Kiss like we're on TV

Warning: cheesy content incoming

Sometimes when I think nobody is looking, I kiss my fiancée Jin on the cheek.

This usually happens in train stations, where the long escalators can whisk us out of the sight lines of commuters waiting on the platform. It also helps that the steps help equalize our 20cm height difference.

“You’re so sneaky,” she says every time. I just grin.

Affection isn’t something that Jin and I often show in public. Not only can it invite some unnecessary stares, but it can also be a safety risk. There is no protection for gay couples in Hong Kong, where we don’t have marriage equality (I’m working on it). A friend told me that a stranger approached her and her girlfriend on the train to ask, “有冇病啊?” Do you have an illness?

Yet being affectionate no matter where the place still has a place in my Disney-ridden heart of hearts. I wanted my own Gabriella-kissing-Troy-after-a-Wildcats-win moment.

I wasn’t scared of PDA when I was in straight relationships. I’ve kissed boyfriends in airport departure gates, while holding the train handrails, in the darkness of cinemas.

The only times I kissed girls in public was in my early twenties when we were heavily intoxicated in a club with a safe group of queer friends. Once, a bartender served us free shots after seeing us make out.

My relationship with Jin was a lot more sober, serious, and sophisticated. Perhaps it’s because we started dating after our drunk college days were behind us, but we were a lot more thoughtful with how we presented ourselves to the world. We were also a lot more location-conscious. We held hands in Toronto, Taipei, and Bangkok. In contrast, we didn’t even stand too close to each other in Yogyakarta.

Till we discovered a new TV show.

The Secret of Us is a Thai sapphic series that centers around a doctor and her ex-lover. We binged all eight episodes in two days, then spent the next few days watching clips of the two leading actresses marketing the series.

Thai couple shipping is so unhinged that K-pop fandom shipping comes off as vanilla in comparison. In the last few days, we scrolled through the lead actresses Ling Ling Kwong and Orm Kornnaphat posing for photoshoots with intimate poses resembling a real couple, answering questions like “What habit of the other person do you find cute?”, and even kiss. They also somehow are on an Asia tour to host fan meetings as a couple.

In watching their interactions, such as when Orm presses her face against Ling Ling’s, Jin would look at me and say, “Hey, that’s what you do!”. Or when Ling Ling said her mission in Hong Kong is to get Orm some bubble tea, I said that’s totally something Jin would do.

Seeing LingOrm (their couple name) be affectionate and get celebrated for it was something that took me days to wrap my head around. I had never seen a same-sex relationship be so welcomed by the public. My experience was the opposite. When news about my sexuality came out just two years ago, it became gossip fodder among classmates and teachers from my very Indonesian, very Catholic school. A history teacher texted my mom, “Ma’am, is Becky actually LGBT? It’s blowing up in the teachers’ group chat”. In the next week, I received Instagram DMs from other teachers, including a religion teacher who said she was part of the LGBT “support” group at church.

Whether or not LingOrm actually have a thing for each other (there are many fan theories), their mere existence has somehow unlocked a new possibility for couples like Jin and me. Maybe instead of being chastised in public, there is hope for us to be embraced and even celebrated for who we are.

In the week since we’ve watched the TV show, we have unconsciously become more affectionate to each other. Jin took me out for a dinner date at a one-Michelin star Indian restaurant. I wore a new A-line summer dress that made me feel dainty because I had to lift the skirt up slightly while walking down the steep steps of Wyndham Street. “I like it when you hold my arms like this,” Jin said as I clung onto her arm, just above her elbow.

There’s a new looseness that’s making our steps lighter. It feels that we’re trending towards bravery, the urge to show affection growing to be stronger than the fear of repercussions.

One day the public kiss might even be — gasp — on the lips! Onlookers be damned.

Thank you to the onlookers who helped edit this essay:

Kuriakin Zeng

,

clare chai

, and

Charlie Bleecker

.

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Update log:

• 📖 Reading Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg (23% completed).

• 🎨 I am joining

  Erin Nolan
  ’s Expressive Journaling course. I'm excited to play in my new shiny B5 journal.

• 📽️ Experimenting with a video update, sharing what's going on with my life this month.

• 🛏️ I slept for 10 hours last night, falling asleep at 8:30PM. It felt so good.

• 🪫 I was on 20% energy for the last week. These periods happen, especially when life gets busy with work and all my other projects. I’ve learned to stop fighting it and instead just lean into what my body needs a bit more.

• 🏋️‍♀️ It’s the last week of loading up for Hyrox. From next week onwards, I’ll be making my loads lighter, just trying to get in shape for the competition.

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