The Manca issue

I'm stuck and can't seem to shake a bad feeling today. I'm gonna have to call it the "Manca issue", because although the name doesn't sound all too nice, it does kind of sum up how I'm experiencing it.

Yesterday evening featured a third installment of Manca and me negiotiating our way around our feelings toward each other.

In the first, months ago, I confessed my growing romantic feelings for her on the kitchen floor in a moment in which I felt (beautifully) emotionally overwhelmed, and she rejected me using as her two foremost reasons, in my memory at least, (1) her recent breakup with Pablo, and (2) the fact that we're roommates.

In the second, on what was or felt like a relaxed Sunday afternoon on the couch, after she showed me some song with specifically romantic lyrics (that she brought my attention to), and after about 10 minutes of not knowing what to do, I felt the need to confront her again on the topic. She said she was unhappy and/or sorry, that I'd misconstrue her actions that way, and she felt her initial decision was correct and she wanted to stick with it.

When watching movies together, which we sometimes do, I always feel like her body language is telling me something different. She'll move and lay down slightly closer to me. I know my imagination can play parts, and that it's very possible for me to misconstrue her, and so even though I do often (but more subtly) reciprocate these movements, and even though I might be focused a great deal on this tension, measuring in my mind's eye the physical distance between us constantly, I keep myself aware of the boundary she so explicitly verbalized, twice.

Yesterday, we iterate. She lays down, snuggles her head slightly in my direction, and sometimes looks around to talk to me, and I can feel the focus and affection in her eyes. I reciprocate, but ever so slightly, weighing between the two opposite forces of, on the one hand, both wanting to respect her boundaries as well as trying to insulate myself from the love-pain I feel she's inflicting on me, and on the other hand, the bodily desire to touch her, hold her hand, stroke her neck, lay my head against her. I feel the distance between us, register her every motion. And this time, way more clearly than the last, she places her hands closer to me. I do and don't want to, feel very anxious about it, and then can't resist, casually placing my hand very close to her as well. She reacts and her hands twitch, from excitement I believe. I find it very hard to believe we don't both understand what childish/beautiful romantic game we're playing. But I'm way too nervous, and I can't square the signals in my mind. So this is where we stay, until she withdraws, and I withdraw, and the movie ends.

But instead of bringing the evening to an end, we each roll ourselves up a bit more, and share slow, cute, intimate conversation. I don't want the feeling to end, and it feels like Manca also doesn't want that. I close my eyes and listen to her voice, which becomes more beautiful and encompassing. The clock ticks in the background, the neighbors make slight movements, and the rest is silence, interspliced with her voice. If I could get my way, I wouldn't have to reply, wouldn't have to hear my silly words and sentences and anecdotes, I'd just listen to her. Maybe she could read me a story. Conversation dies, as we're also both quite tired, and we just lie there, almost falling asleep.

I know we can't jus fall asleep there. I have washed clothing that needs to be hung up badly, and I don't think we'd be able to implicitly decide for some weird suboptimal sleeping apart, together, on the couch, with straight faces. We're gonna have to stand up and go to bed, eventually, and I'm dreading that moment. All these thoughts, and what I could possibly do, whatever I could say to somehow fix, solve, or improve the situation, keep racing through my head, but in this ineffective, feverish, looping kind of way, that happens to me when I'm stuck in one position and there's no new input.

After what feels like the longest time, I confront her again. I might have considered 10 different ways in my mind, but the one that I produce is the shortest, silliest, and sadly a bit passive-aggresive version, some lesser version of: "Manca, my mind if stuck, I feel so much tension, and I'd just want to hold your hand, or lay closer to you, but I don't know what to do". She replies, hesitantly, that she's like to hold hands, but she doesn't know if that's what I want. And I reply, this time definitely passive-aggresively, that unless it "doesn't go anywhere", I'd probably better brush my teeth and go to bed. I meant, of course, if "the thing between us" doesn't go anywhere, but feel like it probably sounded like "something right now" doesn't go anywhere. I should at least have chosen for "if it doesn't mean anything to you".

I brush my teeth, hang up my clothes, and she reiterates the kind of stuff we said after our second installment. A bit later, when I'm in my room, she comes to me and tells me she has clearer thoughts and wants to clarify some stuff. She says she feels a different kind of affection for me. The kind of affection that the 8-year-olds share, like in the movie we just watched. It could even be likened familial in some way, she doesn't say this explicitly but it's implied through the movie we just watched, and a reference she makes to another one we recently watched where some similar affection is displayed.

I really don't know what to make of it all. There's two conflicting sides. On the one hand, I want to play all of this both properly, as well as possibly strategically. In some insidious way, these feel aligned. I should respect her boundaries, believe what she says about her reasons and her 8-year-old-style affection, and try to move on myself. And where and it that's not possible, it'll become apparent, and we might move closer to each other yet. And although it might be wise to try to move on myself, it also feels natural to poke at it, testing my feelings for her. Maybe I can turn them into friendly affection too, or maybe not and then at least I'm clearer on what I want.

But on the other hand, I almost want to feel angry at her. Why is she spending so much thought trying to frame her affection into a shape that doesn't involve romantic feelings? Is she scared of the consequences? We could take things slowly and tackle it all together. We're reasonable people, and by the way, what happened to the logical order of snuggling, dating, sex, relationship? It's totally fine to break off somewhere along that sequence, and we could deal with it. Am I undesirable, do I not match the kind of persons she sees herself with? Or is she scared whether what she feels is love? I hope this last one is not the problem, and I'm projecting for it to be the case, but I do feel it might be partly so. I so hate that problem, and it would be the saddest thing if she chooses against us in its name. I would go back and save my relationship with Julia from this demon if that were possible, but that's too late and we've moved on by now. I would go back and save myself from so much torment in my youth by telling my younger self that love is something that, aside from a certain bedrock of shared experience and compatibility, you grow and nurture and build together. Manca has fascinated me from even before she moved in, I enjoy spending all my time with her and long for more of it, we connect on a deep level of shared experience of the world, and added to all of this I'm much attracted to her. It often feels to me like most of the this is felt mutually, and I just can't wrap my head about why, if we both feel affectionately about each other in this way, we shouldn't at least give us a try.