He left close to midnight. The text came at seven the next morning. Warm, casual tone, nothing wrong with it. Kevin told me about it five days later in a session. The text wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.
What he wanted to talk about in his therapy session with me was how flat he felt the next day. The sex was good, he was clear on that. And still his baseline returned, except this time it landed harder.
For an hour the attention had made him feel that he mattered. And it did make him feel that way, but only for a short period because being wanted and being valued are not the same thing.