Just wanted to follow up with investigation of another feeling that popped up — sorrow. I quickly observed that whenever sorrow would arrise, I’d instantly wallow in it. That’s how I (internally) “express” sorrow. Without expressing as such, however, I was able to take a good look at its mechanism. In it, there is a repressed anger (at other person; at that situation) which gets quickly redirected inwards (because it is “wrong” to be angry, especially at women), hence ‘sorrowful’. The anger was about being deprived of ‘stakes’ (playing for keeps). The ‘stakes’ was self-worth. Like she holds the key to my self-worth (again, cf. Richard & Tarin on love); and if she ‘rejects’ me, my self-worth goes out of the window, with her.
I had an internal conversation using common-sense (no longer pushing the feeling away), to see if this is all actually necessary. This fear & sorrow makes me super-serious with her, basically, so how can there be ‘play’? Somewhere along the line I discovered (the long forgotten) naiveté … as in, a zero-stakes sexual & naive play being a better alternative here … and, thus, I get to keep my autonomy (no more self-worth transactions)! It is a nascent discovery right now, but I just wanted to put it out first before it possibly slips out of my mind.