This is part 17 of my story.
I am reconstructing my story from my diary, emails, texts and memory. Granted, I may be romanticizing things, but this is how I remember it. The conversational parts are obviously paraphrased.

-Red
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Uggghhh... all those things, some sound good, but some sound contradicting to my upbringing... So, I got a little bold, ballsy even. I mean, he is talking all kinds of serious and permanent things, with his requirements and all that, so I said, "Ok, Gabriel... it seems like you're requiring a lot of things from me, but it feels very one-sided. I will be doing all the compromising, and you won't be doing much other than telling me what to do... not only that, you want me to be excited about it. Would YOU get into something like this?"

He perked up with wide eyes and a big smile and said, "There she is! I knew you were in there somewhere!" We both giggled as he recognized me taking a stand against his tyranny.

While still smiling a little, he responded, "Red, Red, Red... First of all, let's remember that there are rules, and the main one says that if you're not happy with anything, you can and should walk away. Remember those?" I nodded and said, "I do remember those."

He continued, "But before we go any further, let's let the cat out of the bag: to some degree, you're interested in what we're talking about; otherwise, you wouldn't be here. Can we agree on that?" I smiled with playful disapproval, refusing to tell him that he was right and I said, "You're not entirely wrong." He just chuckled but did not lose focus and explained:

"Red, while you're enduring my militant regime, I will be committed to diligently earning your trust—the trust required for you to feel safe being with me.
I will be committed to looking after your emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
I will be learning your goals and dreams and figuring out what we need to do to make them a reality.
I will also be learning about you—your likes, dislikes, needs, desires, weaknesses, strengths—and finding ways to accommodate them to ensure your needs are being met, even when YOU forget that your needs must be satisfied.
I have to learn what your passions are AND educate myself about them, because surely you will want to talk about them, and I want to make sure I can keep up."

At this point, I was looking at him like he was insane and wanted to interject, but he signaled that he wasn't done.

"I also have to learn your tendencies in case they affect me, you, or both of us in a negative way so we can make adjustments.
Additionally, I am tasking myself with being your best friend, even at times when you think I am your worst enemy, or worse, when you are being YOUR own worst enemy.
On top of that, I know you will evolve, so I must adjust for those changes as they come, even when YOU don't notice them.
And one more thing: everything I ask you to do, I am tasking myself with teaching you how to do it. I will never expect you to do something that I won't be willing or able to teach you how to do or work with you so we can learn together.
And these are just some of the things I have to do, but lastly, I also have to work on my own well-being in all those areas and a few more.

Does it seem like I will just be sitting around giving you orders?"

Holy shit! He is dedicated to this; he has actually sat down and thought this through. I mean, I was flabbergasted by the amount of detail he had put into all of this. It's funny how I went from standing up to his tyranny to wondering if I was good enough for anything he was putting on the table. Am I worth the effort he is willing to put into this? Am I willing to put that much effort into ANYTHING?

At the moment, I was just overwhelmed by his attention to detail, his intention, and the fact that he was willing to do all of that for a partner while managing himself in the process. But I was also wondering WHY he was willing to go to those lengths.

I asked in the best way I could, “Why do you feel the need to do all of this for your partner? Why do you need so much control?”

His response was a bit unsatisfying, but I think I understood. He said, “Well, it is just my nature, but if you think about it, when we get into relationships, we never take these things into account. Sometimes our partners have tendencies that are not only bad for them, they are bad for us and worse for the relationship.
Have you ever had a friend who is a great friend and in a great place, but then they get into a relationship and change completely? I certainly have.
I’ve had friends who are in a great place in their lives, but when they get into relationships, they suddenly start drinking excessively, doing drugs, isolating themselves, things like that. In those situations, people are just flowing with whatever comes. I don’t work like that; there was a time in my life when I did, but not anymore. I prefer to be active in my pursuit of what is best for my life, and I’ve come to the conclusion that most people just flow with what is easiest, but most of the time, what is easiest is not what is best for us.
So, I prefer to do the work and live a life I enjoy living.
If we decide we want to pursue something together, you already know that our focus will be to live a good life. Granted, it will not always be easy, but as long as we are aware that it will require work, we will be more than OK.”

