Comments

So I got four extremely interesting comments on my "conclusions" post that I wanted to answer. First of all, before I go into each comment individually I want to say that each of you brought up things that were extremely true and each of you hit a different truth. Even if some of your comments are contrasting, they each have elements that are useful to me.

Advizor:
I agree with accepting his apology for what it is, and I also think it may be a good idea to revisit the topic at a later date... I'm not sure it will happen though, I may just let it slide as Kenny suggests but as Johanna says often what I need is proof that he knows what he's apologizing for.

Eden:
You hit so many raw nerves in your comment. He has changed a lot over the years, I'm sure we both have. But I think that he has changed more than I have. This is one reason behind his comment of not wanting to change. He probably was like this when I met him, but I think that at the beginning of a relationship you tend to do your best to please, so making unnecessary comments on how much you hate a gift was probably avoided on his part.

your second comment hit the nail right on the head. We are exactly that, two beasts co-existing for the sake of habit and not so much for love. I have written that myself when I first started this blog, it was my fear, but the fear is now becoming more concrete. I've been told by a professional counsellor though that a relationship built like this is probably more solid than one built on passion. Or I guess she said: "sometimes we don't marry the people we are madly in love with" (I made the above conclusion) and so I have stuck with it.

Johanna:
Ahh you've noticed it too then. It's not just me. The intimacy does peter out after things like this. One by one they eat away at the relationship don't they? That's exactly it though. I was expecting something more from his apology. I think though that men and women see apologies and how to apologize differently. I was probably expecting flowers and chocolates, and he figured saying "I love you" or coming to see me in bed and caressing my face and hair for 20 minutes was an apology. It's hard to know what the other person has in heart and in mind. And as Kenny said, men are really bad mind readers.

Kenny:
You're right... perhaps I should just move on and try again. Problem is this, I've tried this little surprise once and it didn't fail but almost, I tried it again and it failed miserably. Compare that to your horse analogy and you'll get something like: I got bucked off the horse the first time and I got back on and rode and it was ok, then I tried riding again because I enjoyed it and thought the horse did too, but he bucks me off again but this time he tramples me under foot. I'm not sure I'd get back on after that... I'd be freaked that he'd walk all over me again.

Conclusions
We'll see... We haven't had sex yet, it's been over a week. He has hinted at wanting to, I have pretended to not understand. It is no different than what normally goes down I suppose. I wish that he were the type of guy who when in need just comes and gets it... Throws me on the bed type of guy. But he's not. So I wait for a more decisive move on his part and I think in a few weeks things will be back to normal.

One thing that did happen was that I was in a bit of depression Saturday morning. He came and talked to me in bed. And we decided to set some goals for April. He's going to get a move on getting his certificate for his new job prospect (yay!) and I'm going to get a studio space by april (YAY!) So I'll have more space and time on my own even if he doesn't get his certificate. We'll help each other stay on track that way.
I think part of what set me up for a morning of depression was an older guy at the pub the other evening, he set down 7 coasters in a row, and took off two at the top end and said, those are your 60th and 70th years those are going to be spent in retirement. Then he said, "how old are you?" The young guy he was talking to said 35, so he then took another two off the bottom (10 and 20s) and tore a 3rd in half. He said, while looking at the remaining two and a half, "that's what you've got left to make it worth while".

I turned to look at him and told him that it was going to put me into a crisis, and that he wasn't allowed to do that in a pub while people are drinking and getting drunk. And he said "sure I can, it'll give you direction". I think he was right... so was I (it put me in a crisis), but it has also put things into perspective. He was the boss of the company London girl used to work for.

History Boys

So I saw a movie called The History Boys. It was pretty good. I actually enjoyed it. I checked it on Rotten Tomatoes, but it didn't have such a high rating. I was expecting it to have a higher rating. Fact is that often I think that the Italian dubbing makes things better than they actually are. They do have to change the dialogues to fit the Italian culture and language a bit, often quite a lot. But that's not the point of my post today.

The point of my post is that the film was about something I'd never really considered much. Let me give you guys a brief run down on the basic story without giving too much away in case you want to see it for yourself.

