Just come home from a session... feeling a bit weird and confused about something.

So, two weeks ago my T gave me some 'transitional objects', because I had expressed having difficulty with believing that he existed when I wasn't with him. He gave me two small stones, and said they were a carnelian and an agate. I was very pleased with them, and I've found them quite comforting to keep with me and fiddle with.

Last week, intended as a pretty meaningless off-hand comment (I think? Maybe my unconscious had other ideas?) I told T that my partner had disagreed with his identification of one of the stones, saying it was a jasper rather than an agate. He responded by looking kind of affronted and saying "do you want me to go and get a jasper?"... I said no, and told him not to get competitive... then tried to mollify him a bit by saying my partner has no idea what he's on about half the time anyway, he just likes to try and sound like he does.

Then in an email I sent him on Thursday, I mentioned finding the stone in question (having lost it for a while), and said "[partner] handed me the dark brown stone (agate!)". It was just intended as a slightly jokey reference to that whole thing... I dunno.

Today, as soon as I arrived for my session, T rummaged in his pockets and brought out two jasper stones, handing them to me and saying "these are jasper, you can have one if you like". He asked to look at the stone he'd previously given me and pointed out that it has 'concentric circles' that classify it as agate.

So now I have three stones.

I feel weird about this. What is he doing? Competing with my partner? Or is it me that's being weird for feeling like that's what he's doing? What do you think, what would you think?

There is a part of me that loves that he cares so much about my respect for the veracity of his geology knowledge. There is a part of me that likes the idea of him wanting to prove himself more knowledgeable than my partner. There are other parts of me that feel uncomfortable and wonder if he is sufficiently looking at his own process here...

Incidentally, my partner doesn't know that T gave me the stones. He would likely get very worked up if he knew that he was part of some kind of geeky competition regarding them... (oh, and he's totally wrong - but I knew that without T having to prove it)