bluecastle

Just did a morning grocery run. Super creepy. Easy enough to distance, with line control and so on, but just a strange vibe. Inhale, exhale, everyone.

I am feeling....good. Unsettled, but good. Decent. Two days ago the anxiety was pretty acute, the edginess razor-sharp, while for the past 48 hours it has been more manageable. Can't put a finger on why, exactly, and I suspect many more waves of disruption and disruptive emotions on the horizon. One at a time. My girlfriend and I were talking earlier today about how this is a moment to get very, very comfortable living with three words: "I don't know." Because, alas, what other choice is there? There was no shortage of comfort in that idea, and in sharing it with someone. This is a weird moment, a scary one—with the fear, for most of us, being uncertainty, the great boogeyman to the human spirit. Always lurking, some times more aggressively than others. Adapting to uncertainty is a challenge—perhaps the greatest—though I take some comfort in recognizing it as a challenge that humans have risen to over and over and over again. Sera? I hear you on those frustrations, about where the most petty-seeming of things are still being prized and prioritized by some. Have gone down a number of those wormholes, reacting both to news stories and to ways friends are coping, or what certain friends are deeming "suffering" right now. Gets me angry, defeated-feeling, lonely and frightened. I've tried, for whatever it's worth, to remind myself that it's kind of just people looking for a toehold, best they know how. For instance, I dedicated some time yesterday to (a) looking for a good book to read and (b) figuring out where I could get (safely) a sprocket wrench so I can replace the brake lever on my motorcycle. It was nice, that time, a little respite. Pedestrian concerns, of course, like a pierced nipple. Something to grab onto when the bottom seems to be falling out.

Thinking of you, bolt, and sending all the vibes your way—eastward, I'm assuming, since I'm out here on the continent's edge in California myself.

Love is Blind! Watched that thinking that the show is kind of a gonzo distillation of so much of the severe sideways stuff we encounter on this site. Momentarily considered starting a thread about it, back in a different world. In this one? Have you seen that some people started a little internet show called Love is Quarantine? It's amusing. A few things I just want to say, following this thread: 1. Appreciate all of you. Big time. 2. Fudgie? THANK YOU. 3. Bolt? Rest, take care of yourself. I know that guilt well, and am currently in a position, with all that's going on, where my own work is simply impossible. The loss of money is real and staggering, as is the sense of being a ship without a keel, for moment. A strange feeling, but I'm trying to make a point of just adjusting to it, since the other options are just not as healthy. For me, for others. Is the cure worse than the disease? It's an interesting question, Wise. We talk a lot on this site, in a micro sense, about what stress and conflict reveals about people, about how challenging it is to sit with uncertainty. Right now we're seeing that on as macro a scale as it gets. Head-spinning, but also heart-warming. For everyone rushing to buy a gun to guard their Amazon deliveries, there are others—probably more—doing something kind, something brave, helping themselves by helping another. Nice wallpaper, reinvent.

It's an interesting question. I suspect it will strain many, while affirming another many: spikes in births, spikes in divorces on the horizon. Dating? Depending on how long this all lasts, we may start seeing the sort of screen-only courtships we admonish on this site in a different light: the rule, rather than the cautionary exception. Strange times, no doubt. Inhale, exhale. My personal micro rule is to offset the news feed by reaching out to friends and old friends just to say hi, let them know I'm thinking about them, ask a question about their lives.

Like your attitude, reinvent. And Batya's. And Jib's. I think there is a fine line—more like a fine chasm, really—between a moment like this and being someone's "keeper." It's awkward, yes, and a less-than-ideal moment. But as you've described it? Sounds like a good one. He listened, heard you, understood. He saw a place where his behavior was not only at odds with what you need for emotional security, but also, perhaps, what he needs to ensure your relationship continues to thrive. In a utopia, sure, these boundaries would always be understood, perfectly, and everything would be harmonious. But I think the world we live in, and connect in, is better than a utopia. We get to grow, and learn—and, in the best relationships, we get to learn more about ourselves by learning more about another. If such "learning lessons" or "teaching moments," particularly in this vein, were a weekly or monthly occurrence—well, ugh. But this is far from that, by the sounds of it. Sorry about it, though, and hope you're feeling better.

Sorry to hear about the health issues. My girlfriend's father had gallstone surgery yesterday afternoon—thought it could be put off a bit, but alas: it flared up. Surgery was successful. Sending all the warm, healing energy your way—not a far commute, for that energy, if I recall you and I living in the same part of the world. I know this is a tough time of year for you. Inhale, exhale—hang in there. Beautiful pic.

