📧 “confidential, please” from Hall

Dear Logan,

I have questions about the man I adore, and I am at a loss as to where to go for even beginning guidance.  I am not going to say his name here, because I am paranoid about privacy at this point.

This is a self-indulgent e-mail.  If you are too busy or weary to read it, please do not.  This is also a very confidential e-mail.  If you don’t feel comfortable reading it, please do not.  This is also a very long, and probably rambling, email.

You are stuck with me as a friend (unless someday you ask otherwise) regardless of whether you ever help me sort through this matter, ok?

So, the few good friends who know basics about my situation but who do not know him have decided that he is one of three things (or that I am crazy).  He is (when it comes to relationships) a coward, or he is a (very adept and somewhat bizarre) player, or he is fundamentally unreliable.  The other alternative is that I have been dealing with the misery of my PTSD and my fear of the dating world by fixating on one poor soul who has done nothing to deserve my insane attachment to him.

I do not think he is a coward.  I have come to suspect that relational emotions are not easy for him to express.  I suspect that intimacy makes him feel vulnerable – that his root negative emotion is fear (rather than anger, or shame).  I am not sure if this was the case before he went through so many major life changes in a very short period of time, but it seems likely the case now.  I suspect that he wants to control relational intimacy on his own terms, with careful timing and such.  But I don’t think that this makes him a coward.  I think that, if he were indeed not interested in me in a romantic way, he would arrange for us to meet so that he could set me straight.

(On a related note, I am totally ok with being with a man who needs to control the terms of emotional intimacy.  I am very, very weary of being the one in control of trying to make a relationship work on that level.  I would welcome that sort of control, from him, because I trust him.)

Early on in my divorce process I wrote him probably 15 (maybe more?) emails telling him the very worst that I have endured in my marriage.  I wrote him almost every morning for two weeks.  Each morning, I would wake up so very, very much wishing that I were waking up with him, and I sent him messages with daily goings-on and also revealing stories about my difficult past.  I think this was a combination of loneliness and, frankly, the fact that I really do adore him.  So, he knows me as best I can narrate myself in e-mail.  And, he knows I adore him.  I made that so clear as to be now painful to consider.  I just can’t imagine that he would not now sit me down, look me eye to eye, and tell me I had misunderstood his affection, if indeed he does not feel for me in that way.

I also do not think that he is a player.  Last summer, I seemed to run into him all over town.  It was uncanny.  I now think that perhaps he was trying to get to know me better not only so that I could work on his team.  There was a delight in his eyes when he saw me that I just assumed he had for all of humanity.  I assumed that he just delights in people generally, or maybe women generally.  I have come to see that this is not the case.  There are various bits and pieces of evidence I have that he actually finds me delightful. I am going to risk telling you the most beautiful story in the mix.

I could not for the life of me remember when we first met.  My brain was so buckled down, my libido so very, very under lock and key, for so long.  My marriage was misery, but turning off that entire part of my psyche allowed me to keep going, day by day, and to channel the sublimated desire into my teaching and research.  Being a nun probably helped me get tenure . . . Anyway, perhaps in one email I conveyed that I did not remember when we first met.  And, sometime in early June, or around then (I can’t remember, and now wish I had been journaling)I announced clear as day on FB that I was going to spend my dancing Friday night, my kid-free night, just being by myself on my beautiful front porch.  That night, around 9:30, a silver truck/car hybrid vehicle started tracking around my block every once in a while.  I was trying not to notice or be scared. (I am working on not being fearful of anything.)  And then, about 10:00 or so, right when it was getting dark, I heard a whirling sound that prompted a very intense memory in me, in an instant.  Right after I heard the whirling sound, a sort of mechanical whirl, he came down my street, alone, on a beautiful, Victorian era bicycle, wearing only black shorts and that absolutely totally adorable backpack that he swings over his shoulder (that is the one physical thing on which I commented in my emails – that the way he swings his backpack over his shoulder makes me have to run extra around the track).  He did not say a word, of course, just rode this whimsical, unique bicycle down my street and off into the night.  (Shirtless, may I add – I mean, really, that was not easy to take with equanimity.)