It's the story of a group of boys at a british boys college. They are trying to get into Oxford (if I'm not mistaken) and they are intelligent, funny, talented and witty. They are also good looking which helps with the plot a lot and you'll understand why in a bit. The boys have a fat and quite unattractive professor who is however very good and basically lets the boys do what they want believing that it is still a learning experience. He is a closet gay and the only action he gets is when he gives the boys a ride home on his motorbike. He feels them up while driving. The boys in the story are perfectly aware of his little secret and go along with it because we assume they don't want him to get fired. They have ingenious ways of keeping him from actually feeling them up, like putting a bag between them, but the fact is that it is obviously sexual harassment. Later a sort of substitute teacher is hired, he's a good looking young guy who has to get these kids into Oxford. The kids all love him as a professor but there's also an underlying theme of some of the boys being gay and one in particular is attracted to him and the young hot professor is also attracted to this kid but doesn't want to become like the fat ugly professor.

The first thing that got to me is the fact that the sexual harassment was portrayed and dismissed so easily. I wonder if it could actually be as light hearted as they portrayed it. Meaning that the boys were never touched or abused naked, they were groped at over their clothes and they just kind of laughed about it. They showed very minor unease with it when the professor offered rides home and no-one wanted to go. But there was always someone who offered to go in the end.

**SPOILER ALLERT**

Another thing that caught me was the sexual relationship between gay men. For a woman... or at least for me, it was a total turn on to hear a hot guy tell another hot guy that he would let him suck his cock.

I suppose a lot of that could be the context, the fact that there was such a build up to that crucial scene and it was quite unexpected. I moaned and gasped at that scene. And to think that nothing actually happened in the scene it was just one guy talking to another. It got me so worked up I had to go find some gay porn to see if I'd like it. I've never really gone looking for gay sex online.

HNT in the shower.

*click*

This isn't a recent pic, I took it a while back and never posted it. I've placed a different filter on each and I've removed some background items and characteristics of my bathroom just so it wasn't so recognisable... so if you see airbrushing it's just me eliminating stuff ;-)

The conclusion... or is it?

The make-up story went like this

I woke up Monday morning, talked to my dad on skype for a bit (neither bf or I are really working much these days), laughed with him and was going to go about my day giving bf the cold shoulder while I tried to figure out how to go about normally with the rest of my day. Bf walked into the guest bedroom after I finished with my dad. I was in the middle of watching a video on youtube. And he said that he wanted to talk. I took my headphones out and he started talking.

He started by talking about the first argument. How he hadn't gotten over the fight and how he couldn't switch back to normal just like that. We started arguing again on the same topic as the first argument and eventually got back on track to what had happened the night before. To make a long story short, he apologised for the way he behaved, he said I'm sorry about 5 times. But I just kept crying and he kept asking me if I had understood. He said that he shouldn't have behaved that way. I told him that it feel like he doesn't appreciate anything I do for him at all, whether it's a gift or a surprise he always has something negative to say. And he admitted that he does that and that it's not very nice. He said that he will try to avoid that, but then, I think he thought about it again and said that it was part of his character and that he didn't think he should change it. And then he was a bit back and forth on that one.... strange.

So he gave me hugs and I cried, I calmed down and then he left to do something and then he came back all of a sudden and said "I love you" and gave me another hug. He has never done that before. It's the first time he has said, I love you like that, and I think he may have even shed a tear he was slightly emotional and walked off right away. He has never cried in front of me in 12.5 years. And I still can't say after this that I have seen it, but I'm pretty sure he was close.

What I don't know is how far an "I'm sorry" goes. Does an I'm sorry heal everything. Does it mean that I shouldn't feel hurt? Does it mean that I should stop thinking about it? does it mean that I should give up making him understand how horrible I felt? Because I'm not sure whether he understands how horrible it was for me. I didn't tell him it was demeaning. I didn't tell him I felt terribly embarrassed. I didn't tell him how much emotional effort went into that evening, getting past my emotional embarrassment of dressing up for him, fearing being ridiculed and then getting exactly what I feared.

I'm afraid this will take longer than we both let on.... especially me.

He crawled into bed Tuesday morning after he had already been up for a while, I was just waking up, but nothing happened. Sometimes we have nice morning sex like that. But it just wasn't happening. I think he wanted to, but I honestly did have a lot of things to get done, but it was also a bit of an excuse I don't know what it's going to take for me to get back to normal.

In all honesty too... I was expecting flowers or chocolates or something. He went out that morning to pick some stuff up, he even went into the market and I'm pretty sure there's a flower stand there, but I guess he didn't think of it.

One other random observation I had during all of this... my cry in the shower on Sunday eve was strange. Now generally when you have a good cry you feel a bit better. I don't know if it was because I was just so numb or because of the shower itself. But the fact that you can't feel the tears run down your face makes it seem like you aren't actually crying. I think that the actual tears on your skin must do something... if they're washed away... it's just not the same effect.

