Holding hands in the street

For days I've been noticing something: few people are seen holding hands in the streets of Barcelona. Perhaps it's because the heat of this season makes our hands sweat and we don't feel like it, or because, for some time now, we need to always carry our mobile phone in hand ---at any moment we have to answer a whatsapp, take a selfie or write a tweet---, we can't keep up.

But, on second thought, it may have nothing to do with the weather or technology, this not holding hands in the street, but rather that it is a distinctive feature of our way of being as a people. That is, that Catalans are colder and more distant than citizens from other latitudes, more given to physical contact ---I think, for example, of India where it is very common to see pairs of friends walking fraternally holding hands---. I myself am rather surly and shy away from great effusions.

But why do we hold hands when we walk down the street? I imagine for various reasons that depend on the type of person and the nature of the bond shared. It occurs to me that the most obvious is to protect the vulnerable. I think, obviously, of children: "Miguel, give me your hand to cross the street", "Ester, don't let go of my hand, there are a lot of people and you could get lost". Holding children's hands is also a way of keeping them under control ---"I told you not to run, please come here and give me your hand!"--- for this reason, when they grow up and need to assert their independence, they refuse to hold their parents' hands, as if doing so could give them a shock. Generally, parents and children do not hold hands again when they walk down the street until the former become old and, therefore, vulnerable.

And in the specific case of couples? I believe that this act of holding hands in the street has to do with affection, obviously, but also with the desire to proudly show themselves as a couple in the eyes of everyone. Of not wanting to circumscribe the love that two people profess to each other to the domestic or private sphere, as if it were something clandestine, as couples are condemned to do in societies with very closed morals, particularly Islamic ones, where displays of affection in public are not only frowned upon, but are persecuted and severely punished.

Let's not kid ourselves, the day has not yet come when a couple of men or women can walk down the street hand in hand with the same tranquility as heterosexual couples

I myself realize that the few times I walk through the city streets hand in hand with my partner, I don't do it carelessly, but rather I always remain alert. It's an instinctive matter, I suppose because I don't feel completely safe. I often cross paths with other gay or lesbian couples and I notice that they hold hands very tightly and I think they do it to give each other strength against the stares and comments they might receive. When it comes to very young couples of boys or girls, I feel an urgent need to protect them. To protect them from what or from whom?, you might think. Well, from all those bad people who are still on the streets of our cities and towns willing to harm us.

I have thought a lot about this these days, following the murder of Samuel Luiz in A Coruña and the trickle of homophobic attacks that we have also experienced in Catalonia. If we don't hold hands on the street, let it be because it's hot, because we always want to have our phone at hand, or because we don't like it, but not because we are afraid.