Love it. Reminds me of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, who famously had apartments opposite each other across Central Park. Yes, I'm aware of the heroic dysfunctions of that particular union, but the basic sketch has always appealed. There are the pieces of building something similar in my own dynamic, or our version. I have a long history of approaching conventional milestones from curious angles, as does she.

I love your attitude. I have always had an almost physical aversion to this idea of the "next step." My cynical theory is that people ask this stuff because they want to affirm their own steps, be it steps they've taken and are doubting or steps they think they "should" be building a life around and want that idea buttressed by others. It is very uncomfortable, for many, to be around people who are doing things differently than you, particularly when they don't seem to be a mess.

I love ENA for these little chats, so I hope it's okay if your personal journal detours a bit. I agree with you, 100 percent, much as it's against my nature to put things in such stark terms. That said, I think I've been looking for a business partner since I was 16 without (a) having the language for it; (b) often worrying my personal business plan is a bit too "out there" while making sense to me; and © needing to do some emotional maturing and corrosion scraping. I grew up very fast, by some measuring sticks, but missed some steps and had to circle back and shore up some pillars. I've had plenty of the hormonal fluff, have never put much stock in it, even when it produces Big Feelings. Never, ever has all that triggered my brain to go: move in! marriage! forever! It's a bit like having six beers—fun, on the right night, but not reality or a feeling to build a life around, which was always my attitude when beers were opened up, even as a teen. Getting drunk is easy, so is getting drunk on love. I'm drawn to finding ease on harder paths, and I've always had a lot of faith in myself to carry a lot of weight. Faith in others? Not as much. My relationship is new, and I'm aware that there's plenty of pheromonal juju still working its magic, and so much to discover about how we function together. But subtract all that and, like you said about S, I'd go into business with this woman without hesitation. I admire the way she conducts herself in the business of life, the vision she has for it and the way she goes about realizing it. It's very much in line with my own, almost as if we've been building similar "businesses" in tandem, despite some very big differences in our paths to this point. The biggest snag I've always had about these matters—that someone won't carry their weight—is nonexistent here. It's an advantage to meeting later in life, perhaps? Someone's personhood is, like our own, less of an abstraction. We're still in flux, of course, but time has produced something that can be taken stock of. Our values, explicitly or otherwise, have shaped us. We wear them as clothes, even if we can't always articulate them. She and I have talked about this a bit, the idea being that when we are young we naturally gravitate toward "opposites," or at least the idea that "opposites attract," because we're still filling in our own blanks and so "differences" are very compelling—a fast track to rounding us out. But those differences are often at odds with deeper compatibly—the stuff of business building. Not to say she and I are the "same," but there are loads of similarities that provide a common language, both spoken and unspoken. Or something. Just riffing along with your always insightful and provocative riffs. Brining it back to you, I'm curious to how you'll respond to Jib. I like her take on the business you're sorting out, along with your own perspective.

Perhaps something like that. Before I met her, like going back 7 years before, I began thinking long and hard about partnership. I'd been a boyfriend—good one, great one, not so great one—but I'd never been a partner. Not a great partner, not an awful partner—the word was not in my personal dictionary. This was a limitation, since partnership was in fact something I've wanted. Once I saw that—once the word appeared in the dictionary—building the foundation in myself to be a (great) partner was important to me. There were some major detours in that construction project, as happens, but I think I'd made some pretty significant progress before I knew her name or that she breathed oxygen on the same planet as I did. So I wouldn't say I'm learning from her in the sense that she is the professor and I am the student, as that's a dynamic that we'd each be able to handle for maybe a week. But, yeah, she has been a member of a "team" in so many ways: growing up, in the workforce, in a marriage. Do her lessons in that serve and enlighten me? For sure. It's wonderful, particularly in that it's not fraught. Before we said hello on our first date we were two people interested in being teammates, though in a context where we did not lose ourselves. Major bonding point right there, without it being excavated through arduous talks or clashes. With her things like teamwork and collaboration are no longer an abstract ideas to me, or an aspirational ones, but just something that is now part of our life, part of our chemistry, an ongoing experiment I'm confident we are both into conducting with care and intention. I do very much admire the way she handles herself in all sorts of situations. Makes it pretty easy and joyous to stand alongside her. Seems the only option is to grow upwards, but at roughly a pace I'd be growing anyway.

