September Surrender: Day Twenty Eight
My skin-picking tendencies won’t seem to ever go away, perhaps because they’ve been there from the start. I remember watching my mom use her long fingernails to squeeze at a spot underneath my dad’s right eye. They’d do this ritual every so often because “it kept filling back up.” I only learned later my father let my mother do this because she had that same itch for squeezing that I do.
It’s a thing. Couples talk about squeezing each others‘ whatevers all the time. One could like it and one could not, or they’re both popping fiends. My mom liked it more than my dad, but he loved her too much to deny her a fix. This is kind of how it is between me and my boyfriend. I’m the picker. He finds it gross. I’m the one who watches pimple popping videos on YouTube. I even paused writing this entry to go watch a couple before resuming. It’s a compulsion at this point and I’m just going to roll with it, even if that means I’m pressing my boyfriend to play along with it.
Last time he was in the city, we were out grabbing our usual pints when I saw it. The world’s most perfect blackhead sitting there on the side of his nose, waiting for me to push it out. When I made a lunge for it, he told me no and tried picking at it himself. I told him he wasn’t going to get it out that way and to please just let me squeeze it for him. He said he’d think about it when we got back to the house. But I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I had such a need to ‘help’ him and ‘purify’ the small skin imperfection, and a part of me knew I wasn’t going to stop until it was out.
Later that night he sat on the couch and with a heavy sigh said I could pick at the blackhead. I squealed in delight and sat right next to him, quickly realizing I did not have the resources to do it by hand. “Let me get my tools,” I said, which certainly gave him second thoughts, but with one push of my extractor tool, I got it out with just one sharp wince from him. It was better than I could have ever expected, to which he asked if I was happy now. And yes, yes I was. I satisfied the need, with permission, and now he could have a cleansed rest of the evening thanks to me. Though I wonder if I traumatized him enough to never let me do that again, or maybe up his already substantiative skincare routine to keep me and my extractor tools away.
He indulges me on this in other ways, too. He’s let me put pore strips on his nose or eye patches under his eyes. This skin-picking stuff is just one more of my little world doors I’m happy to open for him, even if it gives him the icks. It weirds me out too, wondering why it is I’m so obsessed with popping and squeezing. Either way, I’m glad I have a partner who takes part in in these little couple-y things, which give me a true look at how two people compromise, even on life’s littlest blemishes. Very happy to be a part of the team and will definitely disinfect my tools next time. If there actually is one.
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