Dear SereneWolf,

Times like this I’d like to remember myself Buddha’s quote – Nothing is permanent in this world, not even our troubles.

I like the quote, but it’s apparently not something that Buddha said, but Charlie Chaplin. I hope it’s still true 🙂

You can also search Uncle Iroh philosophy. I think you’d like it

I’ve looked him up: it says he is a retired army general, and a wise mentor to his nephew. Also, that he loved playing with his son when he was little. So yes, a playful, kind general seems like a perfect candidate for a positive father figure 🙂

My mom never gets angry at me. As for my father at that time I knew even little thing could make him angry. So I was like I’ll face him or just hear his few words…

Didn’t you say earlier that your father used to yell at you for 2-3 hours in a row, even for little things like not handing him the proper tool? So it wasn’t just a few words?

Thankfully I’m not into extreme sports and I’m not being reckless like my teenage years. But I love wandering in nature and hiking. And for hiking sometimes I do push my body limits quite a lot. But even that with being mindful like when I’m 99% sure that my body is able to take this.

Good to hear you’re not into reckless things! It’s okay to push yourself sometimes a little, as long as you don’t put yourself in a high-risk situations, like climbing high mountains in winter, or climbing frozen waterfalls (an acquaintance of mine is doing just that!).

There’s just something different about pet love. I already feel like I love her more than any of my previous girlfriends

Well, it could be that you feel safer with a pet than with a girlfriend because the pet can’t judge you? I wonder how safe and comfortable you felt in your previous relationships? I mean, did you feel you can be yourself completely or you felt you needed to pretend in some way?

I’ll be taking this as experimentations and see how my emotions are reacting to all of this and then proceed if I like her “a lot.” Otherwise just move on.

You talked about the pattern that you’ve noticed in yourself: that at first you might like her “a lot”, write poems etc, and then if she reciprocates, you get cold feet, i.e. you start feeling trapped. So if this is your pattern, you might end up moving on even if you really like the girl in the beginning. What I am trying to say that if you don’t work on your fear of intimacy, you might be repeating the same pattern again and again…

In relationships I think I learned how to not get attached quickly and move on before it’s too late.

Hm.. if I understood your pattern well, you get attached very quickly (writing poems etc), but then you get afraid of your attachment (and I guess your strong feelings for the girl), and you start feeling trapped. You don’t want to feel so dependent and needy, and so you start cooling down and distancing yourself? At least that’s how I understood you so far.