That was in relation to what I meant by boundaries, in my initial post to reinvent, not moving in or even our dynamic. Like: my world is in ways a naturally very protective/protected one, since I’ve built it in a way where I’m hyper-reliant on myself in a vacuum and haven’t had to navigate others “encroaching” in the way one might in a large family or various professional environments. My girlfriend has a much different history. Being around someone who has had to “fight” a bit in different environments, and done so with grace, is something I do think has benefited me. I mentioned that to reinvent because I’ve noticed it primarily in the way I handle my own mother, an astounding woman by just about every universal measuring stick, but one I’ve maybe struggled to establish boundaries with in the past. It’s something I was cognizant of prior to this relationship—that she had a “pull” over me that could rock me a bit, reverberations felt by those close to me—so was probably working on it on my own. Still, it’s been interesting and rewarding to see some very subtle shifts that feel more conducive to my authentic self and wants, if that makes any sense.

Wow, that’s quite a ride in a tiny space. And thank you (with apologies to reinvent for the journal hijack). I’m excited, in a calm way, an apt description of the past year with her. As for her boundaries, I don’t suspect there will be many surprises there; I meant it more in the way she holds the space of who she is—in the workplace, with family—than how she asserts it, if that makes sense. I’ve never really worked for anyone—no idea what even a job interview is like, for instance, let alone dealing with an office environment—and only have one person in my family, so there’s just been much less of that for me to navigate.

Thanks for the kind words. Life, along with this forum, has offered some invaluable lessons. Have also found it shockingly easy (organic is the better word) to envision a long term future with someone who has a sharp vision of her own, formidable grace when it comes to carving it out, and is also a careful considerer of such matters. Your thinking on all this makes perfect sense, given your own life experience and recent history (hugs). Things you two will work through as a couple, and as individuals, with answers coming in time and at the right time, I suspect. I could see myself, in your shoes, juggling very similar thoughts and feelings and craggy questions.

As a 40 year old who has never lived with anyone—not a roommate, not a partner—I very much understand being a "little bit of a freak" about the sanctity of personal space and time. And yet I'm moving in with my girlfriend next year, so, go figure... I guess my thinking, in your situation, which of course you know better than I do, is that you plus him, in a castle of your co-creating, would likely keep the volatile mom further from the mix, even once those volatile stages come. The self-correcting of the son situation bodes as a pretty good canary in that coal mine, no? I can't help but think that, even if there wasn't a direct conversation about it, the combination of your natural spirit and his adoration and respect for that spirit likely played into that boundary adjustment. Would something similar happen with mom? I wonder. Again, not proposing this as a solution, more like a vision of the future. In the current dynamic—separate homes with lives that are both braided and separate—I can imagine how this would send some shivers up the spine as you glance at the horizon. But in a different dynamic, those shivers would perhaps be less intense. In my relationship I'd say my girlfriend has slightly better defined boundaries than I do. I'm not talking about the powdered sugar stuff of the opposite sex, where we seem pretty simpatico, but just that she's a fiercer protector of her space and operating system than I am. The reasons, aside from basic nature, probably have a lot to do with her being a mother and a woman, so her individual life unspools on a different, more challenging field than my own, where I can protect myself without the same effort or obstacles. Anyhow, I've noticed how in just shy of a year with her my own boundary management has shifted, strengthened—particularly, as it happens, with how I handle my own mother. Thought food to nibble on as you see how it plays out.

Sorry about this situation. You guys have been together around 2 years, yeah? I'm wondering if you guys talk about moving in, something I know you're hesitant about from past posts, but that I bring up because I wonder how things would look—and feel, for you—if you guys were more of a "single unit" on that logistical front when these life shifts occur. I'm not proposing that as an immediate solution—and I "know" you well enough from ENA to know you're not going to make a choice like that impulsively or as a salve to concerns—but just thinking about the future a bit more broadly. My impression, and I could totally be wrong, is that one of your concerns about S is that he can be a little porous with his boundaries—the way his son comes and goes through his house, for instance, being a preview of what things might look like when the steely maternal tiger hits the nonagenarian years. And perhaps that, along with these sorts of concerns, gives you pause about those next "steps," be it cohabitation or facing the big forces on the horizon at this stage in life. But if was a home you two built together, and protected together, you'd invariably have more say in things, not merely actively, but just in shaping them with your distinct you-ness—a "role," perhaps, that you're reluctant to play, which is also understandable. Still, as Jib said, S seems like a truly wonderful man (that smile as he poured you wine a few months back is emblazoned in my memory) who shows a lot of positive signs in being someone who organically and intentionally wants to work with you.

