Dear Murtaza:

“I remember the first time I actually thought I loved her, not at the beginning of our talks, but lately, I just woke up I remember, and I said ‘I want to marry Sara’. It just came to me, and I was ready to work.. I wanted to buy a motorcycle since its essential for work in Iraq”-

– It was a beautiful sentiment, to feel love for her and to want to marry her. It’s a good thing that we get a chance to reconsider our sentiments and make choices considering the bigger picture. The bigger picture includes your values and her “no response”: no response to your expressed emotions for her and to your expressed impulse to marry her (?)

You reacted to my sentence: “love and anxiety/ pain go together, hand in hand”, this way: “I’m glad that you shared this with me, this is true for me too, whenever I think about her, I feel anxious, my stomach/chest hurts, it actually been this way for a long time, whenever I actually love someone, but lately, it’s been clear, when I love her, and know that I can’t do anything for her, it hurts, I actually stopped talking to her out of the idea that I might bother her, and if not talking to me means less suffering so be it, I don’t care”-

– it hurts to love someone and see her suffer, not being able to help her. It  hurts when my/ your love has no power at all. I remember loving my mother so much, so intensely for so long.. and yet, it made no positive difference to her. According to her behavior- it looked like the only difference I made in her life was negative.

I wrote to you: “it is safe to love a painting. It is often dangerous to love a person”. Your reply: “I think that its because I believe that females won’t love me, in this scenario, its a one sided love”-

– I’ve been thinking for some time now about what is true for many children: their love for their parents being a one sided love, a love that’s not returned. It breaks a child’s heart when that happens. Fast forward, it breaks the adult’s heart when love is not returned by a romantic interest.

I wrote to you: “but neither one of us knows how it feels to love and/or be loved on an ongoing basis, without fear and pain being in charge, do we?”, and you responded: “And we will never will, it’s the price for living that we must pay, everyday, though I like that I have something similar with you”-

– I agree: I don’t expect my anxiety to ever disappear or to lessen drastically. I don’t expect a life of mostly calm. But my life now, on an ongoing basis, is and feels better than it used to be. Giving up on hope that life will get better, as you have done when typing the sentence above (“never will”)- is a good thing when indeed, there is no hope. Hope in a hopeless situation fuels misery.

“I value a love that comes from understanding and connection, one that doesn’t need external things in order to be met. If money is a requirement for love, then it doesn’t matter to me, since I won’t be loved for myself, but for the money I have”-

– I agree. I suppose we should have money not so to purchase love, but so to purchase food and electricity to keep the air conditioning going!

“I like myself right now, I don’t see any problem in it, and I don’t understand the need to change in order to be loved.. especially when I’m expecting unconditional love”-  makes sense, glad that you like yourself (at least when you wrote what I quotes here)!

“The last time I tried the girl said ‘not worth it’, just because I was vulnerable, ‘you are even more girly then girls themselves’, and this was a person who could speak English, and bit educated, thats why I approached her”-

– that she figured it’s not worth it for her is fair, just as you figure changing yourself so to be conditionally loved is not worth it for you. That she criticized you for being girly, that’s nothing but rude.

“she told me something ‘that’s the difference between us, I work to satisfy my goal… You will never understand how to be emotionless’, her words”- I think that you wrote earlier that she told you that she doesn’t want to love, that she just wants to live. And you mentioned that she suffers a lot (if it is the same woman)- what does she suffer from, and is she having a difficulty staying alive (?)

“This is what happens when I speak to a norime, I had so much guilt, I was suicidal, and out of self loathing and hating my life, I wanted to work, to disrespect everything that I stand for, the ultimate betrayal, to go against everything I value and like, just to fit in, and have the basic needs, maybe, then I won’t need people like her, I will buy a wife (yes, actually in Iraq it does work like that) but it wouldn’t mean anything with this mind”- better not talk to normies then. I imagine you putting together a Normie Questionnaire (NQ), selecting candidates for communication with you based on their answers to the NQ. Maybe I will be willing to answer your NQ myself, lol.

* The above rare lol is my first lol in my communication with you!

anita