LS Harteveld

About 15 years ago, I corresponded with a young writer, Elliot.  My side of the story turned into a book Bedtime Stories, which is in my bookshop. In 2023 we briefly reconnected, and now we are writing again. 

The Check-in and the Connor Confession
is a stand-alone letter and as such not a proper  answer.
But it was written a day after Elliot’s third public letter to me:
The Long Way to a Galaxy Far, Far Away
And a recent email conversation.

 

12 November 2026
Ryan Gosling’s Birthday

Dear Elliot,

Not mine to share.
It has become almost a mantra. Not one I often say out loud, but more like a measuring stick to assess if I want to bring up a subject or not. And according to that standard, what our private conversation was about yesterday, was not mine to share.
However, what is mine to share, is that I think it deserves a check-in. Not because the event was dramatic or concerning, or the conversation had not closed yet, but because I think it marked something.

It marked something which, if it had been sex, I would have wanted him to check in on me.
Which is one in a set of disclaimers and expectations I will (and already have, when it came close(r)) discuss with a potential partner beforehand.
Simply because it is one of those things that goes from a theoretical “That would be nice” to “I refuse to ever go without this.”

And that thing is the post-sex check-in.

The reason I will never have sex again without bringing up the topic of the post-sex check-in (together with two other rules) is because it makes my most important wish actionable.
Which is that I want him to carry the weight of the sexual connection. To be the person in charge of operations, so to speak. The post-sex check-in (the next day) means that responsibility continues until the next day.
I wrote about this before, in one of my previous letters, but the recap is that I want him to take note if I am upset, sad, or if my emotions are in any way dysregulated, which is a sign the sex was too much for me, and I want him to integrate that for future dates.
And if I’m blushing and radiant then he knows the sexual magic was equally lovely for both of us, and he can build a future encounter from there. 
Now naturally there’s caveats here: He could just not check-in, and then that will be the end of it. 

Anyway, the reason is that I no longer want to be with men who are not in charge of their own sexuality, because then they can also not carry “ours”.
I understand men being in the process of discovering their sexuality, or rediscovering it after a long committed relationship that took them down a bit, or after surgery or anything happening that makes that they have to reconnect to that part of themselves, in the figurative or literal sense.
But those are not my partners anymore.

It’s definitely not a physical thing. Carrying the responsibility in the bedroom, does not require physical skill, and you definitely don’t have to be a 24 year old porn actor (in fact, I’d prefer it if you are not) but you should own your body and enjoy (or insist on) being the person in charge in the bedroom.

Long story short: The check-in is one of the things I am aware of needing, and now, after yesterday and our conversation, I suddenly realized that it is quite appropriate here as well.
With me checking in on you.

How was yesterday for you? How are you today, Elliot?

I loved our email conversation, your trust in me, how you got back on certain things, and how my words, which I thought were a bit edgy and I had no idea if you would even consider their viewpoint, how they landed and you found them interesting.
I took a chance, and I think it worked well, but let me know if they left a bad aftertaste, or ended up quickening or triggering something that was unforeseen.
Again, thank you for your trust. I loved being allowed so close to your thoughts!
It definitely was, for lack of a better word, an intimate experience to me.

So now the second half of this letter.

Things about Connor that keep hitting me over the head, and me thinking: “This is so weird! I should tell Elliot!”
I cannot tell you everything, because as the first sentence said, they are not mine to tell. Including woo woo things that are not 3-D; Not mine to tell.

But some things definitely are!
And they’re pretty woo woo too.
So let’s go;

First of all, he so reminds me of my ex. The man with whom I had the longest relationship of my life, and whom I believe will one day return as a friend.
I can still feel our energy, together, as really good friends. Sometimes I still dream about him, and he’s just there at my side in a very natural way. I’ve always known he would be back.
And then I met Connor who does not resemble this ex physically at all;
But the energy between us definitely does.

There is the same familiarity. The same friction-free banter of us against the world (this is mostly an energy! I don’t know Connor well enough to be allowed to make these comparisons, but I want to make a point) 
They dress in exactly the same way, and they are both also a tad bit intimidating to me, but that’s probably because they don’t really share their inner world while also really connecting with you at the same time.
It’s a weird mixture of totally being in the connection, while at the same time giving you nothing they do not want to share.

So my ex, of whom I was certain he’d come back, he is one of the three men, connected to him. In some weird way.
Which made me think: “Maybe it’s Connor? Maybe it’s Connor who comes into my life, not the ex?”

Second case:
The timing.

