Black, Lesbian, Womanist

      Being with men who were not interested in offering abiding closeness meant that I never really had to be close. Yet I could have an image of myself as this open, giving woman who really desired closeness, at times feeling smug because I worked so hard on the ‘relationship.’ Working to be close with someone who is not interested in sustained closeness not only depresses the spirit, it makes you a perfect target for aggression. […]

Many women who are warm and openhearted choose men who are closed and shut down because we hope we can provide a catalyst for them to open up. Our efforts usually fail, because these men have not made their own commitment to being more open. Trained to be nurturers and caregivers, women often think we are behaving as we should - doing what we have been socialized to believe is a woman’s job. We may even experience the constant tension between these two different value systems - a man who has chosen to avoid intimacy and a woman who desires intimacy - as stimulating. Importantly, though, this unfulfilling work keeps us from the real work of intimacy.