QC

I promised myself when I was 13 that I would never sexually fantasize about anyone I knew, and I kept that promise for 13 years. In relationships I tried to be a rom-com lead - charming words, big gestures, declarations of love, etc. It sort of worked, but not for long.

Eventually the charm would wear off, she would stop swooning, and I would start frantically trying to make everything okay again, which never worked. (I didn't learn about anxious attachment until much later, but even that wasn't enough, when it happened.)

When I wasn't in relationships I was generally too afraid to talk to women without being introduced by a third party. I was paralyzed by a fear of appearing "creepy," which maybe was disguising a fear of rejection.

Overall, I was cut off from myself, in many ways and for many reasons, and that meant I was cut off from women, too. I couldn't really feel or relate to them as people (only as the rom-com role I needed them to play), because I couldn't really feel or relate even to myself.

I contorted myself into the shape I thought would make women happy, and in doing so I hurt both them and myself in ways that took me a long time to start looking at and working on. In doing the work, getting back in touch with myself, a few things gradually became clear:

1) I have always felt a deep desire to be of service to women. That desire is good, and real, and true. I have seen the power that comes from sincerely inhabiting it. It is a core component of what it means to me to be a man. _And_...

2) I have also always felt a need to earn my worth as a human being. Growing up I was repeatedly told by my parents that I wasn't good enough, that I needed to be more like they wanted me to be in order to be accepted. I rejected this, but it wounded me - how could it not?

Serving women was the most purely good thing I could think of. So my self-worth got tied up in "succeeding" at it - I felt like I needed to do it in order to have any worth as a man at all - and when I "failed" it crushed me.