In 2025 I fell in love with a man, and I no longer “feel” his energy, so this connection is cold by now. But the strange thing was that I received a psychic answer in 2025, when I asked Spirit what his deal was.
Spirit told me what was going on, and gave me the month in 2026, when this man would come into my life.
He never came.
You know who did?
Exactly.

Connor appeared in the month, Spirit had told me the man from 2025 would make his way to me. And I did see that other man too, that month. He acted entirely out of character, and tried to ignore me. And I was fine with that, because it was as if he was no longer the same man.
Him acting so entirely out of character, without any logical explanation, was one of the weirdest (I know the words strange and weird are overused in this letter) things I have ever encountered with regard to men.
Or I have, but then it was that their girlfriend or a love interest was around.
So that could be an explanation, because there were a lot of people there.

But my explanation is a different one; He behaved this way, because he had been replaced.
By Connor.

Man number 3 Connor reminds me of is of course Mr.Big.
Not his energy nor his clothing, which resemble man number 1 (the ex).
Not his handsome looks nor his age either, which are close to man number two (from 2025). 
But in the totally weird facts and synchronicities department?
The similarities are canny! 

And that’s not the end of it because there are more men he shares incredibly eye-catching traits with, but then we would also have to talk about something I would call:
A Karmic signature.
Men whom you just know are God’s favorite, under divine protection, and who will fulfil a role here on earth.

The strangest thing is, the second man; He had a karmic signature.
He was actually the first man I encountered in real life (ever!) with whom I could see it. And yet that final time when I saw him, and he ignored me, it was gone.
He seemed busy with the social dynamics of the group we were in, when all the times before that, he had been floating above it. And everybody wanted his attention, they were flocking like bees to honey (I was definitely not the only bee) but he had been completely detached from their desire to connect.
And when he looked at me, and we spoke, the words were just decoration. They were entirely irrelevant to what was going on energetically. It was absolutely magical, and I could see that Divine Mark. That Destiny.
Although it did take some time to figure it out, because it was the first time I encountered this.

And then, the final time I saw him in the month I thought he’d come towards me no less, he was no longer the same man.
And I met Connor, and I blinked. And I cried. And I knew.

There you are.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
Behind the Scenes of my 2001 timeline
And more letters to Elliot!
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About 15 years ago, I corresponded with a young writer, Elliot.  My side of the story turned into a book Bedtime Stories, which is in my bookshop. In 2023 we briefly reconnected, and now we are writing again. 

The Scavenger was written in response to Elliot’s second public letter to me:
Inner-worlds and the Real Questions

 

8 November 2026
Season of the Witch (Northern Hemisphere)

Dear Elliot,

Do you know those challenges, where people flip or trade a cheap product until they have their dreamhouse?
That’s the world I feel I’ve been living in.
When it comes to relationships but also other areas of life, because it’s really a mindset that seems to have permeated every area of existence. One that could no doubt easily be brought back to consumerism or capitalism.
But I’ll leave that to the ones who are actually still invested in getting the full picture including its historical context.

But yeah;
I think that’s what I started realizing in the two days that have passed since I received your beautiful letter that made me cry. Made me cry on repeat and which, in just a moment, when I am going to read it again because I want to make sure I reply correctly;
It will make me cry again.

And the tears were like the boy and girl from the Snow Queen fairy tale by Andersen. If the boy was my heart, cold and devoid of life. And my tears were the girl, whose warm tears thawed the splinter of ice that had penetrated the boy’s heart.
That’s how your letter brought me back from the almost dead, where my after-death scenario to avoid reincarnation excited me more than the decades of life, loneliness and duty that I still have ahead of me.

It was the letter that made me realize I was now understood.
I was, what they call seen but that is rarely “Seen” by my standards, but this time it was.

And then, came the rage.
Because then why hasn’t it happened before?
Not even by my amazing mentors, without whom I would not be able to function;
Not even the best of the best friends;
Not seen like this.

So I’m already crying again (before I even reread your letter) but I can also feel an incredible rage. Because apparently this level of understanding is available, but Life just refused to give it to me for the first half of my life.
Until I was down to prioritizing not reincarnating, to actually living.
And my life in the truest sense having ended years ago.

My anti-reincarnation plan did not change, Elliot.
But your letter did made me realize that I did not ask for too much, when I wanted to be accepted unconditionally by a lover.
And to not be traded for a better gadget just like that challenge from the first paragraph.

It was not too much.
Because you re-phrased what I was saying, you confirmed, and you related.

