Which is More Effective, Nifedipine or a Gentleman Friend?

I have Raynaud’s Disease, which is fancy way of saying that my fingers and toes go numb when it gets cold outside. You’re probably thinking, “Okay, so what?” Fun Fact #1: I’m from Arizona. Not the North Pole. By normal person standards, it should never be cold enough for an Arizonan to lose all feeling in her hands and feet, but this is exactly what happens to me and it’s actually quite painful.

WTF does this have to do with the picture? Read to the end and I’ll tell you. Or skip to the end. It’s not like I’ll know.

Fun Fact #2: My disease is exploitable. There is only one drug to treat Raynaud’s, and it’s called nifedipine. Yet I’ve never bothered to get a prescription, because the alternative “cure” is so much better. Time and time again, I’ve been out with a guy, and when he eventually notices my hands are yellow or blue (depending on just how subzero my body thinks it is), he feels the need to warm my hands with his own. Does it work? No. Gloves don't even help much. But his over-concern almost always leads to hand holding, and who doesn’t like hand holding?

Have you ever considered that hand holding might mean something different to men and women, though? One thing I’ve noticed in college is that hook ups NEVER show affection in public places. That stays in the bedroom. But why? In my mind, here’s how I think of things:

Notice how kissing and sex (and everything leading from Point A to Point B) fits into the center portion, but how hand holding is strictly Left Circle. What makes hand holding so much more intimate than sharing a bed?

I asked a few of my guy friends for their opinions about hand holding.

“Holding hands? It may seem like a harmless display of affection, but I think it gives girls the wrong idea. You can never hold a girl’s hand without her reading into it. Unless you want to make both of you confused, don’t do it.”

“Holding hands is kind of like saying, ‘Hey, this one’s mine. Go get your own.’ So I’m not gonna hold hands with a girl unless I know I want to be exclusive with her.”

“When I hold my girl's hand it’s to let her know that I feel close to her, and that I feel comfortable expressing it physically without being sexual. It’s my way of saying, ‘I have you. I’m holding you. You cannot leave me right now.’”

“Holding hands is how I protect her from physical harm, like if we’re crossing the street, and it’s my reassurance she has feelings for me, too. It shows I’ve invested a lot emotionally in a girl, and that I don’t want to lose her.”

Fun Fact #3: Hand holding is a pretty big deal. A much bigger deal than sleeping together. Hand holding represents commitment. It’s basically a public declaration that you’re taken. So if hooking up is what is best for your situation right now, that’s why he’s not holding your hand. It doesn’t belong in the Right Circle. That circle is for things like having fun, and having someone to spend the weekends with but not the weekly emotional roller coasters rides.

Now before you tell me to get off my high horse, and before you say, “I hold hands with my friend who’s a guy all the time and it doesn’t mean anything!” let me clarify. The hand holding I’m talking about isn’t of the friendly, hand-cupping, arm-swinging variety. I’m talking about the finger-lacing kind. The kind which sometimes ends with a joint knot of ten fingers in her jacket pocket.

So regardless of whether you have the Raynaud excuse, and regardless of whether you need to take some Nifedipine, I think it’s safe to consider hand holding a dividing line between hook ups and relationships. Because, clearly, it means a lot if a guy wants to cross into Left Circle territory. Left Circle guys don’t give your hand back once your fingers are no longer blue.

Anyway, as promised, here’s the mystery object. For all of the Raynaud-afflicted ladies in relationships out there.