Thanks for all the kind words of comprehension in the comments yesterday, I do appreciate them and learn from everything.

Traumatised.

**Written Saturday evening**

I probably shouldn't be writing right now. I'm in a strange mood. I don't think I've ever really been in a mood like this. I'm feeling kinda numb.

The events went like this.
Last week was a long and draining week for me. This coming week I have nothing really going on, very little work.
Sometime around Thursday bf started getting on my back about the usual things like putting my stuff away and cleaning up a bit. Nothing serious, nothing I took much note of. Friday was the same. Saturday morning it must have got to him because he shot me with about 20 things that I should have done prior to that moment. One after the other like a firing squad.
My previous plans were actually to spend Saturday relaxing with bf at home or doing something together, then in the evening while he was working I'd tidy up, clean and possibly surprise him with me in bed wearing something sexy.
I didn't say anything to him before Saturday morning due to the fact that it was supposed to be a surprise and I wasn't sure I'd end up doing it either. I didn't want to get myself into a tight spot that I'd feel obliged to carry through with stuff.
Except that Saturday morning when he drilled me with all the stuff that I do, he didn't know what I had planned.
I flipped. My reaction was pretty intense. I threw a phonebook (that I hadn't put away) past him onto the floor. I was so angry at him for the way he had flooded me with 20 things at me all at once and not only that, he was just fucking up my plans.
Turns out in the middle of our argument bf gets a call and has to go out. He comes back with a friend of ours for lunch and I'm having a hard time keeping myself from crying.
The day manages to go on and Sunday morning comes and we've basically made up. So Sunday afternoon rolls round and bf goes to work and I figure why not do what I was going to do Saturday... So I run around the house cleaning and tidying like a madwoman. I get dressed in one of his dress shirts (that I gave him), a tie and a pair of lace culottes, nothing else. I prepared a camera and a miniature bottle of Nutella and wrote a note that said "choose" and placed it on the floor in front of the door with a candle so that he'd see it when he walked in.
I lit a few candles in the bedroom and waited for him to get home.

**brief interval for some explanations: I'm not sure if anyone here reads my blog on a regular basis so I'll remind or tell you that I had already done something similar a few months ago. The evening didn't go very well and so I thought it would be nice to try again.**

So bf gets home about 15 minutes later than usual. He must have worked more than usual. (keep in mind people that he works a total of 3 hours, so if he works more than usual it's somewhere around 3.5 hours at the very most. He gets in, drops his duffle bag and says something that could be translated as "not again" or "again...??" (with a negative ring to it)

He ignores the note, camera and Nutella, walks into the bedroom with his coat still on, looks at me and laughs. I play along and smile. He then says "how long have you been sitting there?"
I answer truthfully about 15 minutes.
Then he leaves takes his coat off, "notices" the note... possibly reads it this time. Comes back into the room, and after laughing at me some more he says "is that my shirt?" (again not very nicely) When I say yes, he says "take it off please". And believe me it wasn't the sexy... I wanna get you naked type of sentence. I remove the tie, unbutton the shirt and in the meantime he continues to talk. He says, "do you know how much you're spending on candles here???" I look at his face in search of an answer, trying to figure out if he's kidding me or what. He is smiling but it's not a friendly smile. I hand him his shirt, he thanks me and says now you're naked. But I'm already fumbling for my hoodie. He then says, "do you think you look cute like that? you looked better in the shirt." holding the shirt up to look at it and then diligently places it back in his side of the wardrobe. I'm sitting cross legged on the bed, bury my head in my pillow for a moment in despair, I sit back up and he says, "now what, are you offended??" I don't answer him. He says "you were just waiting for that weren't you" (as if to say that I was waiting for a good reason to argue) I put a pair of sweatpants on and I walk out of the room. He calls after me asking what I expected he "just got off work", and I said that I was hoping for a slightly different reaction. And his answer was "oh well".

WHAT THE FUCK??? I don't get it. I am totally boggled. I'm totally confused. What did I do wrong? And here I am thinking to myself... this can't be right... any other guy would jump at an opportunity like that... right?

So I'm not sleeping in our bedroom tonight. I was tempted to leave, tempted to go to a hotel. But it was late so I've opted for the guest room. I had a good cry in the shower, but now I'm just angry... not even angry... resigned almost. I don't know what to do.

Fact is he NEVER appreciates anything. Fact is it's like the Christmas gift problem. He might as well take a birthday cake that I make or buy and throw it in the garbage without even tasting it. Fact is I'm a relatively shy person when it comes to this kind of thing, it's out of character for this relationship (with another relationship I'd be dressing up all the time, I love it). It's not only out of character it's a bit embarrassing and it kinda exposes me a bit, I'm worried of his judgement. And his reaction was certainly one that has traumatised me into never wanting to do it again... never ever ever.