I immediately remembered a rush of emotions.  I met him years ago, when he first moved back to Durham.  I had been in the front yard with Emily blowing bubbles.  I think that was what we were doing.  She was a toddler.  And he and at least one other friend were riding these totally whimsical, one of a kind sort of bicycles, without shirts on, and they stopped to talk.  I remember that I clicked with him so massively, and with such electricity, that I did not want him to ride away.  I remember that his friend became annoyed that we kept talking for at least an hour, and that John came outside to yell at me for wasting time.  Emily was delighted enough with the bicycles and the cute boys (they were so young) to stay happy for the time being.  And we talked Durham politics.  I told him all about work we were up to with community organizing.  I told him all about my work at Yale organizing.  And, really, if I let myself remember it fully, I adored him then.  I kept a little scrap of paper with his name and phone number on it in my purse for months.  But, being the dutiful, trying to make a miserable marriage work sort of gal, I eventually lost the scrap of paper.  I think that we were likely in many Durham CAN meetings together after that, and I just was too repressed/suppressing to engage what had been started in my heart at that time.

That little act of intentional whimsy should be enough to reassure me, right?  I mean, it is the most romantic thing that a man has ever done for me.  It certainly was not random.  Men do not ride around on penny-farthing bicycles and no shirts at twilight on a Friday night as a matter of course.)

But I am desperately insecure about him, mostly because I just have never felt this way about anyone.  I was smitten three times in my life, but now I am a grown-up, and this is a grown-up sort of smitten.  I just keep going back to the corner of my heart that is anxious.  Not all of the time.  Only about twice a day.  But those moments are scary.

But that one little act seems to me, even taken alone (and it is not the only sign) to suggest that he is not a player.  A player would not go to that much trouble to torment a woman.

I think that he is in this for the very long haul, and has been biding his time (how, is beyond me) so that I could sort out who I am and what I truly want.  I also think that there is a chance that his own personal situation requires lots and lots and lots of therapy, and that he is likely (I hope) going through the hard work of sorting so that we would not start on the wrong foot from the get-go.  We have both been through massive storms, and grabbing hold of one another in the midst of the waves probably would not be a plan for success in the long term.  It makes sense to let things settle before we grab hold, right?  Maybe?   But my waves have now calmed quite a bit, and I would love to start up with him.  Truly . . .

I am now trying to reassure myself of a few things.

First, I know that some people in this day and age think that it is important for the first sex after a divorce to be with someone other than the person you are to spend your life with.  You are supposed to seek a “rebound,” someone to “clear your palate” as one friend put it.  That just makes me sick.  I am not going to judge on people who believe that, but that seems way way way not possible for me.  If I am intimate in that way, I will fall in love.  That is just me.  I cannot sever my heart/soul/brain in such a way as to be so vulnerable and not also see the beautiful vulnerability in another person.  And, once I glimpse that beauty, I cannot go on to find sufficient fault, unless that fault is serious.  (And, yes, I am clear that no one is going to physically intimidate me again – I have promised that to Emily, and she will kick my ass if I don’t keep that promise.)

I am trying to reassure myself that he would not have such a bizarre notion.  I am trying to reassure myself that he is not biding his time until he is sure I have had rebound sex.  Because I don’t want rebound sex.  I have plenty of options, goodness knows, at this point.  But I don’t want to have sex with a man who does not adore me, and I don’t think that I can have sex without finding a man adorable.  And I would prefer not to have my heart way way way tangled up over in his direction and then take another part of myself and twist it around another man I have only recently met.  That seems like a recipe for getting me all messed up inside.  Right?  Maybe?

I am also trying to reassure myself that, when he said “wait until August,” he did not really mean September, or October, or, whatever.  I am trying to reassure myself that he cares enough about my spirits to reconnect with me somehow this month to give me an update on the timing.  Without such an update, I am a bit afraid I will become morose as the fall begins.  I have waited five months, sometimes not very patiently, but I am not sure I can wait longer with equanimity without being told that I am waiting for him.

I am also trying to reassure myself that he would not give up easily.  If he was willing to pursue me while I was married, seeing me out and about with handsome men who are obviously interested in me (Sam is very much not subtle in his body language) would not deter him.  Right?  Maybe?