I understood everything he said, and to some extent, I agreed, but I was still curious about a few things. Everything he explained usually just led to more questions for me.

I asked him to explain why this was part of his nature; it did not add up to me. I could tell this was going to be another long-winded explanation because he took a deep breath.

He said, “My nature is to be dominant, right? Well, that just means I need to be in control, and I’ve chosen to be in control of MY life. But that means that if I am going to allow you deeply into my life, I also have to be in control of you, what you do, and how you are going to affect my life.
Imagine if you spent the last ten years of your life working on something like fitness, then I come into your life and my contribution to it is that suddenly you can’t be focused on your fitness and we’re eating pizza every day.
Most likely, in the beginning, you’d be OK with it, but as we start going beyond the honeymoon stage of the relationship and you start gaining weight, and realize you have not worked out in two months and everything you worked so hard for is now gone, inevitably, you’ll start resenting me and feeling negatively about me and the relationship, not to mention how you’d feel about yourself.
So, in a nutshell, I just need to KNOW that you’re being the best you can be for me, and I will be focused on being the best for us... And I understand that to some people this will not make sense, but it makes perfect sense for me.”

Again, I understood everything he said and I agreed… but there was a part of me (it sounded a lot like my mom) that said he just wanted to change me and who I am. I said, “So, in essence, you feel like for me to be the best I can be, you have to change ME, correct?”

He was quick to fire back, saying, “No, not at all. Let’s say that you’re a person who is constantly late. Does that define who you are? No, it does not; it just means that you have a bad habit, and it is not necessarily BAD, personally I just don’t like it.
I don’t want to change who you are. In fact, I want to encourage and enhance who you REALLY are; what we would be doing is removing and avoiding the bad habits you may have and replacing them with better habits that allow you to be the best version of who you are… for me,” and we both laughed a little about that.

He had great timing for comic relief. Just when things were getting intense and heavy, he would throw in a little joke or something to lighten the mood. At the time, I did not really see it, but it definitely made things easier to digest.

He continued, “Listen, Red, ultimately this all boils down to living a good life. Everything I am offering doesn’t only enhance my life, but yours as well, provided that you’re willing to do the work, question what you’ve been taught your whole life, and just allow yourself to be guided. And let’s keep in mind that if at any point you find that this is not for you, you can just walk away.
My goal for you is that you’re completely fulfilled as a person, so you can enhance MY life. Think about it from my perspective: do you think I would want a person that is happy, excited about life and fulfilled by my side, or someone who is constantly in a state of disappointment, complaining about how she is mistreated and feeling unfulfilled?
You don’t have to answer that question, but you can if it makes you happy.”

Obviously, I didn’t HAVE to answer the question, but I did anyway. I said, “What if unfulfilled, disappointed, and complaining is my nature?” and he just looked at me confused as if trying to figure out if I was serious or not. I can’t lie, I felt good having a tiny little victory and stumping him, even if it only lasted a few seconds, but he caught on and we laughed, but he still said “then you’re not the one for me, period.”

The reality is that I really didn’t disagree with much… I was younger and as I have said before, I was completely lost in life. I thought that in the worst case of scenarios, I could just walk away. I mean, it is not like he was asking me to move with him to some remote island, from what I understood, we would just be seeing each other and if things did not work out, everyone walks away… I had to be honest with myself and ask “what did I have to lose?”

But then again, there were the polyamory questions… this obviously had sexual and intimacy effects… so many things I did not know, but I was  not ready to be so bold and ask sexual questions.

I did think of a way I could ask a question without me having to volunteer my curiosity and feel so vulnerable because shyness is a pain in butt.

I asked, “So Mr. Gabriel, I am not saying that I am in or I am out, but let’s say I said ‘I want to do this,’ what would we do next? I am not saying I am in, I am just curious as to what would happen if I did”…

to be continued...