Sunny, 70F, snow covered mountains framed by palm trees.

Just to be clear, what is the sample size of these reviews? Five? Fifteen? I go back to the dinner party metaphor, because I really think this site is far more like a dinner party than, say, a therapist's office. Fifteen people sit around the table. You are bound to not like them all, or be liked by all, and there is always that one person who tells the story of how a vacation was ruined because a waiter brought the wrong cocktail at the airport lounge before the plane even took off for Italy. Yeah, the Ritz was fine, and Florence was pretty, but that idiot waiter—dude ruined it. And that person, when he talks about the dinner party? He talks about how the asparagus was overcooked and how no one let him say that thing he wanted to say. If only he had a forum in which to review that party, because you should see his takedown of the tape dispenser he ordered from Amazon. Scathing stuff. Meanwhile, the other 14 people had a good night. Some are now texting each other, some are happy to be done with each other. Others go home to finish their taxes, self-satisfied with the tape dispenser they bought after reading a scathing Amazon review of another they were considering. Go figure. Small, curious world. I don't mean to sound flip, but that's more or less what I see here, weekly, and more or less how I see reviews of anything: movies, books, websites, subconsciouses. Some people don't like the things I like. Some people don't like me. Does that mean I should stop liking that book, stop liking me? I hope not! Different means of getting by. Personally, I think you show true respect to those reviews, and the people who wrote them, by not giving them too much weight, meaning you don't let them shatter your own scales. Hey, opinion—I see you, I hear you, I appreciate you, but I'm not going to reframe my life around you. Kind of like what people do here, every day, best I can see.

Just want to say that I hear you, LaHermes, particularly on the kindness business. That said, even kindness is relative in a forum like this. Am I "kind" in my approach? It is an intention—I swear!—but I suspect I've ruffled feathers, in regular guests and new ones. There is a bittersweet contraction to a lot of this—the pro vs. amateur therapy stuff. Putting aside socioeconomics, a lot of people, I think, stumble onto this site for the same reasons people stumble into therapist's offices. Is anything more beautiful and empowering than vulnerable humans grasping for some answers? I say no. And yet the suggestion to see a therapist is often met with a rebuttal, or metabolized as a judgement, even when placed on the forum with the most velvet of gloves. Think that has a lot to do with the fact that vulnerability is still not quite a thing that, across cultural spectrums, we've learned how to celebrate. Can this site be seen, from one angle, as a celebration of vulnerability, a big ol' party where the confetti of vulnerability fills the air? I'd like to think so. Of course, like any good party, there are some off moments, some very good people who do not get along so well.