I am now occupied with various projects.  I am planning a new course for the Center for Documentary Studies, to help me connect with them and work toward an ongoing status with them that will help me survive the toxicity of DDS.  I am also going likely to be the lead faculty instructor for an amazing new program working jointly with North Carolina Central, again helping me not have to deal so often with DDS crapola.  I have plenty of work to do just mothering as the sole sane person in our parenting dyad, and I am now, very tentatively beginning to have coffee or tacos and such with men who seem potentially worth my time.

(Side note – Sam is lovely, and I want to spend time with him as a friend, but he is not the type of man to sustain me long term. We are too much alike.  He is too hyper.  I need someone who is much, much, much slower paced and intentional.  I am thinking about women he should meet, but I also think that he is going to score big time on the Durham dating scene.  He doesn’t need my help.)

I am also trying to reassure myself that he would let me know if he has changed his mind.  I mean, if he has been intentional, and that beautiful bicycle miracle was real (which it was) but he has now determined that I am too unstable, or too old, or too whatever (fill in the blank – and Lord knows I have become quite adept at filling in that blank) then he would tell me, right?  Maybe?  He isn’t the type just to leave me wondering what I have done wrong, right?

The three direct messages I have received from him were in email form, and they read as if they’d been written by a CPE advisor.  He wrote to me as if I am a scared child brandishing nitroglycerin.  That was the tone.  They were not personal, at all, and not at all in the voice that he used with me on a regular basis. There was no delight in the wording, and no affection.  But, the three times I caught him off guard (we caught one another off guard) out and about this summer, I saw several emotions clearly on his face.  Resistance.  He is trying to stay away from me, I think.  Delight.  He has become more adept recently at hiding that (darn it), but it was obvious the first two times I came across him.  And, a new emotion that I had never seen on his face before, ever.  Pride.  He looks proud.  When I saw him at a rally a while back, he looked taller, older, and very, very proud.  It made me cry just to think that somehow, maybe, maybe, perhaps, my adoring him so much from afar has at least helped him to know that he is truly, truly wonderful.  Even if he does not return my affection, at the very least, I have helped a truly amazing man know that he is wonderful.  He is not divine.  He is merely a person.  But he is a wonderful person who deserves to be blissfully happy in love.  He deserves that.

And, maybe, so do I.

There is more to the story, like his inviting me and Emily to an event way back in March, and the moment there that the scales fell from my eyes and I actually saw, I think, that he meant me to note that he feels for me.  Also, there is the fact that I love mystery novels, and I would never have to read another one if I married him.  He is the most enigmatic man I have ever met, and I would delight in spending a lifetime trying to figure him out, little by little, not all at once or in an intrusive way.  And he is wonderful with children.  And I would be a wonderful step-mother to his daughter.  Emily is the best step-sister a child could ever ask for.

Ok, that was a very long email, and I am crying too much too early in the morning.  I need to get up and run to RATM and clear my head.  But I would welcome thoughts if you have them.  Probably in person would be best.  It seems that very, very few people actually know him, I mean know him more than superficially, and perhaps you are one of the few who do know him.  If you feel comfortable surmising/guessing/sorting on this, I would be grateful.

But, if you do not, I will absolutely be ok.  I am getting better day by day.  I can date a few potentially nice men and not sleep with them.  I can stay busy with school work and mommy work.  I am now on two different medications to help me deal with the mood swings and need for protection/intimacy that seem just part of my age and my PTSD.  (My doctor showed me on a chart that women my age have the same libidinal surges as teenage boys . . . ) I can keep trying to be patient and hopeful and trusting.  But it is hard, frankly, to know that I want to spend the rest of my life with a man and just distract myself from that.  It is hard.

Finally, on a totally unrelated (and I mean that) note, I would love to host a party at my house to celebrate your success working on this conference.  I have worked my ass off decorating my house, and I do have some pride in it.  I would enjoy hosting a potluck and saying hello to people I miss.  I would ask people for help in cleaning up afterward and such so that I don’t over-extend myself, as usual.  And I would not make food, just provide the venue.  But with the two porches and all, it is a fun house for hosting.  I miss hosting.

Peace,
--

Amy Laura Hall

Associate Professor, Duke University

Single-mom, activist-scholar, overall too-busy woman

Cell # (if work related, please only use if urgent): [redacted]