Sounds like you kept it light and casual. Depending on how it was going, I might have half-joked "It's ecological!" Joe Flanigan from Stargate: Atlantis defended his handkerchief use that way at a sci-fi convention, when his co-star David Hewlett pretended to be freaking out about it.

Also.. I'm not sure if you're interested in meeting anyone on here, but I'm a lesbian of almost the same age as you... just wanted to throw that out there because you seem cool and I'd love to make some friends who share the fetish lol  

Glad you are feeling better, Will, but it was exciting to read about while it lasted. 🙂 And that was quite remarkable, that a male co-worker lent you his handkerchief. I think that's pretty rare these days.

I have read this from fetishists over and over again!!! It fascinates me, and I also relate to an extent. I am somewhat afraid of germs in real life. However, this also sort of translates into my fetish in that I am very into non-contagious allergic sneezing and somewhat less into contagious common cold sneezing. So after reading your post, I decided to do a little look on the good ole internet to see what came up. A major dude who's name kept popping up was Jacques Lacan. He was a psycho-analyst who came after Freud. Psycho-analytic theories are super heady and a little too much for me to be able to reliably understand, but let's give it a go. Most of the stuff I'm finding is behind paywalls, but the preview-able abstract for one master thesis on the topic is somewhat comprehensible. The title of the essay is "A discussion of the relationship of the phobic object and perversion" - the paper's summary: "The object of this thesis is to re-affirm Lacan's thesis that the phobia and the fetish share an intimate and inextricable relationship; the idea that the phobia's genesis can be posited to the pleasurable object, in the fetishistic object, if you like and vise-versa. The case histories that will be explored further on demonstrate the relationship of the object of repulsion or fear, the phobia and the object of attraction, and if you like, the object of love, the fetish. Indeed, one such case history reveals how the subject in question oscillates between these two objects in a most precarious manner." Can't find much but snobby academic essays which may as well not be in English and cost money to read, so nothing much out there for us commoners lol.. but I guess what this mostly tells us is that some researchers have taken seriously the idea of a connection between fear and fetish!

Large handkerchiefs (18-21 inches), usually pure white or white with colored borders. Though I've used some a pack of light blue, light gray, and light brown handkerchiefs lately that are very soft.