I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow MAP through video chat yesterday. This person is someone I’ve talked with for a few years online. I’ve always gotten good vibes from them, and we’ve become rather close recently. It was a fun chat and it was cool to be able to put a face to the person I’ve been talking to for so long. It was a level of humanity that isn’t often seen in secretive communities like ours. We laughed and joked, and we confided in each other. The emotion on their face, and the inflections in their voice as we laughed and cried just brought a whole’nother level of human connection to our friendship. It’s so liberating and humanizing to have a face-to-face conversation, rather than typing messages behind a keyboard. We let ourselves be vulnerable, and we gained so much.
This is what we need in the MAP community. The only way we’re going to be free is by letting ourselves be vulnerable.
