My Rabbi once told me...

I'd like to think of myself as someone who cares very deeply about the feelings of others.

It's always been particularly hard for me to say "no" to a woman. This is not because I'm oversexed, though I am, and not because I'm lonely, though sometimes I am that too. It's because I hate to feel like I'm, in any way, making someone feel like she is not good enough for me. It can be hard, at the end of dinner and a movie to tell someone that it's just going to be dinner and a movie when she, and not unreasonably, is expecting more. After I stumble through the words, and say goodnight, and then stumble through them again in the ensuing phone call, I start to think about a time when I was much better at this.

I remember, back in college, when I first started dating, I reached a place where was able to tell someone no, or no more, and do so firmly. I'd wait around all day to see them, feeling sick to my stomach, knowing what I was going to have to do, then tell them plainly, clearly, and as kindly as I could that I just didn't feel strongly enough about them to continue dating. I wondered for a bit why I am so much more bumbling at this now, but then I remembers the after-affects of saying no back then, and realized they were no better-- and often worse-- than today. Now maybe that's because the women were younger then, but mostly, I think it's because there's no good time and no good way to let someone down. There's a bad time and a bad way, mind you I understand that, but a good way? Anyway you do it, they're always sure you could have done it better, and maybe they're right.