How would you feel/react if a new man said the following about your body after sex?

[honkytonkwoman]

(1) "It's too bushy." Said about easy-to-guess bits, which I had (I thought) trimmed very neatly the evening before.

(2) "Your clitoris is not very easy to find."

(3) "Ooh, your legs are a bit stubbly - you need to Immac." Said, again, while cuddling in the early hours of the morning, and at the very early stages of grow-back - I'd shaved the morning before, less than 24 hours previously.

I want to know how others would respond or react to this, before I say anymore. Thanks.

Just caught up with posts on here. I was away for 24 hours, came home today, and the letter was here.

I have read it (all six sides). As was predicted, it is half flattery ("beautiful", "elegant", "kind", "understanding", "gentle") and half thinly veiled insults and blame ("saying goodbye in a text ... seemed cold, detached and somehow shallow", "... the comments I had made had wounded you too easily. [Given] the sensitivities you developed during puberty around body hair ... how could it be otherwise?", "Having been allowed close enough to you not only to see but also to have actually triggered your sensitivity, I began to feel better placed and able to appreciate just how difficult this particular issue can be for you").

So no surprises there.

For the record, I must state that while not a Porn-style plucked chicken special, my fanjo isn't an unruly forest either - it is an ever-so-slightly-trimmed neat but natural compromise between womanliness and practicality. My legs had been shaved less than 24 hours previously so were getting slightly stubbly without one being able to actually see any hair on them. Plus I was spray-tanned all ready for a hen weekend starting the following day. I'm tall, slim, a good shag ... so really, how bloody picky can one be?!

Anyhow, a realisation I've been having around this longstanding I'm-too-sensitive business, with the help of this fling and this thread (thanks ), is that being too sensitive isn't really the issue. Any woman, I would imagine, has the capacity to be hurt by remarks like these if she lets them sink in. That's where I've been going wrong - not saying fck off when the rest of you would; not having boundaries around self-respect, nor sufficient self-assurance. Sensitivity is not the issue; having something in place to protect* that sensitivity is the issue. Fantastically valuable lesson learned.

This man still parks the vast majority of the blame for this with me and my over-sensitivity (he apologises for his directness, with the predictable get-out-clause of it almost always being an asset). I do not. I can't decide whether or not to say nothing, or print out this Girl Power-esque thread and send it to him, as some of you suggested. Hmm.

I know the idea is to not give him control here and nonchalantly not give a crap about the letter. This post is meant to be more about what I'm learning in all this, than giving power to him. Also, I know some of you wanted to know what the letter might say, and were enjoying the thread.

I know some of you also said I shouldn't read the letter. My gut told me that it would be good for me to do it, and to not internalise it. I'm feeling truly OK post-read - I spent the evening after reading it doing other things and not thinking about it - so for me, that really is progress.

Six sides?!

HTW, this man is psycho. He truly is.

I mean, WHO would spend so much time writing such a thing about someone they had basically just started going with unless they had a screw loose?

He's not playing with a full deck.

I'd do what Tamz suggests. He'll get back in contact.

I'd just reply - by text - making no mention that you read his lunatic rant that you don't have anything further to discuss with him, you hope he can move on, best of luck. see ya around.

Honestly there is NO point in raising this with him because tbh he sounds like he might have stalker characteristics.

You need to nip this sort of 'relationship' in the bud.

I'm glad you're learning from this, but I'd let this letter be another lesson to you: DON'T contact him anymore.

This type of person can turn out to be scary.

you seem to have a knob growing out of you head ..

expat, psycho? A capacity to be controlling, manipulative and hurtful, yes. Psycho? I don't really think so - at least not from what I know of him, his friends and what he does. Why can you/others see this and I can't? That concerns me a bit.

Anyhow, rest assured it is over and that I haven't been, and don't intend to be, in contact.

Think about how long he spent composing this letter, HTW. Truly, that's beyond bizarre.

Now think about how you would have reacted if he'd have broken things off with you, for comparison. Would you have spent days writing a letter like this and then posted it?

No, because you're a normal person.

He's not.

I mean, people thought Ted Bundy was a good catch, too, he had several good female friends and work colleagues, after all .

as in the OP ... that's what I'd respond to him

Don't answer the letter. It is undeserving. It's not that you were 'overly sensitive' about his highly personal remarks, but his insensitivity and lack of basic manners to have made them in the first place which unsettled you because they were remarks about you as an 'object' with an obvious lack of depth of feeling for you as a woman. It is he who is shallow for seeing all your qualities, supposedly, yet without actually to seem to appreciate them, and instead critisising your personal grooming.

Very rude, ungallant, uncharming, and unnatractive.

You deserve much better.

(hello, btw )

he is a toxic narcissist

he gets off on being important enough to cause this reaction

and when you bore of it all he turns the heat back up (letter) to get his attention fix again

best thing to do is not give his narcissism any fuel

or you'll still be deliberating over body hair for years to come

.... you could always say you were in training for the longest fanny hair record for the guinees book ...

twice, sally.

I just have a triangle of fanny hair - isn't that normal?! Sigh.

Hear what you're saying, ladies. I know I could not get through to him that this is largely about his rudeness and insensitivity, which makes any kind of contact (apart from the polite text suggested) pointless.

He is an academic, traditional letter-writing sort, TBH, so I suppose I didn't think writing was so bizarre although, granted, I wouldn't have predicted it.

i knew someone who had a guy like this once (no really i did)

she finally realised HE was the narcisist and it wasnt her with the problems (he ALWAYS turned his bad manners into HER frailties blahblah) when having had sex in the afternoon he insisted returning later to take her out to dinner ... she got dressed up and sat down in the bar waiting and 5 min before appointed date start he texted saying sorry cant do this

when she FINALLY lost her temper with him (this sort of thing happened over and again) and said he was infantile he sent her such a 'letter' a few days later blethiring on about her having problems and why did she hate all men and think so little of him

it was just the wake up call she needed -- she found it hillarious and the cycle of fuelling his self importance stopped

he still ries to rev it all up again with drama now

its exactly that -- a drama fixation

phewwwww

That's a LOT of writing over a relationship that was, with respect, quite brief.

I mean, there've been people on here whose divorce decrees weren't even that long.

another response might've been ....

you think I'm hairy ... you do know sack and crack waxxing is expected of guys these days right cos honey, you're in seeeeeerious need of a little trimming too

I guess I've just gone out with too many nutters in my time and so after a while they're easy to spot.

For a while, me and my two best friends seem to attract a string of utter mentalists like this, all, to outside appearances, what could be considered good catches.

he's 48, sally.

bizarre-o.

I've been reading this thread since you started it.
I absolutely agree with Expat (who I think should write a book on relationships she speaks SUCH good sense always).
Don't text, don't reply, don't give him any response at all. Not even through friends.
He wants the attention. He writes to you telling you its all your fault, because he can't quite accept that he might have been at fault. He WANTS you to respond and say 'oh my god you are so right I am so ubersensitive, have far too much baggage and of course I'll have a brazilian straight away'.

I also have been out with dickheads who try to pin all their own failings on me. In the end they are not worth the effort of a response.

IGNORE HIM AND HIS LETTER.

THat will piss him off more than anything else you could do.

Oh, sorry just seen that you have already decided not to contact him
Well done.