Interesting discussion. Follow me—or not, your choice—on a windy path to get to the meat of your inquiry: I make a living producing things for public consumption—things that people invest time, money, and emotion in consuming. These things are reviewed, commented on—sometimes positively, sometimes not. What I've noticed is that those who review and comment on the internet—as opposed to those, say, who are professional reviewers—are by and large more aggressive, impulsive, and, generally, more prone to negativity. They think that what I do for a living is being done to them or for them. Meanwhile, I'm just a dude like you are a dudette, specks of dust trying to pay the bills and get by with the tools we have. I respect internet review culture, as I respect the professionals, but I don't take any of it too seriously, and certainly not personally. Opinion, not fact. If I did? I'd have to stop doing what I do because I would be too busy hating myself because someone with a funny handle like bluecastle anointed me the devil incarnate, or being obsessed with myself because bluecastle deemed me special. In either hiding from myself or admiring myself I'd miss out on being myself, and doing something that brings me closer to myself. As for that thing I do? People will do with it what they please, say what they need to say. All good. A site like this? That's my personal lens here, my attitude and approach. It makes perfect sense to me that people would leave negative reviews, and that bulk of the reviews (written by a tiny minority) would be negative. It's human nature 101. They want experience x, got experience y, and are upset, not unlike the child who wanted gummy bears but got chocolate—or, drats, no sweets at all. Some children cry, others sulk, still others don't fret. Humanity 101, all of it valuable. The few reviews you highlight are written by people who are particularly upset since the experience they wanted was connected to a vulnerable moment in their lives. Understandable. Allowed. So be it. The beauty of this site, to me, is that it's a full-on democracy. You can leave, if it does't serve you. You can ignore people, and even "block" them if their modes of expression—of being themselves on any given day or year—does not bring value to your life, just like I can move from Los Angeles to Mumbai if I decide Los Angeles is a 0-star city and Mumbai is a 5-star city. Of course, I can also decide to stay in Los Angeles and howl at the moon about how awful it is and how much I'd rather be in Mumbai. That's a choice many people make, and find comfort and personal power in. Not for me, though I respect it. The moderation of it all? Haven't really given it much thought, but I think it's pretty great. Not a lot of trolling or noise here; it gets filtered out fast. No nasty language—how refreshing. There seems to be a premium here on earnestness and sincerity—valuable things, and, in my opinion, a bit endangered in an age where validation can come so easily from the most base-level of human instincts. I mean, I'm writing this for how many eyeballs? Five, twenty? I could post a nude photo of myself straddling a gigantic plastic unicorn on Instagram and make a real day of it. But I doubt I'd sleep well once the sun sets. I don't post much here asking for help—though it is why I came here, and I stayed out of both gratitude and because staying has enriched me, continued to help me. How do I feel about it all, ethically? Pretty great. I think of this site like a massive dinner party—with some compelling regulars and an ever-changing rotation of guests—one where everyone has had a bit too much to drink and are showing their truest colors. That color spectrum? Gosh, it's lovely. It really is lovely! It can get rowdy, it can get tense, and some may be here or visit here for dubious reasons; but if you're open to listening and being chastened it can be pretty rewarding, even profound. I've had my eyes opened by teenagers, by single mothers, by divorced men—from all over the world. Maybe I've opened some other eyes a millimeter or two. When I've sought advice, or even just participated in a long, heated thread? It's often the words that are sharpest—the ones I want to defend or reject or deem insensitive—that end up resonating with more weight and value as my own feelings and life settle out in the wilds of IRL. And after a year or so swimming around these digital waters? I've found that some regular posters who initially raised eyebrows in me have become sturdy little guideposts on my own journey. I'm grateful for them. They have enriched me. If I can absorb even a salt shake of enrichment from another human being, my life is better; that's my personal value system. If some sour moments come with the territory—well, that's okay. That's life. It's sometimes pretty annoying. When I post anything? I trust myself that I am trying my best to connect, to help, to sensitively say thanks for those salt shakes of enrichment by offering up a few of my own—and I take it that everyone else is operating from a similar place: doing their best. A closed loop, self-fed by multiple selves, never perfect, but perfect is boring. I'm also aware, of course, that there is a certain "selfishness" to posting—that I (and you, and you, and you) am getting something out of it. Were I to try to isolate that selfish thing? I'd say that in joining the dinner party I get fed: I get to sharpen my own value system. I hope that "selfish" instinct does not come at the expense of other selves, while being fully aware that what I write may land with a thud. As someone who has taken a lot of blows to the head and heart in the business of living, I trust that fellow humans can handle a pinch that comes from the screen. In the world we are all people. On here, by the nature of it, we are personas. To personally invest too much emotion in personas—our own, others—is dangerous. So, those negative reviews? I would see that as a misguided emotional investment in personas, like someone who comes across my Instagram feed and for some reason feels "attacked" or "judged" just by scrolling through my photos. Similarly, I would see absorbing those reviews as facts to be an over-investment in personas—in allowing the words of others to define your story. They're just words written by people, not gavels in courtroom. Not sure if any of that resonates. Words into the void, to be consumed, ignored, rebutted, agreed with, or otherwise, as you or anyone sees fit.

So very happy for you, reinvent. I really admire how you're able to celebrate the full spectrum of connection, including the places where it rubs a bit, be it the personhood of someone else doing the rubbing or some sharp edge in ourselves that a connection to another can bring to the surface. Though I "know" you a bit, from this forum, I wouldn't need to know a thing to know the two people in those photos are in love and very much themselves, alongside each other.

What Sera is saying. Their romantic relationship is their business. You're a product of it—and, perhaps, the glue—but you are not the director of it. That's their job, and they'll make the choices they make. Our parents offer us a model for romance. A model, not the model. Perhaps seeing (though your eyes) that your parents have stayed in an unhappy marriage for the sake of their kids (you) leads you to make difference choices in terms of partners. I love my father, for instance, but he is basically my model of how not to be man. Can I ask how old you are? Do you still live at home and/or rely on your parents for support? I ask because, while I don't think meddling does anyone any favors, sometimes when we become adults we can talk to our parents in a different manner. So, say, you find yourself having a heart to heart and one of your parents mentions that you are the only reason they are still together—well, there could be room there for you to let them know that you will love and respect them both in whatever future choices they make. That way it's expressing your feelings, rather than issuing them a directive.

