Indeed, he seems to be very concerned with social status/wealth/education. For instance i remember him asking if i used to go to thrift shops, if i had to work in order to get what i’d like to. I’m only child and i don’t come from the “working-class” that’s a fact i’ve never really had to put many efforts to get what i want. Moreover, in my hometown, thrift shops don’t exist therefore i’m not use to go to those kind of places. But, did i really have to justify those points? Once again, he was the one who always brought those topics, i told him, i didn’t and i still don’t care about that. And what’s the point anyway? Someone with a bit of privileges isn’t instantly an abomination and not a bad person, i mean, it’s all about balances right? Why did i have to justify those aspects of my life? Because we are both from the same social class..

Your thinkings have some good points: “His family life was stressful, there was tension in the air, the more he interacts with his family members, the higher his distress level, so he turns inward,  withdraws from the outside, becomes introverted- less stress that way.” => Apparently his mother’s family is kinda in conflict with him (still due to his appearance) as well. Moreover there are some internal conflicts (i don’t really know the purposes, he didn’t talk about them and i didn’t want to ask him too much questions) between his mother’s family and his mother.

“He meets you, feels connected, has a date with you, sex, then he turns inward/withdraws (its his habit by now). Let’s be friends, he tells you, and reaches out to you to talk, a lot. You suggest to give a relationship a try, he agrees, then he turns inward- it’s his habit, since early childhood.” => Yes, i tend to agree with that as well. However i would blame more his anxiety/introversion rather than a fear of reproducing the same scheme than the one he knows from his family.

“He witnessed a bad marriage between his parents, lots of stress in the home.His mother is the strict, aggressive parent, his father- the cool parent. His empathy is with his father, so he tries to be for his father what his mother was not: gentle, feminine. He doesn’t want to ever be stuck with a woman, like his father and himself have been stuck with his strict, aggressive, unpleasant mother. He gets scared if a girl wants a second date with him, gets scared that a girl/ young woman will want to marry him.” => Lots of stress at home that’s true but, i don’t think his mother is that “aggressive”, strict yes for sure. Because they are really close him and his mother. I was thinking that maybe she overprotected him actually, she is certainly very bossy and she seemed to have taken decisions for him many times regardless if he whether he was ok or no with that. (e.g him being pushed into a business school while he never wanted to work in this area). He talked a lot about his mother, she was his reference, more than his father actually.

I would say he wants to be with someone, to find his “only one” yet he’s scared, he feels unworthy of being loved due to his issues, not only the family ones but also his mental ones. I could sens he badly wanted to be “on the same level”. Also, i remember asking him if he wanted that i teach him something on piano, he said no but i learned afterward that he accepted that someone else taught him the same thing i proposed to teach..

“– you talked so much, “about everything”,  and yet he is very much a mystery to you. What is that “everything” that you talked about?” => We talked about our common readings, musical tastes, our personnal issues, a lot about feminism, constructivism, gender issues etc. We could jump from a serious topics to a very light and breezy one without any disturbance