fras:

this is true. But i'm so much better at repressing than expressing...

expressing is messy, and I don't have halfway enough confidence in the importance of my opinions, plus when I get upset, I tend to not be able to talk. literally, physically. And you know what happens then? Instead of letting me cool down, people say a lot of things that I agree with about how it's important to communicate, and this just makes me feel worse, and then I pretty much forget about whatever I was going to express.

lilwing:

yeah, it's confusing. when that happened I pretty much thought "ok, so we've been together for 2.5 years.. we've had sex.. we talk every day.. why doesn't he want me to live with him for 3 months? well, this obviously means he isn't really into me."

but believe me that isn't true at all. Nor is he seeing anyone. In fact, no matter how often the exclusivity issue raises it's ugly head, he has been exclusive. People say commitment phobia is codeword for "he doesn't like you" but that isn't true.

yeah, we talked about it. Well, it was kinda coupled with the exclusivity issue, so we talked about that part more. At the time he said something that sounded like he felt guilty about it, and I said "that makes me think that you feel guilty.." and he admitted it.
Then later he totally tried no less than to WEASEL his way out of that by changing "guilt" to "feeling bad" and saying that those are not the same. All his arguments were about how he had been "completely honest and consistent" about what he wanted (and therefore has no reason to feel guilty). in retrospect, it seems like a whole 2 weeks of arguing was basically him convincing me (or himself?) of this, in the process of which he flatly accused me of lying.
Then he really apologised (and never replied to the other email, though).

I never told him how much self-worth is lost during those two weeks.

oh **** it, it's midnight, guess i'm not going for that angry walk.

__________________