Ernest Malimon on Unsplash" />Photo by Ernest Malimon on Unsplash

Throughout queer history, hook-up culture and the freedom to express one’s sexuality with gay abandon (the irony isn’t lost on me) is something many queer people – including myself – see as a marker of difference from our straight counterparts. LGBTQ people far and wide learning not only about themselves, but other people through the language of touch is a beautiful thing.

But when I hooked up with a seemingly ‘new’ person to me on a recent visit to my hometown, I was shocked to realise that our bodies weren’t getting to know each other for the first time – because neither of us realised until the clothes had come off that we did in fact already know each other, pretty well.

Once my date had arrived, we chatted for a while about our respective worlds – him living in the home town that we had grown up in since birth, and me visiting after living in London since I was 18. He seemed perplexed at how much massages cost in London compared to our sleepy town, and used this as a segue into physical touch.

I could tell our connection felt strong and was unexpectedly buoyed by our conversation, which is something I can’t often say about hook-ups, when physicality often does most of the talking. We would take several breaks to just talk about his life, my job, his experiences with dating or our shared interest in running.

Until during one break, he asked what year I was born. As I went to answer, realising this was a fairly unsexy question, he jumped in saying, “- I bet it was 1997”. I nodded, detailing it was the year Princess Diana passed.

“Same here…” he continued.

“Hold on – were we in the same year at school?”

I sat up and looked him in the eyes. The mention of school was definitely not the most arousing subject, and certainly wasn’t filled with joyous memories. From being bullied to experiencing a consistent sense of ostracisation, it was a time when my relationships with boys wasn’t ever........

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