But the reason this good news, of finally being understood and not asking for too much, did not make me more excited or hopeful about finding love and did not make me open my heart to surrender to Life, and rejoice in our humanity  – instead of plotting my way to never come back – was because of that first paragraph metaphor of having felt like I was discarded and swapped in my love life, that men were eager for something else and they did not want to see what I had to offer.

Grudges aside, the days after reading your letter really made me realize I play a totally different “game”; The game of the Scavenger.
My game is collecting and finding parts, doing maintenance, and curating and treasuring what is there instead of constantly looking for something new.

The Scavenger analogy is inspired by Star Wars’ Rey from The Force Awakens, who was called “Scavenger”.
A scavenger is not just a bird or predator who eats dead animals, but it is also someone who collects parts that can still be re-used.
My “Scavenger relationship model” means I repair things that are broken, I do not throw away, and that I have the capacity to keep things afloat for fifty years, just like the Millennium Falcon.

The Millennium Falcon may look like a piece of junk but it still flies and after Rey and Finn  reverse Unkar Plutt’s crude modification that was slowing it down;
The ship still surprises people with its speed and agility.

So the past 48 hours did not take away from the glow, the thawing of the ice splinter that was stuck in my heart. Our correspondence could stop today, and it would forever keep its value in many ways, but one of them was that it brought me back to life.
But the realization that I live in a world where everyone is always looking for a better spaceship, or a less demanding mode of transportation, when I will always be the one who wants to repair and who values the classics with the long history – well, that realization was a bit of a party pooper.

I’m now going to reread your letter.
Brb.
*gets tissues*

1/3 through: (not crying yet)
Suddenly realize I wanted to write you about two different things, which I’ll both do a bad job at, but I’m just gonna drop them now that I think of them (and the first is known, because I asked your permission specifically if that was okay for you)

1. Gay man in a woman’s body
   One thing I discovered since 2023, is that I “really” am a gay man in a woman’s body. Quotation marks because I’m quite happy with my female body, but I don’t identify with it. If it had been a man’s body I would have looked at it with the same surprise, gentleness, and admiration. So I don’t have problems with my gender, and if I were a real man in a woman’s body, then I would have a problem with my body.
   Hence the quotation marks.
   But yes, this year actually, this vague idea of being a gay man in a woman’s body got much more pronounced.
   My relationships with men are so entirely different to how other women seem to relate to them. Emotionally, I relate to being that single gay lover they allow themselves to have, only to then pick up their heterosexual lives again.
   This reveals itself the strongest when they leave – because I’m never jealous.
   And I don’t think that’s because I’m incapable of being jealous, but because from my gay man perspective, there’s simply nothing to be jealous about.
   But if they left me to be with a man, I’d be soooo jealous!!!! 😉
2. I think Mr.Big was a Soft Dom 
   Soft dominants arrange pleasure for their sub. And although I looked into it at the time, what the word Soft Dom meant, only to discover that the dynamics and specifics were way too narrow for me, resulting in me rejecting the whole Soft Dom idea (or the whole Dom idea, to be honest) for months;
   I keep circling back to it.
   He was so incredibly tuned into my body and to what I liked, it was intoxicating.
   And he took real risks in pushing me, not so much risks as in doing something I did not want – because he was so attuned that he knew he could trust himself with that-
   But he took risks in me having to say No, or perhaps even rejecting him or laughing at him. Ego risks!
   That’s the reason there are so few men capable of being dominant in bed (in the sense that they carry the emotional load that comes with it), because you have to be incredibly vulnerable.
   You can be rejected every time you initiate something.
   Anyway, it’s months later and I forgot what the internet thinks a Soft Dom should be and I m back with: Mr.Big was a soft dom

Now I m going to read the rest of your letter.
(tissues still waiting)

–
“And I think that’s where your letter hits a nerve. How much of a relationship is actually about being understood, and how much of it is about learning to live with the fact that you ultimately aren’t?”

Let’s promise we will not let each other get away with that, and will ask each other, as friends, again until we do feel understood.
Coming back to your reference of a GPS taking over and getting you to your destination but at the cost of missing out on the scenery:
Instruct me to put the GPS of our friendship down.
“And put it the GPS down, Lauren. Don’t make me ask twice.” :p

–

“Perhaps that’s what settling actually looks like; not necessarily choosing someone terrible, but choosing someone with whom certain parts of yourself must remain largely your own.”

I know there’s a ton of paragraphs coming after this one, but I want to use this one as the key here. Yes, it’s the pain of certain parts of yourself remaining unknown, but that is only the result.

