A friend sent me a poem and there were some interesting parts in it that I wanted to share my thoughts with them about. They said "I would be honoured". I replied, "No need to suck my dick!". There then followed a period of ambiguous and possibly uncomfortable silence (not at my end).
After a while I sent them this to try and resolve things:
Just to even out any possible imbalance lingering in the remnants of the tone left... It's not that your intention was ever to fellate me with praise prose, it was more likely the case that you were simply appreciative to receive any kind of feedback or critique about your work from a friend. And so my sensitivity and heightened response did come from a valid place, but a place which seemed to have issued a voice imbued with a drop or two of venom, a substance mildly caustic in order to seal up a certain pathway forever. An act of cauterisation. A heated implement or caustic substance applied to the skin or flesh to seal it and stop further bleeding or prevent future infection. A pathway was sealed. A route forward that is an inbuilt scripted response; that of you feeling honoured that I should ever be interested enough to want to share my thoughts with you about your thoughts. But should I not be equally honoured to be gifted an encounter which compels me to want to share part of myself with someone else? And so my honouring of you was already embedded in the gesture of wanting to offer you my time in the form of my thoughts about yours. I honoured you before you, me, and so your declaration of being honoured was simply to say thank you. No problem at all. You're very welcome! X
