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Old 12-05-2014, 03:26 PM   #1
carpeviam
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 11
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Straight Face Problems Dating on the Mat

Long, slightly tortuous tale.

I started studying aikido about 2 years ago and found that it helped amazingly with the stress&stuff from growing up in a situation where my mother was abused. I've taken self defense courses, but something about the environment and the peacefulness on the mat made things better in a way that nothing else has been able to duplicate.

A few months ago I started dating a really sweet, intelligent boy who moved to my dojo. He's shodan; I'm sankyu. Off the mat our relationship is very good, but I have the most terrible time working with him. I invariably feel smothered and claustrophobic with him, and like he's being stiff, self-righteous and unyielding, pedantic, and condescending. I'm aware that my perspective is very, very likely being warped by my formative experiences of men being violent pieces of refuse, but there have been a few incidences that occurred between us, where a third party mentioned to me that it looked like the boy had a touch of arrogance or dominance to him. So, objectively, it must be something like x% truth and (100-x)% my personal craziness.

It's really disorienting. It's thrown off my training and my sensei has mentioned several times for me to get my game on. I don't have a clear question I'm asking, but I'm hoping that by writing it out and getting a few responses, I'll at least have a little more to go on.
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