By now I’m convinced the real pain is the other person not being willing to be in relationship with those parts of us, or those parts of the relationship.
We see them failing by not even trying. And that stings.

And I know this is not their ill-will, nor a sign they’re not invested in us, but rather a reflex, childhood wounds left unattended, and that there’s probably incredible pain, unsafety and trauma underneath their sloppy and uninterested behavior;
But it’s that turning away from it, that stabs us.

The fact that your partner was not ready to have that conversation about what you both wanted and needed.
Mr.Big breaking up by half a year of excuses not having time to see me, while silently selling his house, our love nest.

And you say that literally, later in your letter;
It was Mr.Big not letting me be part of the breakup process that hurt the most.
And your partner not giving you a conversation about your grievances.

You could argue that the GPS may offer a short cut to normal people standards, but that it does nothing for us. That we don’t care about the destination, and are only there for the scenery.
A breakup conversation in a house for sale, would have been “scenery” to me.
Melancholic, beautiful, dark, and unbelievably potent and powerful.
It would have been intensely painful but ultimately pure alchemy.

A boundary conversation, even one where your partner had told you he did not have anything to give, to make you happier; It would have made your bond stronger and deeper…..
The conversation itself would have been the understanding you so desperately craved, the destination of what you got out of it suddenly irrelevant.
Because I think maybe, the GPS version could have come true you know. Your partner may actually be integrating things he remembered, right now as we write….. He can very well be trying to remember the destination of your laundry list, and trying to get there without asking for directions.

Not realizing that – my guess – I don’t think you wanted any of the things that were on your laundry list. You just wanted him to acknowledge there was a list, and be okay with you bringing it up. The conversation being the magic. The scenery. Not the destination of the outcome.

I think we should crown ourselves as scenic route people, with little appreciation for the destination if the drive to get there was unpleasant and spent in silence.

The people who want to remove Unkar Plutt’s compressor from the ignition line, and make the Millennium Falcon fly like she used to.
Not get a new ship because this one’s too slow.

We think the work itself, is what makes the relationship better, and the ship more valuable. While they are afraid we’ll find out that what we’re riding here is not a new, perfect model straight from the conveyor belt.
We can’t wait until we can get dirty and dig our fingers in (pardon the graphic choice of words) when they hope to finally, finally, and for once, get a clean ride.

Would there be a way for us, to assure them we know this ship like the back of our hand?
How to patch up the compressor tank without risking the ship gets filled with poisonous gas.

–

“Which brings me back to Connor.
[….] why his silence has been so difficult. It isn’t just the absence of a person; it’s the absence of an opportunity to discover what that connection could have been.”

Okay. Crying now! 
Because yes, that’s exactly what it is.
Missing out on the destination and the scenery.

–

“In both situations (Connor and Mr.Big), the silence seems to have done something that an actual conversation might have done differently. It removed your ability to participate in the ending. You were left to interpret the absence rather than being invited into an explanation. I think there’s something especially painful about that when communication is one of the things you value most.”

Making grown women cry, Elliot!
😭

—

I love you for all the effort in writing back as a whole, but also the topic of emotional processing before sharing something with someone else.
It was good reading that back, but with different wording.
Like you processed it a bit for me 😉

And then what you made me see, is in the next paragraph, the idea of monogamy as something you do to protect the relationship. This was something I never considered, for which I will not feel guilty because monogamy is so normalized, it’s not my job to think about its virtues.

Meanwhile I m way past the point of risking writing an ugly letter back because I quote too much and have too little original ideas of my own, so I may as well continue and copy paste this whole thing:

” I do wonder, though, whether the possibility of losing someone to a conventional relationship is particularly painful because it would suggest that the connection you believed was significant was ultimately conditional – that someone could enjoy the freedom and intimacy of your relationship until something more conventional came along, at which point you would suddenly become expendable.
You don’t want to be someone’s temporary exception. You want to be someone whose importance survives the arrival of other people. I think that’s a very human thing to want.“

A human thing to want, until it starts fucking costing something and the Falcon, the scenery, the soft dom, and the mistress are quietly deleted by giving them the silent treatment.
I can feel a new ice stalk forming in my heart, Elliot.

I once read (source: Florence Given) that you should not make yourself smaller to be palpable to other people, and it closed on:
“Stay whole and let them choke.”
The only reason I did not make Let them choke my life’s mantra was because I have to stay karmically neutral, or they could (and probably should!) send me to back to earth to reincarnate.

