Content warning:
This post discusses sexual encounters, bereavement, boundary-setting, and emotional discomfort. There are references to grief and sexual situations that some readers may find challenging.

Yesterday, Sunday’s disastrous hookup sent me an intimate picture of his deceased husband on their anniversary.

I didn’t know what to say, so I ignored it.

Then he sent me a message this morning:

Morning 🌄, hope you are well.have you done the pics ?

I panicked. I really didn’t want to engage further. I certainly didn’t want to give this fellow any false hope about the future.

I sought counsel with myself and a friend. I needed to gracefully decline and set a boundary. We crafted this response:

I’m not comfortable taking photographs. I’ll return the underwear. Take care.

Not brutal, but clear, which was the best kindness I could offer. I did not want to ghost the fellow – he didn’t deserve that.

He replied:

They are for you. Only asked as you said you would do some pics of you wearing them.

I did indeed say that I would take pictures for him. I was wrong-footed as I was leaving when he gave me the underwear. He’d talked about them before as being his favourite – but I came to realise that they must have been his husband’s favourite.

And that made my gut do strange things.

I’m starting to learn that my guy can express emotions that my brain cannot understand directly.

After thinking, I replied:

I’ve thought about it and I’m not comfortable doing that. I won’t be sending photos.

Simple, direct, and not unkind.

Some use honesty as a baseball bat to assault people with. That’s not really honest, that’s needless brutality.

Some are simply honest and unadorned, but without any dressing or finesse. At least you know where you are with them, even if the words themselves hurt. Sometimes this is me – true but unconsidered.

I hated to see the hurt on a person’s face when I was direct – and I would often cave in if they pushed back.

I used to hide behind dishonesty to spare another’s feelings – and spare my own discomfort at the effects of the truth. Maybe a little white lie might save a ton of explanation and hurt.

But then the recipient isn’t aware of all the facts and can act on this false information … such as thinking there’s a romantic future when there really ain’t!

Just as often, I would dress my feelings up so much that the listener wouldn’t know what I was talking about! The result? I’m wasn’t heard. My boundaries were unknown.

The lies, white or otherwise, are a betrayal of myself and the other person.

I’m trying to tread that middle ground between the naked truth and making it so cuddly that the listener doesn’t understand what I’m talking about. Just enough thought to take the edge off it, think of it as a velvet glove with a brick in it. I can always swing it again if they don’t pay heed the first time!

The fellow spared himself and me the discomfort of continuing the conversation with a simple –

Okay, no worries.

At that I felt a profound relief and a gratitude that he wasn’t going to keep banging on the gate.

I’ve learnt a lesson from my past – this time!