(or: How to Date Someone Who’s Healing Without Turning Into a Human Landmine)
Content note: trauma/healing, triggers, consent check-ins, mild sexual references.
It’s 2:13 a.m. and the ceiling fan is conducting our silence like a tired band. The city does that thing where it pretends it’s asleep but keeps one eye open—streetlights blinking like exhausted angels, takeaway wrappers drifting like little urban ghosts.
You’re beside me, hoodie sleeves swallowing your hands. You kiss like you’re checking the door is locked. I kiss like I’m voting for chaos and shock.
So I slow my mouth down. I park my pride. I let your breathing set the speed limit.
You said, “I’m healing.” Not in the cute, botanical-caption way. In the real way— the kind with flinches and grocery-store ghosts, and the sudden weather of your face.
So I learned your triggers like constellations I shouldn’t point at too loudly.
Door slams: no.
Raised voices: never.
Silence that feels like punishment: absolutely not.
Certain colognes: banned, like dictators.
Certain songs: we skip, no questions asked—my thumb’s a tiny bouncer at the club of your peace.
And yes, I want you. I want you in that reckless, warm-blooded way that makes a person write bad poetry and also consider buying nicer sheets.
But I want you more than the idea of you— more than the cinematic, rip-your-clothes-off lightning strike, more than my own impatient hands auditioning for a starring role.
Because I’m learning the romance isn’t the fireworks. It’s the fire alarm— and how I don’t laugh at it, how I don’t tell you it’s “not that serious,” how I pull the battery of shame out of the smoke.
Sometimes your past walks into the room first, wearing your expression like a borrowed coat. I don’t fight it. I offer it tea. I say, “You can sit. But you don’t get to drive.”
You apologized once—for needing things. As if tenderness is a parking ticket. As if trust is a luxury brand. As if “slow” is a sin.
So here’s my dirty little secret: patience turns me on.
Not in a porn-site way— in a holy hell, look at you choosing yourself way. In a watching-you-exhale way. In a consent-is-the-hottest-language-I-speak-fluently way.
We make out like we’re defusing a bomb— careful hands, soft laughter, the occasional “Wait—too fast,” and me nodding like a student finally understanding the point.
And when you shake, I don’t take it personally. I take it seriously.
I don’t say “Relax.” I say, “I’m here.” I don’t say “Get over it.” I say, “What do you need?” I don’t say “Why are you like this?” I say, “Show me the map.”
Because you’re not a riddle. You’re not a project. You’re a person— and people are not solved, they’re stayed with.
The practical romance part (aka: the pause button)
Dating someone who’s healing is learning that the hottest thing you can do is stop. Not “stop loving.” Just stop moving like the world is a chase scene.
Sometimes your nervous system hits an old alarm and doesn’t check the date. Sometimes kindness feels unfamiliar—like stepping into a warm room after years of cold and not trusting the heating.
So you wait. Not with a martyr face. Not with a “Look how patient I am” halo. Just… steadiness. Like a lighthouse, not a lecture.
And yeah, it can be clunky.
You’re halfway through a kiss and suddenly you become customer service for safety:
“Hi, quick check-in—still good? Still fun? Any unexpected emotional hurricanes in aisle three?”
But clunky isn’t bad. Clunky is honest. Smoothness is what people do when they’re trying to win. I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to build.
A scene, because this is how it really happens
At 1:47 a.m. the apartment makes its own kind of music. The radiator hisses like it’s gossiping. The fridge clicks like it’s trying to remember a password.
“Do you want tea?” I ask.
You blink like the question is a flashlight in your eyes. “Is that… a trick question?”
“It’s an honest question,” I say. “I’m new to being honest. I might sprain something.”
You laugh—the kind of laugh that has to pass checkpoints before it’s allowed out. “Tea. But only if you don’t… y’know.”
“Poison it?”
“Get all ceremonial about it.”
“Too late,” I say. “I’m wearing my ceremonial sweatpants.”
In the kitchen I move slower than my instincts want—because I learned on Day Six that fast turns can feel like thunder.
“Peppermint or chamomile?” I ask.
“Peppermint,” you say. Then, after a beat: “Is it okay if I stand here?”
A small question. A heavy one. Permission to exist near someone without paying a fee.
“Yes,” I say. “Please.”
Later, back on the couch, you whisper: “When you touch me sometimes my body thinks it’s back there. Even if my brain knows it’s you. Even if I want it.”
My reflex tries to become a toolbox—my brain reaching for a wrench labeled Solutions. I swallow it.
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you for telling me.”
And we make a plan, like adults who refuse to turn intimacy into a guessing game:
If something spikes: freeze. Ask: what room? what year? what’s happening? No touch at first—touch only if you say yes.
Then you look at my mouth like you’re trying to be brave in real time.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask.
Your eyes widen—like asking is a language you weren’t taught. Then you nod. “Yes.”
I kiss you like I’m learning your name. Soft. Patient. A question, not a claim.
Patience, defined
Patience is not passive. It’s an active verb.
It’s: I will not rush your body as if it owes me a happy ending. It’s: I will not weaponize your fear into proof you don’t care. It’s: I will hold the moment gently until it stops trying to run.
It’s also not a doormat with a bow on it.
Patience is not tolerating cruelty. It’s not becoming someone’s therapist. It’s not shrinking yourself to avoid setting off alarms.
Patience has boundaries. Boundaries are love with a spine.
The part where I admit the truth
There’s a version of desire that burns through a house and calls it warmth. I’m trying to build something steadier: a lamp. a lock. a laugh at 3 a.m.
And yes, I still want you—feral, warmly, sincerely— but I want your nervous system to believe this isn’t a trap disguised as tenderness.
So when you finally laugh—real laugh, ugly and bright— I feel like I’ve won something better than sex:
I feel trusted.
(Though, for the record: when you’re ready, I have several respectful, enthusiastic ideas and a deep commitment to hydration and aftercare.)
Tonight your head is on my chest. My hand isn’t wandering, just resting. We look like nothing is happening—
but everything is.
You’re healing. I’m learning. The city hums. The fan keeps time.
And I whisper, like a vow, like a joke, like a prayer:
Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere.
submitted by /u/deadeyes1990
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