Just a recent experience FWIW. Had been seeing a former co-worker for some time, we had good rapport and went for coffee breaks every week or so, agendas allowing. At one point I suggested her " why not go for dinner?" to what she agreed on the spot and a keen "that sounds fabulous" reply. Dinner and drinks went as smooth as silk, great chat, discussing our inner issues and it was inevitable. Things got slightly heated-up at goodbye time, I thought it was nice, left it at that but became a bit concerned as I thought I was still not on the right spot for engaging her more formally.

Weekend past-by and sent her an e-mail Monday saying "hey, why don't we find some time to do something over the week?" (very relaxed, not pressing a bit, wanted to test the waters). My idea was to build-up things slowly, see where things could go, in the end I still think (despite how the story ended) she is a great person and I was lucky. OK, so shooted the message and got a reply saying that she was concerned about what happened, yada, yada, that she gave me the "wrong impression". Duh?

To make a long story short, because at some point we were seeing each other at casual meets and I was getting a tad uncomfy and with a sense of unclosed business, sent her a letter explaining what I thought about all. My concern was that I ticked the same "environmental pattern" box as a previous partner of her, where the relation ended completely tits-up. Had the letter screened by two good female friends, both separately agreed it was a very emotionally mature, well crafted and honest letter, setting things up black over white and that it showed "that I cared" (yet one of them said "what a lucky girl she is, I'd hope someone can send me a letter like this, but I have a bad feeling as to how she will manage it").

She was right. In the end she completely flew off the handle, in the most bizarre way. I think it was because it was so honest (and people many times don't like honesty, no matter how hard they preach for it) that it showed, eventually, her emotinal unbalance. I believe I was lucky, and I think that I subconsciously did it to see if what I was seeing was for real. Her reaction plainly showed she has unresolved issues. I'm sad about it, because she is a good person.

OK so the morale would be "you've been rejected in a nasty way, do you feel angry or that you did something wrong?" Answer is no, or well, maybe I should have not pressed some buttons, but what I did was what I thought was right and I'm unashamed about that. It was tough, as a great empathy broke completely apart, but you learn and move on.

There is that saying that goes "experience is like a comb a bald receives as a gift." In retrospective it was a big loss. Not the looks, but the individual. Maybe with time, if she comes back to it all she will understand things better. As for me, well, time is too short for tears and who knows, it might have been some lucky star that avoided me facing pain in the future.

Just my 2c.