Dear Matthew:

No, I prefer to not ask you questions at this point, for now. I didn’t ask you questions in my most recent post to you, but I am okay if you.. answer questions I don’t ask.

You asked me: “How do you see me? What can you conclude so far after all we talked about?”- you are very polite, very gracious. I think that you have pride in this regard: coming from a good family, a respectable family, and this pride shows in you communicating with me politely and graciously.

I think that you think very badly of people that you don’t know (and it may be an attitude that was expressed to you by your family), and that you carry a lot of hostility toward those people, particularly the people who you say spend all their time on the streets (I wonder if they are of  a different ethnic group than yours, or if they are merely a lower socio-economic group of people to yours).

In other words, I noticed a prejudice against a group  of people that is not based on knowing individuals in that group.

I noticed that you are intelligent as well as polite and graceful, and that unfortunately you think very little of yourself, outside perhaps the .. family pride, of being superior to other people. I think that you are very loyal to your family, perhaps because your only source of self esteem is that alleged familial/ group superiority over those other people.

That’s what comes to my mind this afternoon, my time.

You shared about your sexual experience following the religious input you received, that you felt “guilt, shame and strong regret” after masturbating, but you understand better and now, you sometimes still feel “guilt, shame and regret”, but not because you consider masturbation a sin, but because you feel that you “don’t deserve to have that pleasure”, and at other times, you feel guilt, shame and regret because you don’t have a girlfriend.

I wonder if the guilt, shame and regret following you believing that you don’t deserve pleasure/ because you don’t have a girlfriend-  is a a better kind of guilt, shame and regret of the religious kind.

anita