Why do not men almost say "I love you"?

I have problems with the word "want to"but not because of a couple. It has nothing to do with romanticism or bad. It's also not related to flowers, sweets or dancing parties. My problem with love has to do with a man, My best friend, Kichi. I think I've already told you five or six times that I wanted it, but he never tells me.

When people say "I like you"Especially when you do it for the first time, you can say certain things. Maybe it's "Do you like me?" (the question that slips in the middle of confessions) or, perhaps, with greater despair, "Love me, please."

With Kichi, it's not like that. I know that he likes me. I can feel it all the time. I do not have to ask him to love me. I do not need to ask. I tell him I love him for a very simple reason: It's an undeniable fact.

But he does not tell me. Most of the time, I told him when we said goodbye, twice on the phone, once when I was drunk and once when he felt hurt and that I tried to comfort him. There is always a moment of silence and then he says something like, "Yes, brother, see you later".

I do not need you to tell me exactly the same thing, but I wonder what stops you from saying these words. What prevents most young men from telling their friends the men who love them?

When I was 8 years old, I had my first best friend. Pedro was thin as a noodle, nervous and his hair was disheveled, full of that indomitable tenderness that only children have. When I arrived in Philadelphia, he welcomed me – I was this new and nervous child in school – and he put me under the shelter of his wings.

Pedro and I spent the weekend hiking with his mother on the forest trails near his home. He and I were walking slowly holding our hands advancing, fingers intertwined. Nowadays, Whenever I participate in the sacred human practice of holding hands, I think of Pedro.

During one of our walks, another child, a neighbor of Pedro, interrupted us with a shot in the hands, which scared us.

"Do you shake hands?" Asked he. "It's gay."

I remember that I did not exactly know the meaning of "gay"but listening to how other children have spoken, I imagined it was something you did not want to be. I had the terrible feeling that the outside world had entered our quiet green space. Pedro and I never held hands again.

We continued to worry one for the other, but that day we realized that we had to regulate our interest in each other, hold him back, apply a key to him and never let him out. We learned it from another child of our age, who probably learned it from another child of all ages.

Pedro and I learned what men in the United States They have learned many times: this tenderness should be regulated according to a set of codes that we must know well, as if our survival depended on it. This lesson has been taught for many years, it has been pbaded on from one generation to another, and as if it were the best of lessons learned, it is told to you until you know where it is. finish the lesson. and where do you start

Each man carries in him a list of all the men he wanted without having ever found the words to tell him.

I met Kichi in the middle of my first year at university, while I was still a nervous kid and he was organizing a party this time around. I've always lived with a set of rotating tics generated by anxiety. That year, I had the habit of twisting the cordon of my university where I had my key, entangling it and unraveling it on my finger.

When people started entering my room, I started doing the bends nervously without realizing what I was doing until I heard a loud creak and I saw that my key has hit the screen of the iPhone from a stranger and is slightly scratched. The stranger was Kichi.

The first message I sent was an apology the next morning. He was kind and accepted the apology. We agreed to go out and go out.

The first year is a good time to attach to people. I started going out with Kichi more and more often, until we came out almost daily, then several times a day. When looking for accommodation for the second year, we decided to share the accommodation. We quickly made friends because we were both thirsty for roots in a new place. We are always united with the pbadage of time because nothing seemed more natural.

Kichi and I are half-breeds, our mothers are white, our parents are migrants with names that are difficult to pronounce. We come from cities that make us proud: him from Seattle and me from Philadelphia, but in most cases we are different. He is calm and relaxed, walks on a skateboard, has his clothes folded and tidy, writes poems and loves immunology. When he's sad, he does not stay long like this.

I admire how attentive and quiet he is and the balance he gives to his life. When I talk to him about my problems with a girlfriend, my writing problems or any other nature, any little thing that says or notes always goes on my head for days. I appreciate your perseverance and he appreciates that I am sensitive and that he is almost never balanced or serene at all. He likes it to be a mess and half awkward.

When our friendship became closer, I began to learn certain habits from him and he started to adopt some of mine. He likes it to be a disaster, and that is perhaps why I know he likes me. In any case, what could he want from another?

The codes that men follow regarding love are misleading. For example, although they disapprove of saying "I like you " Directly, sometimes saying to another man "I appreciate you" o "I carry you in my heart" it's fine. Even, it might be permissible to say "I like you" if you say it immediately followed by a "brother" or a "friend".

These are the linguistic machos that masculinity forces us to perform, the negotiations we make with the language to stay within the acceptable limits of virility.

It would be necessary to add a footnote to this code. Sometimes the most disturbing or the most terrible circumstances can cause an acceptable expression of love, but only at that moment, and the subject must never be touched again.

Two years ago, Kichi and I took sabbatical semesters at the university and spent a season at Colombiawhere my father comes from. One day, while we were in the coastal town of Capurganá, I suddenly fell ill and the fever and vertigo made me fall to my knees while walking on the beach.

I was afraid to fall mysteriously sick in a place where it might be difficult to get help. Kichi looked for a doctor all over the city. Not finding any, he decided that his medical preparation should be sufficient and he took care of me. He put his hand on my forehead. He whispered in my ear. He repeated again and again that he was going to improve… until this is it.

It was perhaps the most intimate moment between us, provoked by my illness and unthinkable at any other time.

It's the code, both complex and far-reaching. Kichi and I do not have the typical characteristics of male college students. We are not part of a fraternity or sports team. We have not even spoken more than once of the masculinity and the absurdities it demands of us, but we have lived in this world. We grew up as men in the United States. We learned this code and we practiced it. There is no immunity.

There is a part of this story that I have not yet recognized: Whenever I say to Kichi "I love you", I feel uncomfortable. I notice myself the strangeness of the statement. The lesson is immersed in the depths. I doubt that I'm retiring, but in my consciousness, I know what I mean, so I try to say it.

I want to tell Kichi that I love him and that just says that. I do not want there to be any desire, question or expectation hidden in my words. I want to love in a way that goes beyond the need for confirmation or reciprocity. That's what I came to know as the most sincere love: to expect nothing in return.

I still have hope. It is not that I need to hear these words. I am simply ready to free myself from all the forces, voices and gestures that prevent us from pronouncing them. Nevertheless, I can not help but wish that one day Kichi forgets all this male noise, look me in the eyes and just say: "I like you too".

Ricardo F. Jaramillo, one of the finalists in the Modern Love essay competition, is a graduate of Brown University this month. He is from Philadelphia.

* Copyright: 2019 The New York Times News Service