[imapatient]

I met her through on-line personals. I emailed her not knowing she's a T. It listed her as having a PhD/MD and she said she works in health care in the profile. I thought she was a doctor. I made a great impression on her, and vice-versa.

Meeting her maybe tonight, maybe Mon.

Anyone ever met a T for a date? I'm very uncertain about trying to explain the parts of my life affected by my MI. All these years depressed, on SSDI for 7 years, etc. Just finished day treatment, etc.

Many gaps in my life. I'll need to avoid those things, but, with everyone else I meet, I'll need to try and make the time lost not apparent--for now. Extra worried due to her being a T.

Also, nervous about transference from my old T that I had so many problems with when termination came and the aftermath.

[Dr.Muffin]

therapists are people too! maybe just focus on her as a woman who clearly has common interests with you and liked you enough to want to meet. let things evolve as they may and dont feel compelled to tell her everything. just remember, she's A therapist not YOUR therapist and everything should be fine!

good luck!

imp, how'd your date with the t go? i hope you had fun.

[deliquesce]

*sits down and demands all the goss*

[GrayNess]

Take it from her view, she's a therapist, she sees clients of all sorts every day, probably has a pretty busy schedule, so she's probably looking for someone to talk to or be with who isn't a patient and to get out of her role as a therapist and doctor.

I wouldn't be too worried about it if I were you because she may not be too interested in treating you like another client, she may just want a fellow, non-doctor, non-patient to be with. This doesn't mean she doesn't care about you, she probably will care, however, she probably just wants to be with someone on a human-human interaction as opposed to doctor-doctor or doctor-client interactions.

[crystalrose]

wow lucky you! Try to be you aroune the therapist. She wants a date not a client. Be a date don't talk about your problems on the first date. Smile be polite open the door for her. Kiss! just be a date not a person with struggle. Later on if it works you can talk about your problems.

[KUREHA]

That's cool

How did it go?

[peaches100]

How did it go? I'm on pins and needles!

[BlueMoon6]

Did you go on the date yet??? We are all waiting to hear!

[velcro003]

*Chiming in* I wanna know tooooooooooo

[imapatient]

Originally Posted by deliquesce

*sits down and demands all the goss*

Oh, boy.

I wrote this post stream of conscious, and from recounting the story I had some insights. I left it all together here with cutting it, for my personal benefit to have it all in one place to read later on.

Cast Me=me, 45 M. A=F, psychologist, 45, PhD met thru on-line personals (I didn’t’ know she was a T when I contacted her), MG = current friend, fully therapized, dad was clinical psychologist at big university, AA member—has seen it all, Old T = A F T, PhD, who I saw for 13 out of 17 years. I was 23-40, she 34-51 during our therapy. Ended 5 years ago.

We'd emailed a bit, and (I thought) decided to get together. We were going to talk on the phone to set it up. Then we talked about specific times and dates in our messages. Sat. came with a specific time decided by her--she's said she was busy 2:30 - 4:30, free after.

A calls at 4:30. .

We start talking. She's getting all sorts of involved stuff. I was thinking the call was to pick the place and exact time to go - after the phone call. The call was awkward to me because I didn't expect or intend to get into anything but light talk and practical matter of place. It went and on and I was confused. Finally I said, so do you want to go somewhere tonight? She said, "After this conversation, I don't really feel a connection on an emotional level. So I don't think so. What do you think?" "I guess I don't much of an emotional connection can be had from a simple phone talk like this." Her "I think I usually can. In the past, I think I've been able to determine that. You haven't seemed comfortable during this call. Like maybe you're not interested in or comfortable with me. So I don't think meeting is a good idea." ME "Actually, I've felt very uncomfortable. I thought we were just talking pick out place to go to today. I didn't think we were going to just talk. I thought we'd already agreed to meet." Her "No, were just setting a time to talk, not to get together. I apologize for getting it wrong.”

So the “I didn’t feel a connection” from her and the “I wasn’t into having that sort of talk and was uncomfortable” exchange continued. Anyway, we had different ideas about what was up. I explained more about how uncomfortable I was and why I didn’t really answer some of the things she asked because I don’t like getting into a lot of things over the phone. She came down to say: “Let me think about it. I’ll get back in touch with you if I’d like to get together some time.” I said “sure.” Then she said, “I want to make a prediction.” What is it? She said, “You’re going to go back and read the emails to see who’s right.” I laughed, said that, yes, I would, but wouldn’t she? So we joked around and laughed a bit and talked about maybe getting together and then she said “What about getting a bite tonight?” I said “sure.” Tried to figure out a place, I tried to joke, she didn’t necessarily catch some of it. She asked about food—“would anything that’s Asian be of interest to you?” I said “How about a waitress?” Over her head.

Meet her. Casual Thai place.

I’m really nervous on the road. I realize that her being a T shaped by phone experience with her. I had figured out who she was days earlier and found her professional website. So with that, and a very serious looking photo of her on that site and a serious photo she sent me (she doesn’t have one online at the personals site), she very seemed like a T to me, not as much a date. When she started to talk she put on her headset—felt clinical to me. Since I do my sessions via phone with my T I think that made it all seem much more therapy-like to me.

Oops: I told her that I thought her being a T was a bit uncomfortable for me because I’d been in therapy. Dumb, dumb.