** congratulations to anyone who got to the end of this... there will be a followup post to explain that I worked things out with bf and how that went down.**

Update

I had a very busy week and was laying low in the blogsphere, I apologise for this as I was at least hoping to get up an HNT continuation of last week since I have some extra pictures. It's just that I was always at work and when I wasn't bf was home spending time with me. It's a good thing... I know, but I do like my space.

Ahhh the weekend. It's finally here. I can get the 3 hours to myself on Saturday and Sunday eves to write and stuff. Today Bf is studying English while I write this. So I can kinda get away with typing a lot.

The updates for the past week are few but to me they are interesting.

Rob
Rob and I were texting the other day and he asked me if I had seen who my most recent follower was... surprise!! It was him, Haha I know totally random. Who knows why, I asked him the first chance I had and he admitted that he really didn't know. I may still convince him to start a blog... who knows. Anyhow there is now a minor (very minor) possibility that he will show up in some comment here and there. Anyhow I was super happy about it and giggled my way through the rest of the day. I guess partially because it was a very intense morning but eventful also with Co-worker as I will explain below. I had a really really nice conversation with Rob too. His iPhone is a total revelation to me. Hearing his voice takes me over the edge. We've never really used voice much and voice tends to really embarrass me. I was shy for the first 5 minutes, having a hard time figuring out what to say. Then the conversation started rolling and it took a natural curve into a relatively deep sphere. It was nice. When we met up in London a year and a half ago, it was very superficial conversation we were pretty shy. As he put it it may have been the first real conversation we've had. Then of course there was the rest... hot and steamy and only 20 minutes of well... yeah... you know the rest. ;-)

Co-Worker

We had a very intense week at work and Friday was especially tough for me, I basically run the show on Friday at work. My boss decided to throw a little lunchtime party for the end of the week (as we often do since we work with tourists who are visiting for a week) and we all gathered around the table to eat and socialise.

At one point I was sitting on a stool at the head of the table to oversee the events and Co-worker came over to stand next to me. He bumped and nudged me and stood so that we were leaning against each other, his hands were placed neatly in front of him. Neither of us moved out of the other's space. Then he got called off but before leaving he gave me a little pat/rub on the back.

Ok... so that must sound obsessive and detailed but it kinda meant quite a bit to me. To me it meant that he had a hard time moving away. That rub on the back was a kind of I don't want to let go... sorta thing.

There's a kind of weird gravitation involved between us. We tend to move towards each other when we're working. We are like magnets. The strange thing though is when we're not working or when we're alone we are afraid to touch. There's an invisible bubble, like when two magnetic poles push against each other. I've had lunch with him various times on my own, without the rest of our lunch group because we were early. But there's friendly conversation and nothing more. When others are around or when we're working we have less difficulty in being more physical.

Now if I were a reader of my own blog I'd probably tell myself that the reason for all this is that we're afraid of facing the reality of our attraction and we use the distractions of work and other people to cover what we're doing. Right? hmmm

File a request if you want to flirt

So I heard a thing on the radio the other day that made me think. It seems that somewhere in the UK there's a new policy for businesses (now I'm saying what the radio said and not what is actually the reality, I'm guessing that the story is actually quite different from how they portrayed it). In fact, I'm assuming that the this may have been used as a tactic by a few companies to avoid sexual harassment problems.  I doubt it has become a law for all companies. Anyone can correct me here though, because I actually have no idea.

The policy is supposedly that if you want to flirt with a co-worker you have to file a request these days.

The radio speaker was totally aghast about the whole thing. I live in a Mediterranean country and of course flirting and externalising feelings of love is probably one of the most important aspects of culture here.
Now the Mediterraneans would hate to be forced to declare the fact that they are flirting with someone. It would take the "soul" out of the whole thing.

I do however see how it could resolve a serious problem. On the other hand it would put a huge damper on flirting with someone behind your spouses back and possibly even put a damper on flirting in general. The whole point of flirting is the fact that you often don't expect it. Having to declare (almost publicly) that you'll be flirting will take some, if not all, of the fun out of it. I flirt with one of my co-workers quite a bit. If I were working in N.America I could see how it might be a problem if my other co-workers saw him slap me on the ass (as he has done before). But I know for sure that we wouldn't flirt and my days would be much sadder if I had to declare it. We're both very involved (practically married) with other people.