despite contrary beliefs in regards to what makes men and women happy i recently read a study showing that cuddling is actually, more often than not, more important and joy-filling to men than it is to women. being as i am, a lover of cuddling amongst a vast sea of guys who either hate it or hate to admit that they love it, immediately let out a giant sigh of relief after reading such great news. alas, i am not alone.

growing up, starting around this 6th grade, i began to notice the several variations in male body types that were beginning to emerge in, what i believe to be, the weirdest time of life — middle school.

some bodies were growing to be large. (not sure what they were eating now that i think about it; last time i checked we all were all being fed the exact same thing for lunch every single day. possibly one hell of a dinner..i don’t know), anyways, maybe they were doing it on purpose. maybe they were doing it so they could grow to play offensive line on the high school/college footballl team. i mean, the offensive line is in charge of blocking. large body, blocking, it makes sense. regardless, their bodies were being conditioned in a way that enabled them to do things that others could not.

some on the other hand were growing to be tall and fit. tall and fit can lead to an enormous palette of opportunity.. basketball, tennis, baseball, track, the options for these people are truly pretty endless. i never once felt an ounce of sorrow for people whose body evolved into this particular variation. i mean, in middle school and high school sports were everything. (boy, how wrong we were about that one) but, in the end, their bodies were being conditioned and growing to excel in the realm of physical activity.

then there were even some bodies in which i couldn’t help but notice the only thing growing were their muscles. “how does that even happen?” i remember asking myself. it wasn’t until years later that i began even hearing of things such as “muscle juice.” anyways, these people, as you might have guessed, grew up to be the wrestlers. they often walked around with their arms several inches away from their torso. they had hot girlfriends. they had ‘middle school class rings.’ they had chests that resembled the chests of the females in which we were surrounded by; mediocre in size, yet awkwardly being thwarted up and out in hopes of appearing bigger than they truly were. nonetheless, these bodies were being conditioned and pumped up with things that led to a high school career of wrestling. side note; they also, often referred to each other as ‘brothers,’ unrelated, i know. just saying.

lastly, among many other variation in which i won’t touch on, there are some bodies that didn’t really grow much at all. sure, their arms got longer, their legs got longer, their torso got longer. minor evolutionary changes but nothing over the top. just enough to get by and still fit in height-wise with the rest of the group. their bodies weren’t hard, they weren’t awkwardly long, they weren’t conditioned for anything really. they were just, kinda, there.

this is where i come in, and where i come to the conclusion that my body, my soft, average sized body, was perfect for one thing and, as far as i’m concerned, one thing only: cuddling.

sure it was maybe a little underweight, but that didn’t seem to matter. it was soft, it was average in length, it wasn’t too large to wrap around, it didn’t smell of locker, it generated an above-average amount of body heat (girls love that around this time), and best of all, the most natural sleeping position for me is on my right side with my left arm by my chest and my right arm unabashedly peering over the top of my head. literally a natural big spoon; a natural sleeping position in which leads itself to wrapping around the body of another.

finally, my body was made for something.

my body was made for this, and so was i.

i love cuddling. 

i love everything about cuddling.

i love that it could mean something so intimate between two lovers; i love that, on the other hand, it could mean something so platonic. 

cuddling in my opinion is open to be whatever you want it to be.

and all i want it to be is all the time.