Dear Murtaza:

Before responding to your yesterday’s post I want to share something with you, as I noticed it today in greater depth. In my personal irl I avoid deep, emotional conversations, or I avoid interacting with the very few people that I feel strong emotions for, or against. I like the taproom because the emotions are not strong- for or against the people there. Even when I do feel strong affection for this or that individual (and I do), I know that it is time-limited: I visit the taproom, I don’t live there, and the interactions with different individuals is in groups, not a one-to-one setting.

Otherwise, in one-to-one, I often feel uncomfortable, and I crave to be alone. On the forums on this website, I feel fine interacting with people and sometimes I share something personal, but that is aimed at (trying to) help someone else. But with you, I formed a special connection, a Mary-and-Max kind of a connection. So what happens, is that every day I postpone reading from you and replying to you until I answer everyone else and you are the only one I didn’t reply to. Today I even studied other threads, not intending to post on them- before writing to  you. I think that I am like Max in the movie- emotions make me anxious, relationships alarm me. I prefer to avoid them, and I do. There is a person I care so much about, in another country, and yet, I don’t call, I procrastinate for weeks at a time. Then when I am on the phone, feeling strongly for the person, I wait for the conversation to end, feeling relief when it is over.  What I shared right here, I do not like.. I did not enjoy sharing, I hate having shared it. But I shared it with you. Maybe you can help me with this. (I never brought this up with anyone, this is the first time, online or irl).

As to your yesterday’s post: “I think that if I was ever with a person like you and we had a relationship, it would be a very good one, I can’t think of a better one“- as is, a person like me needs a lot of alone-time and can’t take too much together time, prefers groups of people to one-to-one. Would that be something you would have wanted.. with someone (much younger) like me?

“I’m imagining you getting angry at me, expressing it, it looks cute, its funny too, I don’t know why (no offense)“- that made me feel so nice when I read it yesterday (feeling nice just now, I realize how unfeeling I was when typing the above). To be seen as cute for being angry is precious. My mother did not see my anger as cute- she reacted very badly to my anger, anger that was expressed on my face.

“As I read this, your image in my head look so beautiful, so beautiful that it makes me a bit sad that we are so far away“- only yesterday I imagined you for the first time in a way.. you looked so real, in my imagination, more real than before, made me think of you as an almost here-and-now person.

“This is what happened to me with love, I had so much expectation for it, so much unrealistic thinking about it, it was quite a shock to know the truth, the ugly truth  call it, its ugly not because this is how it is, but because I thought that it was more beautiful then it actually is“- I thought of asking you before, but didn’t, and if you choose to answer, better not with much detail: what is your experience with women, physically- if any (and the “ugly truth” you are referring to, is it in regard to love online or irl)?

“My bad, by immortal I meant she will always remember him..”- no, my bad, I am too literate, too invested in concrete language.

I wrote: “One true togetherness makes future togetherness possible because you already have that experience. You can believe something to happen again because it already happened”, and you wrote: “I’m afraid I didn’t understand that, I’m not that smart after all lol“- you are definitely smart and there’s no lol about it! What I meant was that if you, Murtaza, had one love relationship with one woman irl (and the relationship ended), then you would have been more likely to believe that it can happen again, with another woman.

“I want to do the same, I want to tell you what I felt reading your post, I felt love for you, guilt for not doing what I can to go where you live and be around you, sadness, frustration, my thoughts is ‘I wish..’..”- if I was your age, if time went backward and we were both as young as you are, I would have run to you.

anita