Explain it for an old man. You had to play it cool. I wondered about the deeper reason behind this. What did it mean for her to show interest? That she was clingy, needy, too quick to push for commitment? Maybe these two poles represent the most selfish primal desires of men and women: men want to spread their seed as widely as possible, while women want stability to raise children in.
These two desires are locked in competition, and a fragmented society allows them to bounce us back and forth like ping-pong balls instead of reaching any kind of compromise.
Traditional societies compromised toward the feminine ideal by supporting the family and forbidding sex outside of marriage, and the sexual revolution, instead of liberating us from patriarchy, ironically ushered in its truest face: an infinite supply of hopeful young women for the most successful men while an infinite string of empty hookups turns everyone else cynical and hopeless of ever finding a life partner.
I was staying out of all this, trying not to think about it too hard, trying to figure myself out before I re-entered the dating pool, and then something happened that got me searching for a solution. But on the last day she gifted me a small bottle of palo santo oil which I kept in the top of my backpack, and the smell kept reminding me of her.
We stayed in touch via occasional text messages. Just as I was falling asleep, she gathered the courage to ask me if I wanted to snuggle. I did. She said it felt like I was a bird enfolding her in my wings.