Which is why I have trained myself to reframe being discarded and ignored (and I m not talking about Connor obviously because he does not owe me anything), but almost everyone I ever dated yes;
I have reframed being walked away from – not even being granted a conversation – so they could have some SUV version of life as:
I am happy that they are free and know how to make the choices that work for them.
And then I breathe, Elliot.
And I breathe again.
And after a while – oh no a little longer than that – then the anger subsides and I am me again. Human again. Soft again. And I no longer want anyone to choke, and understand that building Millennium Falcons is not for the faint at heart;
That scenic routes are a bit of an acquired taste;
That most of us have had more than enough stress for one lifetime;
With too many things breaking down on them;
Too many destinations that were never reached;
And a lot of terrible company and unwanted guests along the way.

And I no longer blame them, and a Zen like peace comes over me that makes life feel kind of nice.

So no, I would not call it settling, really.
We both made a choice: You for a relationship, and me for living alone.
But we have our eyes wide open, and we encounter different things. Different challenges. You encounter disappointment with how you would like to be understood by your partner, and he seems incapable or unwilling to do that.
And I experience disappointment of men not valuing me and the type of relationship I have to offer, and only allowing me in their life if they don’t have anything (or anyone) better to do.

I refuse to see either one of those choices as settling.

In particular not when there are blogposts that are thousands of words long.
And two souls meeting online in what Anais Nin foreshadowed in the 70s, by wishing for “a Café in Space”.

Final quote from your letter:

“The interesting part of a story isn’t always what happened.
Sometimes it’s what happened inside you while it was happening.”

As long as there are things happening inside of us we have not settled, Elliot. Which is why it will never be true that you settled in your relationship, nor will I ever settle in my abstinence.

Neither one of us has settled, and we now also have each other.

I have a good feeling about this.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
Behind the Scenes of my 2001 timeline
And more letters to Elliot!
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About 15 years ago, I corresponded with a young writer, Elliot.  My side of the story turned into a book Bedtime Stories, which is in my bookshop. In 2023 we briefly reconnected, and now we are writing again. 

We need to talk about Connor was written in response to Elliot’s first public letter to me:
Dusting Off the Keys

 

5 November 2026
Guy Fawkes Day (UK)

Dear Elliot,

An inner-world.
That’s what I would round it off to, the similarity between you, me and Connor.
But also: It’s the reason that, indeed, I never saw you as vulnerable.
Perhaps a vulnerable situation, but most of all just a challenging life phase, and one all of us can relate to. 

I did not hear any alarm bells, but I will also say that you had control over the only world I am interested in, which is the inner one.
I will never see someone with such a rich inner-world, which they master, as vulnerable.

You were young in years (I recall you turning 15 at some point, but I forgot when we started writing) but you already had this rich inner-world, in which you knew your way around. And when I say inner-world;
I do not mean a magical fairy place where reality is escaped.
I mean a magical fairy place where the world is almost violently, being pulled into, exactly as it is. And where it is analyzed and understood, and meaning is attributed to what was once chaos.
It is a place where the world becomes sufferable.
And you had access to one.
This Underworld….

And like me – although I don’t think I went there until I was already in my thirties – and like Connor – more about him later – this skill has made us mighty in the real world.

Regardless of everything I missed about you in 2010-ish, or brushed away too easily, and regardless of what you never trusted to share;
Even then, no one had the right to see you as vulnerable.
If we were to use labels, I would insist we put them on your past surroundings. But they do not get to define who you were, which was someone incredibly wise, and sweet, and reflective.

I have no idea why I feel the need to go on a tangent about that, let’s hope it’s not because I feel myself above any of it.
I’m sure I made a ton of mistakes that other people may have started blaming themselves for.
Hope you can read it as: Yes Elliot. I did always have faith in you. And at the same time I tried to not be blind to where the world failed you.

I notice myself having trouble writing without addressing or naming things that are definitely part of our connection. I’m keeping these letters non- specific, but I will tell you (and the other readers) why;
It is because despite your reassurance in your private letters, that I can write here about anything I want, I’ve decided to only respond to what you yourself are disclosing in your new blogseries of this correspondence. So you decide the topics I address in public, and you also decide on the pace in which they are disclosed.
This way these letters will hopefully never surprise you, or confront you, in a bad way.

Now the “I’ll get back to”, also the title of this letter:
We need to talk about Connor.

And not just We – because you requested it both in our private conversation, as well as your public letter to me – but I.
I need to talk about him.

