Okay, so I was sort of wrong about Roy. He was disappointed about the hugging and kissing business, yes, but the real reason I had not heard from him was because he was holed up in his rooms, sick as a dog. That had not occurred to me (as usual); it had not even crossed my mind that there might have been other circumstances preventing him from immediately responding to my notes. No, in a trice I jumped to the worst conclusion of all, that he was, in a sense, “dumping me” — though we were hardly an “item” having had but two conversations face to face (still, why was he kissing me then?) — and all because I wasn’t giving him what he wanted…

Anyhow, I do feel better having told him my feelings, and having asserted my right to say no to hugging me, because now he knows that I do not want even that much physical contact, whether or not he had meant it to go any further. I talked to Lee about it as well at the very end of a troubled visit yesterday and he shared with me a little about “most men,” which was (something I didn’t know) that they tend to express their feelings physically, and that they also take rejection of offered embraces personally. So he suggested that Roy might have taken my refusal to hug him as a personal rejection. He suggested too that I write him a short note explaining that it was nothing about Roy himself at all, and telling him how much I enjoyed his conversation and so forth. Maybe I could feel things out and see if there wasn’t more there than I thought…It was, I think, good advice, even if, as it turned out, Roy was sick rather than rejecting me.

By the way, Thank you, Karen Sorensen, for your comment on yesterday’s post. And my congratulations on your lovely website and incredible artwork. I commend and recommend to anyone who sees this note that you check out Karen’s site which is listed in my blogroll.