Dear Adelaide1:

You are welcome and thank you for making the world a better place for the last 10 years! My hat is off to you and I am smiling again (for the first time today), feeling again thrilled to be communicating with you !!!

You wrote: “I know how to be outwardly assertive in this regard and yet inwardly lack confidence. Do you have any thoughts as to why this is?”- regarding being outwardly assertive, I imagined earlier that you are outwardly assertive in the work context, and I can see, in my mind’s eye, that you are outwardly assertive in the activism context. In the two relationships you shared about and in your communication with members on the other two threads, you were too accommodating at times, not asking much for yourself and willing to communicate with others on their terms, when they wanted, when they had the time for you, generously offering your offline friendship, generously offering your hospitality (This is one reason why I felt affection for you before I ever thought you and I will communicate). And I was saddened that one offer was rejected and for the other, there was no expressed appreciation, if I remember correctly.

You are a gracious woman, generous, lovely.. but not aware of these things about yourself. I can see these things about you. But you don’t, not yet, seems to me. And this is why you lack confidence: you don’t see what I see. (I am not surprised though: I felt worthless for most of my life.. and it seems like no one noticed that I was worthy, or hardly anyone did, or if anyone did, no one went out of their way to let me know).

Regarding the recent woman in your life, who wants “this, that and the other one”- that’s what I thought. I can’t think of any other reason why she was so fast with you. Here is another thought that occurred to me earlier and reoccurred to me just now: maybe you tend to think of people in the context of intimate relationships as better people than they really are. For example, this last woman, you figured that “after being with me she realised she was not willing to have a deep connection with me and decided to run away.. as intimacy starts to build, moving onto another”- what if she didn’t want a deep connection to begin with, what if the only intimacy she anticipated during the isodates, and the only intimacy she went for during the physical date was.. a physical intimacy?

If you indeed see people in your intimate relationships as better or more sincere than they really are, this can be another reason why you are not outwardly assertive with them.

Regarding wanting to suggest to her that you would be open to hooking up occasionally, as a way to make up for not having explored your sexuality when you were younger, and having something on your.. sex resume, kind of, this is what I think: there is no way to make up for lost time and lost opportunities. I figure that what you want now is to experience sex and love, both, and I wish it does happen for you. Question is, how do you make it happen: both, sex and an intimate, deep emotional connection, both.

You wrote post before last: “I have had enough of settling for scraps”, scraps here would be just sex, the real deal would be sex and that deep connection that means so much to you!

anita