn’t want it that night itself.
Predictably, he was hungover badly the next morning. He spent several hours on my couch before he left. I liked it, unlike those times when I wanted my sexual partner to leave the next morning. I do want to spend time with him. But I don’t think I’d enjoy physical intimacy with him.
After he left, I have been mildly paranoid about how the thoughts and feelings that I had only entertained in passing may have evaded scrutiny of my rational mind and got detected by the object of my fantasy. When I messaged Ben a few weeks ago inviting him over, although I tried concealing my motives—borne out of a passing fantasy—by expressing my intention to have other friends over along with him, the Microscopic Mutineers Against Misleading Messages seem to have had a successful mission.
Cosimo's Confessions 