Told t the story of how my weekend went. She cracked up all the way through the ridiculous first bit where one of my very-drunk-and-also-very-engaged co-workers took off her shirt and threw herself at one of the psych interns and me ("that's what it looks like to be an externalizer," said t). When I got to the point of the evening where I ended up sleeping with said psych intern, she raised her eyebrows and said, "way to bury the lead!"

It was odd... I have a pretty blasé attitude about sex; while I managed to feel tortured about a lot of things in my life, sex isn't one of them. But t seemed almost uncomfortable when we were talking about the sex part? Usually she sits facing me or sometimes fiddles with things on her desk (to her left) if I've spent most of the session too ashamed to look up from my feet... but during that bit of the session she hooked and unhooked her feet behind the legs of the table to the right of her chair. I've never seen her do that before. And she just seemed... I dunno, uncomfortable somehow. Like not looking me quite in the eye, maybe?

She and I were raised in different cultures, and mine has a *much* more permissive attitude about premarital sex than hers does (cannot overstate this)... is it possible that she's uncomfortable with the topic of casual sex? (I mean, she's been a shrink in my home country for 10 years now; even if my culture's attitudes differ from those she was raised with, certainly she's gotten used to it? And has gotten used to talking with her patients about it?) Is it possible that she's never had sex??? (I have no idea if she has a partner or not, though something she said once makes me think she doesn't have kids and wishes she did.)

Maybe I was projecting or imagining it. I know she said something once that surprised me--I was about to go on vacation with my parents (long story) and she said, "the worst thing about going on vacation with your parents is that you can't go out and have vacation sex." And I laughed but at the same time was internally going, "wait, is 'vacation sex' a term? Is it even a phenomenon?"

And another small moment: I'd handed her my phone so that she could read a text message my mother sent me. We talked about it for a moment and then she said, "I'm sorry to say something so maternal, but your phone only has 10% battery left! You really ought to charge that--it makes me anxious." I laughed, but at the same time it was kind of nice.

To be honest, I wish she would do that sort of thing more often. I remember that at our first or second session she said something like, "you've been missing out on mothering for a long time, haven't you?" And I nodded. But t and I already have to negotiate the fact that I long for physical contact and she doesn't think that'd be good for me (and/or that's a firm boundary of hers as a therapist, I'm not entirely sure)... I don't know if I have the energy to get into it with her about exactly how "maternal" she's willing to be.