My last wrestling match was just over a month ago. It was a good one—the two pictures that made up my last entry are from that event. Whenever I have a fulfilling tussle like that, I’m okay to return home, where I don’t get to wrestle, with my wrestling desires satiated.

But then, after awhile, I can feel the need to hit the mat with another fellow and wrestle as long and hard as we can. Even though it’s been only a few weeks since my last match, I’m feeling the need again. Because I have no ready opportunity to wrestle where I live, I’ll have to wait until somebody passes through—which almost never happens—or until I travel somewhere. In the meantime, I know I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about wrestling.

And so it was last night.

I drove from my town to a nearby town to work on a project with a couple of friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. They are husband and wife, and I have at various times had a crush on both of them. As I traveled an easy four-lane, I let my mind wander and wonder. I thought of friends that I have here at home, some that I see regularly and some not so regularly. I thought in particular of those male friends that I love and would love to hit the wrestling mat with. But that’s more easily fantasized than done. And I wondered if that desire of mine manifests itself as a barrier in our friendship. Do these friends sense a level of reserve in me—or even suspect, at some level , my desires—that keeps us from fully enjoying one another?

As I drove, I thought back to the day before and the late afternoon telephone call I received from one of my great wrestling friends. This man knows about my wrestling desires. He shares them. To a great extent, he understands. If he lived closer to me or I to him—in my experience, never the case that I’ve lived close to a wrestler I really connected with—would we share a friendship richer and more rewarding than I now experience with the good friends around me? Or would that friendship be too rich and rewarding, so much so that it would threaten the life I’ve constructed?

I suppose that between myself and this wrestling friend, who is gay, I also construct barriers. My reserve in his presence—and in the presence of others like him—is different. While I’m afraid to let my friends at home know about my wrestling because I fear their thinking me a freak of some sort, I’m afraid to be completely comfortable with my wrestling friends because I fear I might act on sexual tensions that our wrestling passion can so easily generate.

I see no way of being truly at ease in any company. And so I suppose the best thing is to enjoy my friends—non-wrestlers and wrestlers alike—to the fullest extent that I can.