Dear Ryan:

You are welcome. I suppose a bigger city will afford you more socializing opportunities. It so happens that I lived in a huge city for most of my adult life and yet I was lonely there much of the time. On the other hand, living in a small town, I experienced a more pleasurable and active social life than in that big city. I think that it has to do with that self-esteem you mentioned: feeling of equal value to others makes a huge difference when it comes to socializing.

I can see that staying in the small town where you live because she, your coworker and previous love-interest, lives there- that would be silly, as there is no reasonable hope for a love relationship. Plus, she is too young for you. I can see you, in my mind’s eye,  with a woman in her mid to later thirties, maybe in her early forties.

Regarding the “lot of work to continue to do” so to form and maintain an intimate, long-term relationship: my experience communicating with you over time, is that you experienced a very lonely childhood, a life of social isolation at home. Alone, you closed in, shut down much of your motivation to connect with others and didn’t therefore develop the social skills required to form and maintain an intimate relationship. You made significant progress in this regard in your psychotherapy and in your interactions with your co-worker.

In the future, when you meet your next love-interest, be mindful of the following: (1) your over-reaction to any perceived rejection: some of what you perceive as rejection may be the person having a bad day, or being preoccupied with some worry, and not a rejection of you. Plus, in an intimate relationship two people are not close all the time. Sometimes a person needs alone-time. In the quest for alone-time there is a temporary rejection, but it is only temporary, and is not a rejection of you or the relationship, (2) you will need to feel neither inferior nor superior to the woman. A healthy self-esteem is about feeling of equal value to another and acting accordingly. When you notice faults in the woman, remember that you have faults too, and see if the two  of you can base a win-win relationship on your respective strengths and common values and goals.

anita