Wow—that's hot! Here in LA it's 80F/26C, zero humidity per basically every day. We had a big earthquake this morning. That was interesting.

Yeah, I’d say you’re in the Land of Overthinking with the name stuff. He plays softball, he’s made a new friend, he ran it all by you best he knew how—and, hey, was far more interested in hanging with you and your family. I think that having faith and having talks can coexist, each offering clarity to the other, instead of it being binary.

I'll share a story. Maybe it helps, maybe not. About three months into dating my girlfriend—"dating my girlfriend" to connote that we hadn't given it the official stamp yet—she came over, we caught up about our days. I mentioned that I'd had a drink earlier with a woman. I didn't know this woman too well, so let's call her a "maybe friend." We'd met through work around the time I met my gf, we're both newish to this city, have friends in common. In my mind—and, I believe, in this maybe-friend's—that drink was nothing more than that: networking, community-building. She was aware I was serious about someone, because I made that clear, just as my girlfriend was aware this woman existed in some peripheral capacity in my life—the fellow colleague I'd met at that thing a while back. Anyhow, a few days later my girlfriend brought it up. Her wording was almost identical to yours in bold: she would not participate in a date-like event with a man I didn't know. Didn't dovetail, for her, with being in a relationship and creating a space in which a relationship can keep blossoming, deepening. She didn't sound hurt or judgmental or threatened or disrespected, because I don't think she was any of those things. In fact, I think she said another thing nearly verbatim that you wrote above: that she knows she can get hung up in thinking that just because she would handle something a certain way it doesn't make it right, or mean another person, doing it differently, is wrong. She was simply telling me about how she operates. Didn't ask me to change, didn't put it in the context of what she "needs," none of that. It was just us doing the thing that I hope to keep doing for a long, long, long time with her: getting to know each other by sharing who we are, building an operating system from two well-matched, but of course different, operating systems. That conversation was maybe 15 minutes. It has never come up again. I have not gone on a date-like event with a woman she has not met since, and I am a zillion percent fine with that. This moment was not a "bump" in our road, a "thing" we now "work on," a quiet "tension" in an otherwise glittering romance. When I play the gooey tape of all the moments when I've known I'm falling in love with someone and connecting at a frequency I didn't quite know was possible—well, that one stands out right there with all the other obvious gooey moments. Truth is, I'd be okay with her doing the same with a man I hadn't met—that's my operating system, or at least the state of my operating system when I met her. But do I "need" to be able to have those drinks, in exactly that context, to remain "me" inside a relationship? Do I need that to be something someone is cool with? No, I don't. I took a moment to ask myself this, because I'm not interested in shaving myself down to an inauthentic shape for the sake of coupledom or some strained version of partnership—and I know my girlfriend wouldn't want that either. She adores me, I adore her. She just wants me to be me, but she also wants to be able to be herself, alongside me, with me. So no, I don't need that. And not just to make her "happy" and "secure" and show her my adoration. More to the point: I think her operating system, in this respect, is better than mine, more evolved, more conducive to the type of connections I want—with her, of course, and more generally. A drink like that—harmless as it was, fueled by zero shady motivations—was perhaps a holdover from some younger, less evolved me who could see only two steps ahead instead of four or six. So you could say that in sharing that little piece of herself—which I'm sure took a bit of bravery on her part, which of course just added to my respect for her—she helped me evolve, a hair, into a better version of myself (which of course just made me more excited to been with her and keep building this thing we're building). Again, this was 15 minutes, maybe half that. I would not call it "a talk," so much as another extension of our compatibility, the effortlessness we enjoy, both in going with the flow and guiding the flow, just a touch, through honesty and intention, when needed. Knowing that we can not just go with the flow, but adjust it with grace—well, swoon. With another person, with a different tone, at another time in my life, perhaps it would have landed differently. But my girlfriend—and I get the feeling you share these qualities—is a self-possessed, independent-minded spirit. She knows I have lots of female friends, and that I connect well with women. I know she has lots of male friends, and connects well with men. That's a non-issue. We've met lots of these friends, we go out with them—together, separately. For her—and I get it—it was just the slightest difference, but one she found important enough to vocalize. I know her to be someone who chooses those moments carefully, who is not one to react quickly to clumsily to a slight spike in emotion. I'm rambling here, aren't I? I recognize what I'm describing is a relationship very much in the early stages of formation whereas yours has some deeper roots, but I think it's important to have these moments—early, later, throughout. Probably I'm saying that I think there is a way to talk about this—one where, just going from the vibe I get from you and the vibe I get from you two—will only be positive.