Q: Why does every intimate connection feel like I'm taking something?

From conquest to presence

Question: Why does every sexual interaction feel like I'm taking something from women? I can't seem to have intimate connections without it feeling like some sort of "con job." What am I missing? ~ Jack

Answer:

Dear Jack,

Stay here in this trembling
in this not knowing
in this naked truth

For every moment
you dare to feel
instead of take to
share instead of prove

Love isn't something
to win or get
but presence
waiting to be shared

Let me speak to this wound with the tenderness it deserves.

First, let me honor something remarkable: you can feel when you're running a con. That awareness - that uncomfortable feeling of "taking" or "performing" in intimate connections - is your heart's wisdom speaking. It knows the difference between authentic connection and learned patterns.

Yes, you're running a con. But here's the twist - you're not the original con artist. You're playing out a script that society ran on all of us, that's been running for generations. We have been trained to believe in the lie that external love defines who we are.

The real con was being taught that intimacy means taking, that love-from-others defines our worth, that connection is something to win rather than share.

And here's the deepest con: we're unconsciously trying to make our partners into our mothers and fathers. Seeking that unconditional love we never fully received, trying to heal childhood wounds through adult intimacy. No wonder it feels like taking - we're trying to get from our partners what only our younger selves needed from our parents.

Let me be clear: you're not missing anything. There's nothing broken to fix. You're exactly where you need to be - starting to see the pattern, feeling the discomfort of it, longing for something truer.

Feeling like a con man is actually the beginning of healing. Instead of fighting this awareness, what if we stayed with it? What if every moment of feeling fake became an invitation to be more real? Every urge to perform became a reminder to simply be present?

Think of it like learning to fly. You're in the cockpit of your own heart, everything in you wanting to run the old programs, play the old games. But real flight hours aren't about being perfect - they're about staying present through the turbulence of:

• Staying present when everything in you wants to perform

• Feeling like a fraud without trying to fix it

• Watching your need to be seen arise without acting on it

• Holding yourself with compassion when old patterns surface

• Being gloriously imperfect in the presence of another heart

• Staying with the discomfort of real intimacy instead of rushing to fix or control

• Choosing presence over pretense, again and again

The deepest truth I've found is this: true love arises when we recognize our own capacity to receive and share love. It's not something we achieve - it's a presence we learn to embody.

It's one thing to develop this presence alone - to learn to stay with your own heart. It's an entirely different journey to share this presence with another. To stay open when everything in you wants to close. To remain still when ancient patterns scream for motion.

The real practice isn't in becoming better - it's in learning to stay present with what already is. To watch yourself want to prove, want to take, want to control, and to hold all of that with compassion. These patterns began as survival, as ways to feel safe, as attempts to get the love we needed.

So welcome this journey. Choose people who are interested in staying in the fire of the heart with you. Find others who understand that true love is shared presence - not performance, not taking, not proving. Marvel at how your heart is learning, slowly but surely, to sing the song of your heart.

Remember: true love is shared presence.

Every moment you stay present with your own heart, with your partner's heart, with all the messiness of real connection - you're not just healing yourself. You're not just creating intimacy with another. You're part of a greater remembering, as the collective heart learns to stay open, to be seen, to be shared.

Every moment of presence is a gift to all hearts learning to trust love again.

Love, Oriya