The Beatles' First Number-One Hit
“You’re a squeezer,” Bec said.
“A what?”
“A squeezer when you hold hands. Some people just put their hands in yours and leave them there limply. Others constantly play with your fingers. You? You squeeze my hand periodically to let me know you’re there – you’re a squeezer.”
I hadn’t really thought about it. I’d guessed everybody was a squeezer.
“And you always interlace your fingers, too,” she added.
Another strangeness. Why would you hold hands and not interlace fingers? That’s the intimate part. Then again, for me, holding hands is always a very intimate thing – there’s that little squirmy first-date thrill of sliding your hand into someone else’s and feeling them hold back.
It’s not just me, either. At one con, Gini didn’t have a problem with me vanishing up to my room for a hot makeout session with a girl I’d met. But when I held that girl’s hand in public, Gini asked me to stop.
I dunno. There’s something to me about hand-holding that’s a little romantic, a public connection that’s viewed as endearing and not PDA. I love holding hands in movies, over dinner, in all the spaces one can.
But I’d never thought of people as having preferences before, though I suppose they must. I assumed that the folks who’d just shoved their hands into mine and left them there were getting my squeezes and knew what they meant. But now, I guess, there must be styles of it, and thus preferences, and so I ask:
How do you like to have your hand held? If at all?
I like nearly all kinds of hand-holding, though I do think it depends on the relationship. When I hold hands with KT, it is generally without interlacing fingers, but with Lucy, it varies all across the spectrum. squeezing is definitely a thing, but not an always thing.
Like other intimacies, I like to think that I adapt well to others.
I don’t like interlacing my fingers, because I have fairly small hands and severe joint pain. Anyone whose hands are much bigger than mine forces the fingers apart and makes the pain worse. But I do like to squeeze my partner’s hand every now and then. It’s like a secret little message to them saying “I’m glad you’re holding my hand.”
Hrmm… I feel very uncomfortable with holding hands–trapped and claustrophobic almost–so if we hold hands, it’s a pretty big indicator that I feel very comfortable, relaxed, and ‘safe’.
When it happens, fingers interlocking… But I fidget a lot as well.
My favorite is to hold hands secretly under the table at dinner.