Dear Ravi:

No, I don’t think it is a good idea to message her at this point. Not yet. Some work needs to be done first. You have to get clarity about what is going on, don’t you think?

You asked in the post before las: “If I did not care for Jerry’s feelings then why would I have done my best to make up to her after it, wrote poems for her, gifts on New Year, stayed up all night to prepare her birthday gift…”

To love Jerry two things have to happen: your motivation needs to be to benefit Jerry, not to hurt her. Second thing- what you do for her needs to indeed benefit her. Let’s say you prepared the gifts motivated by something like: when I give her these gifts, she will see how loving I am to her and then she will feel bad about how she treated me and how cruel she was to me. Such motivation is not loving.

Now let’s say you prepare the gifts thinking: I hope Jerry will be so happy to receive these gifts, that she will feel loved and appreciated and will know how special she is. This is a loving motivation.

You know your motivation. But this is only half of the interaction.

Now let’s say Jerry told you before you prepared the gitst to please not send her gifts because she is afraid her father will find out she is communicating with a man (you) online, that he will punish her and she is scared. And let’s say you kind of forget she told you that and you prepare and send her the gifts. She receives them horrified. Even if her father didn’t find out about the gifts, she is alarmed: how could Ravi do this after I told him I don’t want him to send me gifts? Doesn’t he care that I could get in trouble with my father?

So in this case, your motivation was loving but on her end, the act was not received as loving, and understandably so. It is reasonable for her to expect you to remember her request and be considerate of her feelings.

Do you see my points here?

anita