I want to TELL this person he is being kept at arm’s length. That is because I am sure that what he will do is plan to let this episode blow over, and then try to encroach upon me again at some weak moment. I want to head that off at the pass. How is my tone now?
Dear S,
You may have already made the same decision, but just so we are clear I want you to know that I am taking a break from our friendship. I appreciate many things about you. But you have repeatedly tried to manipulate me into situations that were not comfortable for me — including situations I had already stated I did not like or would not like.
This most recent incident was the most severe. I was 7,000 kilometers away. Your first e-mail, in which you proposed the plan to stay in Kenner, went directly counter to all of the wishes and priorities I had expressed before leaving. Note that I never asked you to pick me up. You offered it. I had repeatedly asked whether you were truly comfortable with the plan, because I did not want it changed.
You also know that I am not interested in intimate situations with you, even the tepid one of merely sharing a motel room. You know how uncomfortable I am to be asked. Trying to set such a situation up again, especially in the context of the car/airport pickup arrangement we had made, really crossed a line.
Because I do not want further experiences like this, I am taking a break from seeing you for the next while. It doesn’t mean we cannot crack jokes and share news when we run into each other, or that I would not be willing to meet you at a theatre function or something like that. Beyond those sorts of situations, though, I am taking some distance.
Be well.
Z
coldhearted scientist وداد 
NO, it is not good, because you are drawing near to him with communication, at the same time as claiming that you are “taking some distance”. Your very words betray you and make you seem like you do not know your own mind. Because of this, the whole approach can be seen as feminine frivolity or playing hard to get. There is a subtle plea in the writing: “Please, let me take some distance, and I will be back, you can count on it!”
OK then I am glad I did not send it.
It is true that I have fantasies of civility that are not realistic.
Are you truly saying to say nothing at all? YES.
My fear: that if I don’t warn him off, and he shows up at my doorstep at some moment when I’m not on my game, I’ll stammer and be nice.
I’m trying to clarify my position, solidify it, something.
And mostly I’m trying to truly believe that if it’s this bad — and it is, if I’m having to spend this much energy getting his gris-gris off of me — then it really is this bad and I really should just dump it all.
That was what I had initially decided but I am afraid of falling because there is a whole lot I like about this person, unfortunately. I really would like to be friends and I am having trouble giving it up.
I would think you could still be friends. Really, it is likely that his gesture of wanting to book a motel room is not something he saw on a very personal level. You are trying to make it more personal than it is, and that is why you seem like a deer caught in your own headlights at the moment. The trick is to see the offer of sex, or whatever it was, as impersonal. So, since it was impersonal, you can reject it impersonally, but still expect to be friends. Just say no to the advances you don’t like in the future, without fearing that you will cut him to the core, or offend him. If he is not afraid of offending you, then it is probably just that he is rather insensitive to begin with, but there may still be a lot that he would have to offer as a friend. But by trying to speak to him on a more personal level (ie. your letter) you are drawing much closer to him than he is to you. It seems his offer of a room was not an offer of intimacy, or it would have been offered differently. So, objectively, you and he are still at quite a distance (even though it doesn’t feel that way to you now). Keep it that way.
AHA, then it goes back to the yoga I was trying to reach in the very first letter — and one from a few days ago, too.
Initially I was tolerant of him because I was a guest in his culture. Then, hurt because he wanted to use me for some fairly insulting casual sex. Then, tolerant because he was hurt because I was turning him down. Then, grateful since he offers so much help around the house and so on. Tolerant of his ignorance on some things because he has insight on others. In sum: always on my best behavior, and always putting up with something I didn’t like somehow … because of the things I did.
In the first letter, I was realizing that I *always* negotiate too much with this person, *always* do a lot of soft pedaling of my real self, because I know I’m not nearly bland enough for him and so I try to be moreso. It’s that effort, that bending that I do, that hiding of myself so as not to overburden him but also so as to protect myself, that puts me in this position.
I think I’ll just get a lot more brusque and more offensive — talk as I would to other people — .
Deer in my own headlights, that is how I felt when all this started and how I’ve been feeling for days, good point.
You don’t need to be brusque or offensive, just emotionally neutral and direct. being impersonal means keeping emotions (whether conciliatory or angry) out of it.
Maybe the letter should go:
“Dear S
I hope you are fine. This is just to let you know that I don’t take the offer of sex/booking a motel/whatever as anything personal. We’re not on the same wavelength with that at all.
I’m busy enjoying my holiday and hoping to get a lot of stuff done. Brazil is a great place to be… (etc.)
Anyway, hope you are still going to pick me up from the airport, but if not please let me know with plenty of time to spare, because of course I don’t want to be stranded there at midnight.
