Dear Lea:

His lack of dating experience, his social anxiety perhaps, these long predated meeting you and are therefore independent from whatever it is that you shared with him about your life, and with how many languages you speak, and so forth.

Here is a possibility, a wild possibility (as I have very little information about him and no information about his family): his father is aggressive, offensive, his mother sweet and gentle. He wants to be like his mother, not like his father. Wearing female clothing and putting on make up makes him feel like he is on his mother’s side, away from his father, that he is gentle like his mother, not offensive, crude and rude like his father.

Here is another possibility: his mother is domineering, aggressive, harassing his father. His father is the gentle one, in comparison, wanting to be left alone, so he (the 23 year old we are discussing) becomes like a .. substitute wife for his father, gentle, unlike his mother.

anita