“I’m going to dinner tomorrow night with friends”, he says.  I reply that that’s OK.  “I would want you to come but they are my friends and it’s not right to arrive with someone else without explanation first”, he adds.

Again, I tell him that there really is no need to explain everything.  I am cool about it.  As I point out, it will enable me to go to some of my friends (and I have been invited to dinner).

Later, whilst on our second beer, he asks me if I want to come over to his place later.  Of course!, I tell him.  He asks why I don’t suggest these things. This is much more difficult to explain.  I say that I don’t because I would be over all the time; any time he says but that I want it to be at his pace and I am trying to hold back from being too intense, trying to allow him to go at the speed he wants.

That’s not the whole truth though and I know that as I say it and it makes me feel just a little bit guilty.  It’s ‘the game’.  I wonder if, I am really such a bastard as I think I am or may be?  I wonder if I am just as bad as A says I am?

He says that my overriding thing is to get what I want; everything I do is geared towards my needs and my feelings.  And, he’s right, of course.  Oh yes, I can dress it up in various ways but in the end, he is telling it like it is.  He couldn’t quite believe what I was doing in the first place – the search, the amount of effort I was putting into it but dismissing some as just not good enough based on the criteria I had set – just like I do when searching for a new place to live

But, back to the point, which was why don’t I suggest things.  I don’t because it’s important that he feels he wants me, perhaps, more than I want him.  It’s not true as I want him much more, of course, but it means that he cannot be sure, I suppose, even if I have said that I would be there whenever he calls.  And, I suppose, it makes him feel a bit guilty too and, therefore, perhaps, rush into something much faster than he would do normally.  Which is, of course, exactly what I want, not what he wants.

It’s like everything I say is calculated and premeditated.  And, as I think about that, I know it is true.  Even spontaneous things are said/done with some care; some thought as to the implications further down the line.

I had written that I blame this on my father but that’s not really true either.  It’s just me.  It’s a side of me that I don’t really like but seem powerless to stop.

Of course, it’s also one of the ‘doubts’ that invade my sub-conscious when I’m not with him.  I am pushing by ‘not pushing’ and this is wrong and not a good basis to start with.  But, on the other hand, he’s old enough to make his own decisions and, as he has says, he wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to be.

But, on the other hand, is he where he wants to be or is he there because he feels he’s obliged to be?