Riding the wooden roller coaster

Finding comfort in the validation of nonconformity.

The following is a stream of consciousness. This is a literary technique that captures the inner workings of the human mind in a spontaneous and unfiltered manner and may lack traditional elements such as punctuation and grammar. It often includes fragmented sentences, sudden shifts in perspective, and an abundance of sensory details.

In 2013 I had a fling with a man I met on a plane. I was flying Southwest at the time and he was the person who boarded last. It was by sheer chance that his seat was next to mine.

I was on my way to see a Friend of Alyx and he was flying in for a few days of relaxation ahead of an international meeting. By the end of the flight, after hours of conversation, we’d hit upon a rare and unavoidable connection and had made the decision to succumb to one another.

We ended up spending four days together upon the conclusion of my booking.

He was, as I find is so often the case, at once professionally dominant and entirely powerless in the face of my energy. I have a way of emotionally empowering the powerful.

This man spent his days masking his natural nonconformity in the interest of success and appearances, and with this masking came a sense of emotional isolation. He needed comfort and the space to honor his authentic desires and emotions, and I was able to give him all of that because of how I’m wired.

We both fed and fed off each other’s hunger and ultimately experienced the rise and fall of a very real relationship within our circumstantial confines. He was neither a client nor someone above board. He was something else entirely, and we were an incendiary flash in the pan. I knew we’d remain indelible.

We had our chapters. There was the “Oh, you like mayonnaise? I like mayonnaise too!” discovery phase. There was the trip to buy apparatuses and the afternoon when love making gave way to pegging. (He’d always wanted to try it but had never encountered the chance.)

There was the fight when the feelings grew too intense, and the time he defended my honor against a drunkard on the sidewalk. And at the end, there was a division of assets: I kept the the ropes, and he kept various implements slated to be hidden in the “box of shame” in the back of his closet.

We went for a drink on the night of our dissolution, and in the dwindling light he looked at me and said

“There are two types of people in this world: those who ride a smooth steel roller coaster, and those who ride a wooden one. You and I are on that wooden ride.

We don’t have the luxury of smoothness because we see the world for what it is. We know who we are, and we’re different. Our ride is riskier, but it’s more rewarding. It’s more real.

I know that you get this, and I will always remember the way you’ve made me feel. You’ve made me feel less alone.”

He spoke the truth at that bar. We were a case study in what happens when two people who understand a very specific type of weight find one another. When attraction overwhelms and understanding permeates every stratus.

We emailed a few times post-parting but ultimately decided to let our chapter live in the past. And while I’ll never know what happened to him, I’ve reflected on his words countless times over the last decade. I see so much of what we shared in the most positively impactful relationships I’ve experienced as Alyx.

And while they’re more tame than the above - while they hold no room for volatility - the common thread remains: There is tremendous value in connecting with someone who understands how it feels to ride a wooden roller coaster through a world that wants conformity. To do so makes us feel comforted, and it makes us feel less alone.