Because I suspect he’s not just the last man I have fallen in love with, but that he will be the final one.
Just like my secret lover Mr. Big may have been my final sex partner.

There seems to be a sense of completion. Of finality.
A knowing, if you will, that this was it. Or this was “Him”. And that if I want my life on earth to be something I do not come back to, a line needs to be drawn somewhere, sometime.
I can’t leave this planet with a bleeding, a longing, or a lusty heart, or I will reincarnate and that is something I definitely will not do.

I imagine arriving up into the heavens, or wherever meetings like this are held. And I open a bottle of chilled wine and pour both myself and the officer in question one, in a whiskey glass with ice. And I wear a black tank top and have muscular arms (and maybe a piece in a holster, like in Miami Vice) (which by the way is currently filming with Austin Butler in the lead) (but I digress)

Anyway, I sit my hip on the table as I pour them their drink and I say:
“This can be a long conversation, or a short one. It’s up to you. But I can already tell you how it ends, which is with me moving away. I am not going to guide anyone.”
(I turn my back on the officer, and place the bottle in the fridge again)
“I’m not going to reincarnate into a new body.”
(walking back to my seat, still avoiding eye contact)
“And I’m definitely,” (now I make eye contact) “Not going to hell or heaven. And this is also, the last conversation I will ever have.”
*dramatic pause*
“So you decide,”  (at which point I take a huge sip of my drink) “What’s it going to be?”

As you can see, this is a conversation I look forward to having. And one of the very few I have bothered to prepare. Because in our human lives, like your letter also says, it’s best to just stick with the practical stuff. To the doing, and to the arranging of the doing.
To have that conversation about wall paint, and to leave all that depth we carry out of it.
And honestly, to leave it out in particular from the ones we love.

Because Elliot, I think we would not even want to have those types of conversations with our romantic partners.
I think we fall in love with them because they are closed where we are open.
Content with shallow answers where we do not rest until we have turned every stone within a five mile radius.

At least; That is what I would have said if you had returned last year. Or before that.
But now, after I fell in love with Connor?
I know what I missed.

And I want to grieve what was never there. That I never had a lover who could hold my depth, and everything I am, and for whom I did not have to pretend to be okay with him keeping his inner-world (there it is again) out of our connections.
I don’t want to have fights about normal every day things, but if we do fight (as I wrote you) then yes, I think having fights about shallow things are definitely preferable to me being ready to go deep and then being rejected for it.

I also don’t want to be your emotional dumping ground, so simply a man “opening up” will not cut it either. I will be completely stressed out from that, and I think I’ve understood this about myself for a very long time, and have always fought tooth and nail to prevent it from happening.
And never had a man break down on me, or with me.
And I don’t care what a cliché that is or how unkind that I don’t want that kind of rawness so close to me; But I knew there was a hard limit there.
And looking back at how little drama I had, you could say I successfully managed to stay within my limitations.

So had you come to me in 2024 or 2025, I would have said;
“Elliot, let’s not just accept that we have relationships with people who do not want to share their inner-world with us, but let’s celebrate! Because we got exactly what we want.”

But you came to me in 2026, and now I say:
“And then, there was Connor.”
He was like the writer you mentioned in your private letter, whose work should not be read until you are older and need to be shaken out of your complacent sense of knowing what life is all about.
Well Connor, he shook me out of it.
And it’s tempting to say “hard”, but that would give it a sexual connotation that I have no right of using.
Which brings me to the disclaimer paragraph.

The disclaimer is that Connor can in no way be held accountable for my feelings, nor do I want to suggest there is anything mutual. I think one of the most ugly mistakes men make with women is not accepting a No, and thinking a woman likes them anyway.
I’ve heard they sometimes even brag about it to other men, which is even more disgusting.
Me telling the full truth (and not a black and white version where I simplify it) does automatically puts me at risk of making that same mistake of interpreting it more favorable.

The next paragraphs are me attempting to walk the Middle Path.

So when it comes to Connor, then he rejected me with his absence and his silence.
In the same way Mr.Big ended things with me, with silence and then with selling his condo (“our” condo!) without me knowing.
I called it Death by Real Estate.
And although I understood the reasons behind it, as far as he let me in on them, what I understood mostly was him withholding the conversation about the situation.

Selling the condo did not have to be the end. He could have informed me, offer me an opportunity to say goodbye to it, even in a platonic way. He could have used it as a way to end his affair with me, and use us saying goodbye to the place as a symbolic way to cut the cord.
But he didn’t.
And he let his silence, the not talking, do the work for him.