I’m looking forward to being back in Louisiana and to meeting you in due course. I’m glad we are friends — nothing more.
Prof. Z
That’s what it should have said. There’s much water under the bridge, so that content is out of date but the tone sure is right!
“Dear S, I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear in my last mail that I didn’t want to stay in the motel. I see why you want it as a backup, but I really want to plan on heading for home as soon as I arrive. If you’re too tired to drive, I can.
“Anyway, I hope you are still going to pick me up from the airport, but if not please let me know with plenty of time to spare, because of course I don’t want to be stranded there at midnight. By far the simplest alternative for me, if you do not want to come down, is to rent a car. Had I realized I could get a one way rental for $100, it is what I would have proposed in the first place.
“I’m looking forward to being back in Louisiana and to meeting you in due course. I’m glad we are friends — nothing more.”
By far the simplest alternative for me, if you do not want to come down, is to rent a car. Had I realized I could get a one way rental for $100, it is what I would have proposed in the first place.
This part smacks of resentment, and gives him an inroad to argue with you on the basis of money.
OK good point, I totally did not see that.
The thing was that he was insisting upon driving the car down earlier in the day and leaving it for me. That meant keeping the car in his possession until 9 January, spending 4-5 hours driving there including getting back who knows how on his Saturday, leaving it for me who knows where, and keeping me tied to him by phone so I could find out.
He was insisting on doing this to save me money; the whole thing was started as a way to save me parking money and just use an extra tank or less of gas instead.
All of the things he does to take over are ostensibly to save me money. I shouldn’t spend $50 on a plumbing job, I should come home early and make him dinner and let him do the job at night and give him a chance to steal kisses.
And on and on and on, it comes up every so often and has to be quashed every time.
My stance is always that I am not willing to trade sex work for carpentry and plumbing, that is why I have a job; I am interested in him for his conversation and not for his work.
If you give reasons for your actions — especially in the emotional way you did, full of resentment — then you are saying:
“I am unsure of myself and open to negotiation on this point. What do you think about my reasoning? Does it stand up? Let’s open it up for debate, and maybe you can come up with a better point.”
“Dear S, I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear in my last mail that I didn’t want to stay in the motel. I see why you want it as a backup, but I really want to plan on heading for home as soon as I arrive. If you’re too tired to drive, I can.
This also is too apologetic, not direct enough. I mean you are not even calling him on what you think he was offering you, which was a night of sex. One of the key points in talking to a guy like a guy is that you name the issue that is being addressed, and do so directly.
Australian women are often very good at this!
That is interesting. The polite Latin way to do it is to evade it, not embarrass the person by addressing it directly, but make it clear you are turning it down — you are so turning it down, you don’t even realize that is what was suggested; and whoops! if there’s only one motel room reserved, clearly that was a mistake, another must be gotten instantly, since we all want our privacy, of course.
The other problem is that he knows I know he’s not proposing a night of sex. He doesn’t have it in him, for one thing, and this is a known fact. He is hoping for some hugging and feeling. Mostly what he is hoping for is to derail me from my plan and desire, which was to get home, and to get some intimate contact with me in the form of sharing a room and bathroom and sleeping there like a couple.
The Australian way is definitely very different, and the level of crudity in this culture can take a while to get used to. Subtlety really doesn’t work at all in this culture.
“If you give reasons for your actions — especially in the emotional way you did, full of resentment — then you are saying:
‘I am unsure of myself and open to negotiation on this point. What do you think about my reasoning? Does it stand up? Let’s open it up for debate, and maybe you can come up with a better point.'”
Again, very interesting — I don’t see the emotion or resentment but I guess they’re there — and now at last I do understand why it is said one should not feel one must give reasons. I tend to think it’s to show one is not just being arbitrary and that one has a preference and a right to it. That is the attitude of one accustomed to positions of weakness, perhaps.
He was insisting upon engaging me in a much more complicated endeavor that would have had monetary costs as well. And none of us had been aware that one could rent a car one way for so little.
So: “Look, I know you are trying to help, but I have discovered that I can rent a car for quite a good price. Really and truly, that is simpler and easier than what you now propose, and really and truly, I do not mind — I even prefer it.”
How’s that?
So: “Look, I know you are trying to help, but I have discovered that I can rent a car for quite a good price. Really and truly, that is simpler and easier than what you now propose, and really and truly, I do not mind — I even prefer it.”
How’s that?
Not good, because it still gives reasons. Obviously to say “it is simpler and easier” is a reason. Better to say, “I just came across a good idea of hiring a car to get me back to town, so don’t worry to pick me up.” There’s no reasoning in that — it’s arbitrary and so cannot be debated.
OK, I see. Very good.
