After that first dinner date, things started to move along quite swimmingly, if possibly a bit fast. More dinners, more drinks, lots of staying up til the wee hours discussing the intricacies of absolutely nothing, because it didn’t matter what we talked about, really. We were having too much fun to care. This is where the trouble started, I suppose. As she explained it to me later, she felt so comfortable and open with me, able to speak easily on the topics of relationships and love, that she started to think about her own past relationships, and specifically, one particularly traumatic experience that had ended rather badly the year before. She realized that she had never really dealt with this trauma, instead pushing it down deep within her emotions, where it was lost and neglected for the better part of 13 months. And so, as she explained it to me last night, she began to feel guilty about starting up a new relationship, having not fully dealt with the now-haunting remnants of a tumultuous 3-year-long first love experience. She didn’t feel that it was fair to me, to be only 50 percent present in what we were trying to start up.
    This is all very honorable, of course, and I feel like I handled the news with at least some amount of grace, telling her that it was ok and that I understood, which is true. I do understand, I feel like I’ve been there before. But at the same time, my somewhat more selfish and myopic instincts were having little tantrums in my head. From behind my eyes, they plead their case: Let me decide what’s unfair and wrong for me, they whined. Can’t you see that we’re wonderful together? This doesn’t just happen every day!, they yelled. Let me help you work through this! I can take care of you!, they desperately cried. Please, don’t leave me…, they whimpered, and then fell silent.
    I’ve no idea whether or not she could sense any of this drama that was unfolding inside my head, but if she did, she didn’t let on. She simply said “I’m sorry about this”, to which I automatically replied “I’ll be fine. It’s ok.”
    ”No, it’s not ok”, she said, to which I had no reply, but could only nod slightly and look away from those piercing, beautiful eyes.