It’s tempting to say I never forgave him, but the truth is that from my perspective there was little to forgive. Either he could not have a conversation about Us, and this was the only way he knew how to end it.
Or alternatively, he thought eight years of being lovers still means you do not owe them anything. Not even kindness or consideration.
It doesn’t matter because both scenarios round off to the same: He rejected me.
End of story.
That does not require forgiveness, that is just a fact.

And I can muse or even let you in with real life proof, about why I think Mr. Big never said goodbye because he wanted that door to stay open, but it doesn’t change anything.
Despite me calling it Death by Real Estate for dramatic effect, it was his silence that closed the door for him. Not the selling of the condo.

In the same way, I could try to convince you that I don’t think the Connor story is over, but what difference does it make.
Silence is a rejection.
Whether you do it with or without selling real estate, I get the message.

So this part below, about Connor;
Please don’t let it be a “I know he’ll come back” message, because this is a “He changed my world” confession. And I allow myself to speak about him, because he may be the final man I ever fall in love with. And I want that to somehow be part of my body of work.

So. Connor.
He reminded me of you, but you and me connected so long ago, I had forgotten. But yes, I can see it now so clearly!
Yet you were never a love interest to me, and Connor was. Or became it.

So to see that kind of mental depth with someone who is within your dating age bracket (admittedly, I do have a broad age bracket! 😉 ) and who is also absolutely STUNNING?
Elliot trust me when I say anyone even remotely romantically curious about dating men, would fall for that.

I would even argue that if you were a heterosexual man but you feel attracted to Connor, he would not even count. Do you know that rule of thumb? Like having a crush on a same-sex Hollywood actor, “don’t count”?
Could very well be that it is no longer appropriate to say that (and probably for valid reasons) but if it still passes, it’s something like:
“Austin Butler doesn’t count.”
Meaning: A man attracted to Austin Butler can still be straight.

Connor too, would not count.
When (not if!) you fall for him, all we know is that your eyes still work.

So there is nothing special about me falling in love with him. That’s what everybody does who meets him, although admittedly most of us would hide it better.
However what is worth mentioning, and why I am writing about him, is how he changed my world. My demands. Now that I know “what’s out there”, I’m not going to settle anymore.

So 2024 or 2025 me, she would have said;
“Oh Elliot. We don’t want a partner that is so writer-y, and introspective as we are.
If we did, we’d have one.
Maybe you and me are even the villains in this story! 
And their silences, micro-aggressions, or them selling real-estate to break up with us, make us feel better about ourselves.
Let’s rejoice in all our humanness and be happy we’re all so different.”

But 2026 me says:
“Elliot, I want that.”
And then that means I want the Hollywood star level man with the incredible rich inner world, and will never settle again for a lover who treats communication like a necessary evil.
Which is basically all men I’ve ever been with.

I’m done, Elliot.
I’m just really, really done.
I want it all.

To write three thousand words long letters.
To have them understood.
And to receive one back, written by him.

To have a man be fearless in asking me things, because our No’s are part of the connection, just as much as the yesses.
And in return I too will be fearless in asking him things, and will love his No’s as much as his yesses.
I will cherish every word, every moment we align even when the result is not what I hoped for.

I want a man to be the person in charge in the bedroom and to always call me the morning after, to check how I feel and to hold space for me.
To integrate what worked, and to delete what was poorly digested.
Or to ask at our next encounter, how I would feel about trying this and that again, and suggest a role play to go with it, that sparks my erotic interest.

I want him to share his inner-world with me.
Not the trauma, resurfacing for the first time. But to share how he is currently managing it. A changed perspective, a development. The stuff he still struggles with, and forgets that just being able to name it and flag it as something he still struggles with, is already so much progress.
He shares things that are not light, but they’re already in the light.

His emotions do not reach me unprocessed, and my emotions are not given or exposed to him in their raw form either.
We both do our inner work.

And I don’t care about monogamy. Or I guess I do care, because I care enough for it not to want it. I think monogamy is so lazy, compared to having a real, alive, connection.
I would just be upset if that alive connection existed and then if I would get another lover and he would not be able to handle it.
I want someone who is genuinely happy for me that good things are happening, and who can even support me in it.
Although I would respect it of course, if he could not be so hands on in his support and does not want to hear about it.
But regardless, how can you not be happy for me?