(I reacted as I did because I have, over the years, been coerced into sex by this person so many times, most recently in 2007. He knows very how distressing it is for me even to be asked. That is why it was so hurtful to have him start up again.)
yeah, well don’t let the hurt show. If I have learned anything about gender relations it is the hurt invites scavengers.
On the night of sex thing — we’d respond in the Australian way if it were right in the moment, and if there were less of a history and fewer subtexts.
With this particular person, and given the history there has been, the response to what? you are proposing what? could easily be something like, well there was that time in 2007 when we got pretty close, so I just thought, blah blah blah. It opens the whole thing up to argument, whereas waving it away or naming what I’m really concerned about, setting up a situation wherein he could *then* needle about it and I could be so tired I’d acquiesce just to get him to shut up. (This has happened before.)
The Australian way (at least at a blue collar sort of level) is always to be one of the boys. That is because swearing and posturing in a sexual manner can often be used as a mode of intimidation, so women show that they know exactly what is going on and return the serve. The white collars don’t exactly do this, and more trouble to them. They are learning bourgeois ways of dealing with things through strict gender segregation.
This guy is really Catholic and really doesn’t do the blue collar thing.
I’ve tried this on him in years past and it just misses him, he doesn’t get it / it doesn’t land / I think his levels of both repression and misogyny are so great that he either doesn’t understand or sees it as some sort of attack from a moralizing position.
He really, really doesn’t understand why I don’t sleep with him, because I’m not Christian or married, so I should be available.
I’ve told him everything I can think of, over the years: that I’m not satisfied with the sex he has to offer, that I’m not in love or even attracted enough to do what it takes to get him hard most days, that what he wants done, costs money and in my case high end money; that I am saving my energies and bodily and integrity for someone else, EVERYTHING.
And it’s all been true. He is still convinced that as long as I’m not married or under God, I might relent at some point. It gets tiresome.
“Yeah, well don’t let the hurt show. If I have learned anything about gender relations it is the hurt invites scavengers.”
I really agree with this. The self helpers all say you should tell people they’re being hurtful because then they will stop. I have very often noticed the opposite. By which I do not mean I am of the “ignore it” school on bullying, of course. I just don’t think that giving bullies instructions on how to get you even better is the best policy.
no, there is rarely any point in telling someone they are being hurtful to you, unless you are already clearly on equal terms with them. Even then, this telling often only has a moral-rhetorical quality to it. Hurt is very personal.
Yes, “please don’t do that, I don’t like it” is a lot better.
AHA: that is a good way for me to tell this person, back off on the manipulative ways of getting me into bed.
! 🙂
good night!
He thinks that you are under the spell of destiny, just like Mary was compelled to give birth to the Christ-child whether she wanted to or not. It was her destiny, and it improved her multifold to submit to it.
Pity he doesn’t get the blue collar thing.
There are so many apes out there who do not get things. There is no solution to that, because one patriarchal ideology or another has flattered their ego to the point that there is no turning back: they are thoroughly immersed in patriarchal consciousness. But it’s all narcissism and delusion, anyway. One ought not to be flattered by various texts throughout history, but to find one’s own way.
Destiny, yes. Ape, yes.
This is why figuring out the exact way to negotiate with someone is never a good idea.
All my letters are about clarifying how I feel, so that I can know from where I want to speak.
It is totally inappropriate for him not to back off and he has to know it.
If I were such a poor communicator, other men friends would also expect me to share rooms with them, give free sex, and so on and so forth.
So, no. Human’s right, he’s sort of dangerous, and I’m right, I need to give up the idea that it may not be possible to be friends.
We can be friendly acquaintances and share repartee and all, but I think too much has happened for it to be possible to take things way back to the surface level one has when one has just met someone and start being “friends” from there. There are so many feelings involved and so much has happened and so much has been discussed and it has been such a long time.
Also. There are a lot of things we do not have in common and a lot of things we disagree on. We have the relationship we have to the extent it’s good because we do make a lot of allowances and things.
So I don’t know. I’m tired, I’m going to bed. THANKS everyone for helping with this. Human has figured out that whatever this person really is, and however nice in however many ways, the way the relationship is is not good for me, and he may not be available for one that is, and I think this is important.
So the thing is that I must protect myself first, and remember it really was coercion second — and that it was not my fault for not having said no in just the right way.
Also and P.S. What all this is cover for. Not abusing self. Not internalizing abuse. Learning how not to.
Note. I think this whole blog is evidence that I am not blind to my faults or to the validity of others’ views.
I think the idea that “we” (who is that, anyway?) are not able to see ourselves as “everyone else” (why are they a monolith) does is another way [call it Big Brother] has of controlling people.
I think that is something worth following up on.