Dear Fella:

Everything I thought I loved about you has turned out to be completely and totally false.

2012 & 2013 were interesting years for my romantic life, teaching me that the character qualities which I once thought I appreciated are in fact the very qualities now violently repulsing me.

I am about to share with you a glimpse at the scars on my heart, scars which I do not wish to have ripped open ever again and so hoping that this virtual letter not-in-a-bottle will eventually fall into your hands.

You should probably know that I have dealt with some very seriously demented others. Men who have lied and manipulated, behaved in ways polar opposite to how I was taught to engage, ways best articulated by saying that they each in turn took my trust and used it as a weapon against my own heart. So, if I am short on trust, please be kind and forgive me; please be gentle and understand me; please be compassionate and treat me and this heart I carry as a small bird in your hand so very scared and always at the ready to take flight if it looks like you too might take a knife to existing wounds.

Every man I have engaged until now has been polished. Branded. With moves for days. If you are one such man, please stop reading. I am not the woman for you today, nor will I ever be so tomorrow.

I will be far more comfortable with you if you understand and engage the difference between being charming and seduction. If you are someone who has tried, tested and true moves, you are today my worst nightmare when once your moves draped like velvet across my skin. Seduction is not something I wish for you to take lightly, nor is it something I want you to measure as though it has a finish line. I want you to respect the undressing of our hearts as equally as you do the undressing of our bodies. If your currency with all women is seduction, your access to me will stop as quickly as it came.

If you are somewhat awkward, unpolished, someone who fumbles and who has no ‘sure moves’, I will be drawn to you. Because though my trade and best quality is that I can charm and work any room into which I am dropped, I am a different creature behind closed doors. I myself am shy and awkward when I am forced to remove my armour; I don’t have moves and I don’t have lines and if I open these lips to say something to you, know that the words come from a place of only the most ferocious (and possibly jarring) honesty. I want your communication with me to be in this same way.

I will be attracted to your composed manner, so do not rush me. I have been conditioned to believe that if a man cares for / is interested in / wants a woman, he will throw himself out of an airplane to reach her. I have had enough experience to know that if you are quick to throw yourself at me, then you are quick to throw yourself at anyone. Additionally, very personally to me, it says that you are prone to changing your mind away from something as quickly as you were to turn towards it. No security here for a heart like mine so expect me to vanish under such circumstance.

If you are incapable of being alone for any extended period of time, I will shy away from you. I am not interested in being a filler for your loneliness, because that – to me – says that I am replaceable. And I, not under any circumstance in this world, will engage a man who does not see me for the uniqueness of quality which I bring to the table. In my heart, you will be of this same unique caliber, untouchable by any other.

Be calm and balanced: Because I am not. I am volatile and irrational and impulsive and you must afford me the room to be just these very things. These very things, they are the fabric of my heart which will bring a smile to your face more than engendering a frown; equally they are the reason for my passion and warmth. Keep that in mind, every day. Then let me run wild. Eventually, I will calm down and (figuratively and actually) sit quietly next to you when it is time. Trust that I am adult enough to know when ‘it is time’ and child enough to lighten all other moments. Chances are, it’s why you were attracted to me in the first place.

Learn my mind before you read my body. Explanation not required.

With love,

xx M

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