From the list of Things You Never Thought You'd Hear a Man Say...

I've been seeing The Highlander now for nearly 3 months, so of course I know to expect (but am not looking forward to) The Conversation, wherein we decide if we're going to be exclusive or not. Which translates to be exclusive or break-up. I don't like these conversations, which is probably why I've only had imaginary boyfriends and not a real-life boyfriend in a few years. But I know it can't be avoided this time, especially because we've been having regular sleepovers and trying to socialize our cats.

The Conversation didn't happen on Saturday, but we got a bit of a precursor to it. I certainly don't want to rehash the whole convo, but will instead skip directly to the highlight. At one point, The Highlander said to me, "I think you may have a problem with emotional intimacy." I'll get to what I think of my ability to be emotionally intimate in a moment, but first...seriously? I know he continued to talk and was saying something about how maybe I've been hurt before, but all I could do was concentrate on not smiling. This was a serious topic he was broaching, but all I could think of was the unlikelihood of having a man, who is a potential mate, sitting in front of me, wanting to talk about my issues with emotional intimacy. Has any woman ever had a man accuse them of not being emotionally intimate? Because I think I may be the first one.

I know you're probably thinking that I've taken the whole Ice Queen routine a bit far, but from what he said, this actually has nothing to do with my busy schedule, but instead by my squirminess in moments like these, my unwillingness to discuss my romantic past (and especially his), and my lack of verbalizing my feelings, so to speak. I don't actually come out and say, "Hey, I really like you." Sadly, I had to do that with McNerdy once upon a time (because he refused to talk about any of these things either, most likely the reason we were such a disaster) and my entire face twitched the whole time. I know that I am capable of emotional intimacy because I've been there before. I do, however, believe it takes me a bit longer than the average person to get there. It's just how I'm wired. I'm skeptical.