We didn’t address former relationships aside from on-line personals. Which is odd: Typically, women try to pry and find out what you’re up to, have been up to, want to be.…I’m 45, so I get all sorts of questions about why never married, ever have long relationships, live together, etc.

The only comment she made about other men were related to on-line personals. She hadn’t met anyone else from the site yet—but had exchanged messages, photos, and talked with a few. She said she had met people 6-7-8? years ago on-line. Said she dated done guy for a while—not long-- but it was messy because he had a lot of problems, was very needy, whatever whatever vague label for saying it was a dysfunctional relationship with someone inappropriate. I recall the word needy being used several times. I also recall her referring to the relationship as not lasting long—I thought even said “months” at one point.

Given that she painted him in only negative terms, as, too, the relationship as dysfunctional, I said –in jest and theatrically—So, did you ever get help for your problem with picking inappropriate men? The jest being triple: We therapized types know that sort of lingo, hear things like that said to us by T’s, pdocs, friends, group members, etc. who are therapized—it’s a parody of a cliché about our inability to form good relationships. The triple level of jest-ness is that I was saying it to a T, one who says that sort of thing as a career; hence I was turning the tables so to speak on T’s. She didn’t get the joke. Instead of recognizing that I’d turned the standard bad relationship picker cliché on her as cliché, she took it very seriously. She got a bit steely and withdrawn and said “IF you’re asking if I’d had help in my relationship whatever whatever whatever, the answer is “yes.”

Yikes! I hit a very sore spot. I was jokingly extrapolating from ONE case she mentioned, so I didn’t know if there was a pattern or not. Trying to be clever and oops!

I mentioned that I’d been losing weight—found out my thyroid is high. She asked a T-ish comment about symptoms, in specific if I’d been feeling “revved” up lately. Mentioned revved up again. I think she was getting at hypomania; high anxiety.

I was very nervous and talked too much, too fast, jumped around too much, too self-absorbed. I had been rattled by an email from another personals correspondent the prior day in a really, really bad, depressing way. So I was really out of sorts.

Here’s my other massive DUMB avenue into talking about therapy/therapists. I mentioned that my last 2 girlfriends had MA’s in psych. Said one worked as a social worker but that the last one worked as a master’s-level licensed therapist. Then I managed to say “I would never see her as a therapist. She’s really smart, but has some major problems that make me doubt her ability to help people.” Her: But psychologists are people, too. Me: Yeah, everyone has problems, I just don’t know about people with real problems being left in her hands.” Just because someone has problems doesn’t mean they can’t help other people.” I caught myself and said, “You’re right. Like MG (my friend who’s big in AA and was talking that night to a big group whom I spoken of) is an alcoholic but he helps other alcoholics all the time.”

[I talked to MG about the date. He’s agreed to follow me on dates outfitted with a sniper rifle to be trained on me from across the street, an audio receiver in his ear so he can listen to the date, and when he hears me start getting so idiotic he can take me out and save the chance to have something to do with her again.]

We said a simple, awkward good-bye (with handshake) without any attempt to process the date. The next morning she emailed me to say “thanks….I don’t think a relationship is in the cards….” Kinda thing. I replied with a "thanks, too."

Her being a T had a major impact on me, to the detriment of my psychological state and ability to be myself. It threw me way off. T or her therapy or not, she sounds like she has major issues with men and relationships, so in the end probably good that it went nowhere. Maybe not, though. She was extremely, bony-thin. I hadn’t seen a female so thin since I was a teenager. MG thinks she sounds anorexic –an opinion he supported as relating to other things about her. She’s very attractive though, so it wasn’t off-putting.

My T thinks her “prediction": comment sounds very T-like; the sort of thing a T definitely does not want to sound like in normal conversation. He said T’s seek to have it that no one would think they’re a T outside of the office in their comportment and speaking; they don’t want people to feel uncomfortable that way. Another thing or two she said seemed to breach that boundary a bit—though less. He also thinks it sounds like she wasn't able to "keep up" with me at points in the conversation, like the "Asian waitress" thing going over her head. I can't recall other examples.

If you’ve followed my history here, I have a lot of hang-ups relating to my therapy with a T that stretched over off/on 17 years; issues from therapy all-out and at the termination and post-. Meeting A was good. When I started with Old T, she was 34; I’m now 45 and so is A. Some of the most volatile stuff old T said was when she was in her mid-late 30s. That seems young now, having met A and seeing her as a regular person with good/bad traits/actions. A is a peer; T’s never feel like one. I think meeting A will help me get over some things that I’ll be able to put into perspective better as “Well, T’s are people, too, with strengths and weaknesses, and at 34 it might’ve been very hard for Old T to have…..” We did have a weird sort of chemistry that was overwhelmed but all the bizarreness. I wish I’d slept with her. For the regular reasons—attraction, liking, hormones, rapport, chemistry—but also to further break down some of the barriers that make T’s seem so super-human and different; superior. Sleeping with Old T A would fulfill the fantasy as another way to bring her down to earth (with numerous other ramifications). I imagine sleeping with A woulda been a help to break down some of that barrier, fulfill the fantasy in that way, too, but of far less importance than the general experience brought.

I think A and I could get along well. Too much weirdness with misunderstanding, my anxiety, my transference of my old T issues onto A, whatever. I see that she has issues socially and dealing with men, too. I probably have too much therapy/therapist-related stuff going on inside me to make a go of a relationship with a T for a while o come. A positive experience.