Dear Anita and TeaK,

Thank you again for both replying. It brings me some comfort to have a place to speak for freely.

Yes, I did accept the tentative offer and do plan to move away from here someone soon once I receive a formal offer. There is some apprehension about taking another job that is now—and has the potential to always be—100% telework, as I feel that I’d miss the direct human interaction. However, this is something I have not had in the past year, and a larger city (a real city!) could permit that if I can work from anywhere.

That makes sense of what you’ve written about hypnotherapy, Anita. This would explain the other counselor’s aversion to it. My primary counselor utilizes CBT therapy, while the other—the one who offered hypnotherapy— who I saw infrequently, used a type of DBT, which I preferred. Nearly all my experience in therapy has been CBT-based, which was comforting in a sense, but I felt that it did not (or no longer) drill down deep enough as may be necessary for me.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what you’ve written, Anita and TeaK, and I would say that you’re right: I do have a strong fear of rejection. Barring a few kisses and some G-rated holding and touching, my coworker’s words and actions always indicated that we were to be casual friends. Even when I would pay her a compliment about something as benign as her cooking or her hair, it was typically rebuffed or ignored. As I’ve written and you both have identified, she rarely, if ever, “let her walls down” so I could see her “whole self.” She was always careful to never allow me to know more than she was comfortable with.

I approached this relationship by envisioning her as someone she is not. When I saw her briefly a year ago, I painted an incomplete picture of her. I saw an attractive, professional woman with a confident stride. It was until November when we met that I discovered she was intelligent and driven as well. I allowed my isolation and loneliness of 2020 to override logic I suppose. Logic being not to get too emotionally involved with a coworker. I did try to convince myself that her flaws/vices would make a tangible involvement more difficult, but I cherished the feeling of dressing up and. enjoying dinners with someone fun and intelligent.

I suppose part of my irritation is because of the rejection that it wasn’t…more blatant. Maybe it felt good for her to touch someone again for a time until it became too much and she needed to shut it down? Maybe she was trying to not hurt me by being more direct? Obviously, I got the hint after the crude message about her “cute maintenance man” a week and a half ago. With that cavalier message, I knew for certain then that she would never see me as anything greater than a casual friend.

I’ve worked to make peace with the inconsequential nature of our relationship. Oddly, she has not acknowledged that I no longer really text or contact her, but perhaps her ambivalence was something I hadn’t noticed. I’ve written how it occurred to me that she hasn’t asked me out for dinner, or offered to have me over, since we returned from the cabin. I was too caught up in trying to hold onto something that was never there to realize these deeds were not reciprocated. She may be lonely and looking for a companion—or at least company—but that simply was never going to be me (or is no longer me).

I only have myself to fault. She was upfront from the beginning about this relationship, and while the lines may have blurred for a moment, there would be nothing substantial that would come of it. While early on I had hoped for a romantic relationship, it did morph into the desire to be a special person in her life, who could be a stable rock for her. Perhaps it was my personality, something she saw (or did not see) in me, or even her past traumas that didn’t allow me in. I do not know and may never know.

I will continue to practice vulnerability and try to bring people into my life where I don’t feel the need to be a savior. I also need to work on my self-worth after working much of the past 10-years on my self-esteem. While I feel that I have accomplished much in my life—serving in the military, an MBA, having a good relationship with my daughter, and having what one could a “comfortable life”—there remain the issues that have led me to be twice-divorced, where I have yet to have an intimate, long-term relationship, in my 45-years of life.

I certainly have a lot of work to continue to do.

Thank you,

Ryan