Dear Berta:

The couple on the escalator: you saw them only for a moment or so. You didn’t see them before or after. Maybe there was an abusive fight before, or after. Maybe there is little love.

It is similar to see a photo of a person smiling, looking happy- some people think that happiness is always there because the person always similes… in the photo, an eternal kind of smile. In reality, that person may be crying. The smile, that happiness was there for a split second, caught by camera.

If I was in your boyfriend’s place, I would feel uncomfortable with being expected to behave in a way that doesn’t come naturally to me. Sometimes I could do it, intentionally, and that would be okay, but to be expected to do it daily, that would be very difficult. I would start resenting that expectation and my efforts to please this way.

There are different expressions of affection and love. If you stop looking where you are looking, that is, on physical expressions such as you saw on the escalator, and start looking elsewhere, or if you already did, look further elsewhere and let it in, you will see his love and maybe it will calm you.

It reads to me that you need those expressions from a man so to calm your anxiety, correct?

anita