User:Woozle/LwaC/2014-11-16

#confidential continued... Since I posted a negative thing last night, I should give you a positive update on the #lunchWithAConservative saga.

Long story short: I said we could meet as long as I could arbitrarily declare subjects off-limits. He agreed. We met, and he was very supportive.

For anyone who wants the blow-by-blow that led up to this, here it is -- starting with the last email from my previous post:

<paste from=me date=11/7>

Dad,

Answers to these questions are among the things I was going to talk about in the email I started writing to you earlier -- but then you said you didn't want to hear it. I'm getting mixed signals at best, here.

W.

</paste>

<paste from=him date=11/8>

W: Please, no long email. I am your father and I care about you. The last thing we need is to exchange long essays (f only because we are unlikely to convince one another). What I'm looking for is simply normal human contact with some reciprocity. It shouldn't all come from me. You should ask me to lunch once in a while. And it needs to be face to face -- not filtered through email. If you can manage that, then we can go on. But if not, the future looks a bit grim to me.

As ever, D

</paste>

This was kind of a major "..." moment for me, and I went back and forth all weekend over how to respond. I finally had an idea how to handle it on Monday morning, and after much discussion with Harena, combined it with the softer of the replies I was considering:

<paste from=me date=11/10>

If you do care about me, then you will be willing to do what needs to be done in order for me to feel comfortable around you -- including reading (and taking in) my attempts to communicate in writing.

I am frankly quite surprised that this is such a big obstacle for you, given your stated interest in understanding my misgivings, but the fact is that I do not feel comfortable speaking with you face to face on certain subjects.

Therefore: we can meet face to face as long as you understand that if I consider a subject to be off-limits, then it is.

Regards, W.

</paste>

<paste from=him date=11/10>

Dear W: I've been reading your emails for many years now, but I still don't really understand what the problem is. That's why I feel we have to talk. Of course I don't want to make you unhappy. But since I don't understand -- at all, really -- what makes you uncomfortable around me, we do have a problem.

So let's have lunch at _[Indian restaurant]_ tomorrow and see what we can work out. I don't want to be estranged from you and I hope vice versa. But dancing around an unstated problem just makes it worse, I think.

Love, D

</paste>

Not really expecting a positive outcome, I responded:

<paste from=me>

Well, I've tried to explain it to you in person as well, and that didn't seem to work either -- which is hardly surprising, since I'm not as good at explaining things in person.

Perhaps it would help if I wrote my explanation out, and then brought it with me as a reference (rather than sending it to you)? I'm still game to keep trying. I've long since gotten over any sense of imperative in conveying understanding of these things to you, however; I mainly wanted to respond to your inquiries.

Sure, we can meet today. Just please be prepared to change the subject if I ask.

Thanks,

W.

</paste>

...but he agreed to that, and the conversation was generally quite positive.

I hypothesized that much of my fear of him was possibly left over from when he was the big authority figure in my life (growing up) and that this was being triggered by things he did or said, causing what is essentially an overreaction on my part -- which isn't to excuse the original behavior or pretend it didn't happen (or deny the validity of my reactions), but I also conceded that some of it was probably due to some really bad dynamics that were encouraged by my mom.

Having those boundaries in place, I was able to bring up some issues I'd always been afraid of getting into before. I was still afraid, but it was a manageable fear because I knew I could back out if I needed to.

I'm still not going near the gender issues yet; I don't yet know if I'll be discussing that with him or not, though it does begin to seem like a thing that could happen sometime in the future. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, he's off to Atlanta this weekend for a conference or something, and he's going to stop by Athens to visit my daughter (turning 20 this month), whom I didn't have time/spoons/resources to visit this summer (and who is now doing a far, far better job of being a responsible adult than I have been for the past decade or more). My life is one big trigger... maybe I should have a trigger warning engraved on the inside of my eyelids.