What's everyone up to right now?

[Cyberman]

We really are great together and I'm the only person who's remained with her, through good times and bad, when everyone else has disappeared into the woodwork. I'm the one she always turns to for help or just plain company. For her part, she makes me feel the way I never dreamed anyone else would or could ever again. I just know it will work, if she will only give me the chance. I think she knows it too, if she's honest with herself.

As for finding ways to relax, that's why I've been on here a lot lately, using up my mobile network's fair usage policy.

[John V]

Thank you, I really do need all the luck there is. I'm panicking so much I can hardly breathe. You're not the first person who's suggested she's testing me, plus it's crossed my mind before now. I genuinely don't know. All I can think is I'm going to get badly hurt whatever happens, whether I 'come out' or not, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's just like defusing a bomb in the dark. If I cut the wrong wire, it'll be at least as bad as not trying at all.

I am so scared.

Maybe you're just being tested, but it reminds me of Hank's final words on Breaking Bad.

[Cyberman]

I'm not familiar with that, I'm afraid. I'll have to look it up.

[John V]

I'm not familiar with that, I'm afraid. I'll have to look it up.

To paraphrase, it sounds like she made up her mind already. Hopefully not.

[Cyberman]

Oh, I do so hope not as well.

(Ok, I may just have written total gibberish there, but I think it works.)

Plus, thanks for the support.

[Angrboda]

Forgive me if I'm intuiting something that isn't there, but from the way you talk about her, I can't help but suspect that you are considerably less direct with her than you are here on the forum. Granted, there are perfectly mundane reasons at both ends of the equation for why you are more direct with people here. However, if you are not particularly direct with her, I'd like to suggest that you entertain the notion that you can have confidence that being direct with her will yield good results with her as you already know that you have the skill to make that work, as you regularly make it work for you here. You may not have as much confidence in yourself and your ability to make the direct approach work as you perhaps should have.

In some ways I'm reminded of my relationship with the Devi. The more I place confidence in myself, and take those risks I'm unsure of, the more I'm rewarded with both greater confidence in myself and my ability to bring about results, as well as a richer overall experience.

And I'm going to stop babbling now, for fear that the above has been a complete mistake and a misread and I now look like a complete idiot.

[max-greece]

Stimbo,

You are a funny guy - use it.

In my (extremely limited) experience its easier to get into a woman's pants when she's laughing her arse off.

For example:

"Look, I need to ask you something but its very difficult for me - I'm just too shy. It might be easier if we both strip off first and make love. I think I'd feel more comfortable about things after that and be able to ask."

[Cyberman]

We're really very open about so many things. That's one of the reasons we're so close. She does already know something of the way I feel about her, but I don't think she knows quite how deep it goes. I don't want to make her uncomfortable to the extent she feels she can no longer trust me.

@Max - I'm not sure that approach will have the desired effect, to be honest. It's about much more than just my wanting to get into her pants.

The humour thing will be natural, though. We do that all the time and I feel so wonderful when I make her laugh.

[max-greece]

We're really very open about so many things. That's one of the reasons we're so close. She does already know something of the way I feel about her, but I don't think she knows quite how deep it goes. I don't want to make her uncomfortable to the extent she feels she can no longer trust me.

@Max - I'm not sure that approach will have the desired effect, to be honest. It's about much more than just my wanting to get into her pants.

The humour thing will be natural, though. We do that all the time and I feel so wonderful when I make her laugh.

I'm sure it is - but its not a bad place to start.

Funnily enough - whilst I don't have much experience that is just about how my wife and I started......30 years ago.

[Angrboda]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCmUhYSr-e4


In researching the subject earlier, I discovered some interesting things about this song. The most obvious being that Redding didn't live to see the song released and become a success. It was recorded in 1967, and not released until after his death in a plane crash later that year. A curious fact, the whistling at the end of the song, performed by Redding himself, was not the intended closing of the song, as he intended to go back into the studio at a later date and add more words to it in place of the whistling. Strangely, he died before the song for which he is probably best known became popular, and he likely didn't envision it being released in the actual form that it was released. And yet today, that song is probably what most people think of when they think of him.



Oh, and Stimbo, I think you're only looking at one side. It's possible your honesty could result in less intimacy between you, whether romantic or platonic, but it's also possible it could lead to greater intimacy, of either variety. I feel somewhat awkward talking about it because I'm aware that I unconsciously use honesty and intimacy as a weapon, that my bluntness likely exists more for its capacity to drive people away than it does for its capacity to bring me closer to them. However, in more moderate measures, in someone who isn't batshit klazy like me, it has the potential for both encouraging or discouraging intimacy, and the general trend in relationships is typically toward greater intimacy, even if there is some splashing in the pool; people with good hearts find ways of finding each other, despite superficial obstacles and occasional missteps.


(ETA: And there's the other side of the coin. Your holding back may be what's causing things, that she may sense something is afoot and your holding back on it -- in direct contrast to your openness otherwise -- is itself introducing a note of caution into her thoughts. And there are other ways that can work to the same result. Perhaps your failure to step up to the plate is why she's pursuing other options. A girl gets tired of waiting. (Just a hypothetical, here; I'm not saying I know that you haven't or have been negligent, just a possibility.) Not being honest and direct enough can be just as deadly as being too direct. And I'll stop opining here.)