This classmate I grabbed coffee with puts his arms around my shoulders as we wait for the next tram.
It’s 2 degrees, the dutch wind is crazy, and my face is freezing. I’m wearing three layers including my cosiest winter jacket, and as I feel the weight of his arm through all those layers, I am subtly reminded of how long it has been since I experienced the physicality of love. I think this thought out loud and he tells me how “a girl like you” can find a man to sleep with in the time the tram gets here.
I roll my eyes and wonder if I should preach what physicality of love means or take the wrong tram to get away from him.

It has been over two years since the day one of my white friends reached for the chicken salad on my plate using her fork: mid conversation, without asking for my permission. Europeans don’t just eat off of your plate. They usually don’t share food. When my friends and I would go out, and we would order different things, they would ask each other if they could have a taste!! Weird but I blamed it on the culture. I remember how intimate if felt the day she was comfortable enough to eat off of my plate like it was yesterday. Oh my god I knew that was love.

I have a friend back home, who hates how I drive. He holds on to the door, keeps correcting my posture, clenching his jaw when I speed a little. So I make him drive me around and every time he is forced to break his speed, he subtly places his hand across me, even though I am wearing the seatbelt, just to make sure that I don’t get hurt and that’s how I know love.

When my physical touch hating friend went home for Christmas and I stayed back on campus because flying to India isn’t as affordable as the Eurostar, she ran across the crowded campus to hug me. That is the love I know.

A few months back, I went on a road trip and I am a tiny girl so I took off my shoes and lay down on the back seat with my head in my friend’s lap. Every few minutes I would feel my friend’s hands around my shoulders or near my face. He wasn’t touching me, just weirdly hovering. I open my left eye a little to check what’s going on, and I realised that he was just making sure that the AC blowers weren’t directly on me. He wanted to make sure that I wasn’t freezing. He is convinced that if you sit directly in front of the AC, you catch a cold. I don’t believe him, but the fact that he wanted me to sleep comfortably is how I know love.

When all my friends decided to have coffee with all our boyfriends, I sat next to the single friend. We held hands and finished each other’s thoughts. That’s how I hope the boyfriends know our love.

My colleague rubs my back in the most nurturing way when I complain about my ruined sleep cycle and that is love.
And yes these are all examples of platonic love, but even the people I have loved romantically have been kind and gentle enough to rub my feet after a long day and hold my hand, even if I want to keep them warm in my pockets and make sure our fingers touch when they pass me the salt at the dining table. I have known love, and I have known the physicality of love in the most intimate way possible.

I get on the tram and sit next to him. I take my mittens off and cup his face softly. He looks at me confused- “oh my god your palms are so warm”
I smile and continue holding his cold red cheeks. As my hands get colder or perhaps his face gets warmer, he looks me in my eyes and says-

“So this is the physicality of love?”