Dear xenopustex:

A few thoughts regarding your latest post:

You wrote: ” I don’t think of ‘dating’ as seeing how fast one can hookup..” I don’t think you should change your conservative views of dating and life. You also wrote: “If I like something, I say so and if I don’t, I say so.” I don’t think you should change this kind of bluntness, that is being honest, direct, clear.

You wrote: “I tend to be a blunt instrument…when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This tells me that you are angry and have been angry for a long time, probably since the time you were a child observing those family dynamics you mentioned.

There is a person holding the hammer. Not all of you is a hammer. If you attend therapy, you will remove your focus from the hammer, back to the hand holding it, the arm, the heart and mind. You will find your empathy, your softness. You will find the young boy that you were, reaching out to be loved.

I believe it is time for you to attend psychotherapy with a competent therapist, one that you will interview at length to see if he/she shares your values. You have to trust him first before work can be done.

You wrote: “There is the somewhat cynical school of thought on people changing beliefs only when the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of changing.” I agree with the statement. Is the pain of not changing, for you, exceeds the pain of changing?

If and when you attend good psychotherapy (and again, for you, it will have to be a psychotherapist willing to go through your tough interviewing process), then there will be pain on your part. You wrote: “I developed a reputation for being a tough, hard-nosed prosecutor..” Thing is, is this tough prosecutor willing to cry like a little boy in front of a trustworthy therapist? Is this tough prosecutor holding a hammer, willing to let go of that hammer and feel the hurt?

You like bluntness, well here is mine: your lack of dating, of a love life, is not about those other things, it is about the little boy in you, hurt and scared.

Please do post anytime.

anita

(* And Thank You Evan).