Mostly talking about transference again. I said I want him to be okay with my feelings. He said he does feel okay with my feelings but he knows there has been times in the past when he has been 'knocked off balance' by my feelings and he can't promise that won't happen again, but that he feels confident he can steady himself again if it happens. I said I don't want to step on any landmines. I feel scared of being hurt. He said that's a powerful image.
A few minutes later I was looking deeply into his eyes and I said something to him, I can't remember what but I felt some kind of pressure and I commented on my feeling. He responded that he had recently watched a film about landmines which he had found disturbing and after what I said those images were in his mind. I continued to look at him. He said "what's happening?" I said "I feel better now you told me that. I felt there was some pressure there and it feels like we found the valve".
He cocked his head as I continued to look his eyes and said "you're highly intuitive, aren't you?" I replied "I feel it right now".
We were silent for a few more minutes and I asked him "how does it feel to be seen like that?" He said he felt a bit self-conscious. I said I understand that, being seen can feel good and bad.
We talked about how my deep connection to him and sensitivity to his emotional responses probably comes from having to gauge my mother's response because whether I was safe one day to the next depended on her moods. So I learned to pick up on things.
We went on to discuss what the transference feels like and what I do with the feelings. I said there's a particular song about absence which is not my genre and not something I would normally listen to but I have been listening to it a lot recently and thinking of him. Thinking of missing him when he's not there and having nothing without him. I said I know it's not true but in the moments I am listening to that song I could believe it's true. He was curious about that. How the fantasy and the reality coexist. He asked if that fueled the fantasy. I said that sounded pejorative. He apologised and said it wasn't meant to. I said I allow myself to feel the feelings that want to be felt. The erotic transference particularly comes from a teenage part of me and I allow those feelings the outlet they want, which means listening to sad songs, joking around with friends about sexual innuendo relating to him (I told him some sexual jokes I had made about him which was quite funny) and I alluded to sexual fantasy too without saying it.
I said that it occurred to me that the song I find myself listening to was released when I was a teenager and when my mother was sectioned. I said though I didn't have any conscious thoughts about it at the time, I wonder now whether the lyrics about somebody being gone had actually spoken to my feelings about her absence at that time.
We were almost going over time by this point so I paid him as we were still talking, we briefly hugged and I left.