And the other way around as well.
I want him to keep his heart open, and appreciate love and lust, one of the few things that make life on earth make sense. The few things, that are worth being here for.
Regardless with whom, and whether he prefers casual dating or entire affairs.
And even if he wants to pursue a monogamous relationship, then I want a man who still makes room for me as a friend. Generously.

Yet if he would then end things out of loyalty for a new partner, I would feel betrayed.
Because I thought we were more than sex.
I thought we had something that could not be denied, except you just did.

So in that respect, I will never know if a partner is the right one – and if he was indeed just as ideal as the man I once knew and whom I called Connor – until I find a second lover or until he gets tested by someone offering him a normal relationship, in which he does not have to fight for being different or wanting something different from women, and from life.

If I ever find a lover like Connor, then I hope those things happen soon.
That there will be a second lover for me, and that he will be tempted to the life of his dreams but with me as the sacrifice.
How he treats me then, reveals what he was made of.

But regardless if I get to have that one true last love, and regardless if it’s Connor, Mr.Big, Austin Butler or someone new; 
I’m not coming back to earth for him.

It’s now or never.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
Behind the Scenes of my 2001 timeline
And more letters to Elliot!
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About 15 years ago, I corresponded with a young writer, Elliot.  My side of the story turned into blogposts, and then a book Bedtime Stories, which is in my bookshop.

In 2023 we briefly connected again, and now I received a new letter. With his consent, I am sharing his blog, and answering via this post.

Dear Elliot,

It was such a big surprise to see your name in my Inbox.
At the risk of sounding disrespectful, you are this strange anomaly in my life!
A bond that should not have happened, and if it did happen it should have dried up and died out after 24 hours.
Or, if that did not happen, then there should have been a co-dependence, ill-will or malice.

And yet it turned into one of the most equal connections I ever experienced.
And if that meant I had the mind of a 15 year old, when in my thirties, then I take that as a compliment. Because you were more mature than anyone I have ever known, although I think I met your match this year 😉 
Let’s call him Connor.
And it wasn’t until I received your letter and was immediately pulled back into your inner-world, when I realized: “Of course! I knew Connor rang a bell!”
It was you, he reminded me of.

Connor is no longer in my life.
And with your return you’ve kind of proven how I feel about him;
I feel he will return when the time is right.
And am just as detached with him as I was with you.

You are probably one of the few who understands that some bonds do not die just because you are in no contact. But yes, I was disappointed of course. But now you are back! So looks like the Universe has it handled.

I loved all the stories in your letter, and you do deserve a proper answer. But I am so incredibly short on time this weekend after yesterday’s one hour appointment turned into 6, in the most wonderful way!
So this letter back will not be what you or your letter to me deserve.
For the lack of time reasons, but also because I am still unsure of what information about you is part of your blog/ writing/ public, and what not. So that also makes it undesirable to be specific at this time.

Enough with the disclaimers; about your beautiful letter.

I loved your reflection, your inner-world. The way you name things, and weigh them, and describe your love relationships at multiple different levels of facts, expectations, and potential. 

And it’s so cinematic. I enter and it’s like I’m standing in the middle of your life and already know everybody.

About one thing I can be specific though: You do not need an interior designer.
Not as someone who has such an intense relationship with the world around them, bring that into the relationship with your home. You and your partner have found such an amazing place to live. Do not let another person get their hands on it, but make that the work of you and your partner together.

Even if you do an aesthetically super poor job, it will still be so gratifying to look at that strangely colored wall, where you ran out of paint and you just fixed it with a different color.
The doorsteps that never got done and that remind you and your partner every day, that the work is never done.

Let the home become how you work on your relationship, it eases the stress of difficult conversations, because issues no longer have to be confronted or named directly.

It’s good for people like us, with these deep inner-worlds, to have relationships that revolve around practical things.
Not just to get us out of our heads, but also because it’s a great equalizer.
It grounds the relationship, and if you have disagreements or fights, then at least it’s about something silly that seems solvable, which is preferable to hoping for a deep conversation someone is not ready for.
(and one does not exclude the other)

As for the titel of this post, The Prodigal Son, I know it’s pretentious! And also not entirely true because as I said in the first paragraph, it has always been equal.
But yes, the responsibility I felt, back in 2010-ish, of corresponding with a minor, was definitely one I had never had.
And I knew I would never forgive myself if I fucked this up.

Having you return, and doing so incredibly well for yourself, fills my heart with love, joy and maybe I am also crying now.

But you made it Elliot.
You fucking, made it.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2026*
Behind the Scenes of my 2001 timeline
And who knows, perhaps more letters to Elliot!
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.