Thanks Turtle for the advice. I wasn't going to say anything more on this thread as I was thinking nobody else would be bothered, but its rumbled on.
In reply to Owwhatanight, whilst not heartbroken, I was very upset, but its interesting to hear what you had to say about what had happened to you. I'll certainly miss Holly and would have loved to see her again as she ticked every box for me, but I accept what has happened and unfortunately that's the end of it. I guess at the time I was most shocked that Holly based her entire decision on my correspondence to her and not on her true knowledge of me and how I was with her when we met, as that surely is the most reliable test of someone. Without trying to take any higher ground, I think that if I'd have got a disconcerting email from Holly I am pretty sure I would have asked her about it further, rather than tell her that I didn't want to see her again. I trusted her enough to think that if she sent me something that seemed out of character for her then there would be a reason. Albeit that could be simply because I liked her more than she liked me, who knows? I wonder if Owwhatanight felt the same way. Again though, I totally understand that she has every right to make that call and perhaps she doesn't want to get into any discussion beyond it as it might simply have made her feel uncomfortable thereafter, no matter what the reason was behind it.
I still maintain nobody should be put off Holly by my experience, I would recommend her 100%. In terms of what's happened between us, I actually think I'm the one who was too young and inexperienced, not in age but in the punting game. I only started this hobby last year and looking back I made mistakes with Holly. I now know I should never have sent that email and I should have waited it out for longer and trusted her to get in touch when she was able to.
One other thing I've learned, which I think is an interesting but separate discussion point, is the issues that arise when corresponding with a younger girl. I'm reasonably articulate, but Holly & I had the odd bit of confusion before now in emails and texts, partly I think due to age differences and modern text speak, although these were never contentious issues and were always cleared up. But I think there is a difference in how my generation view texts and emails compared to someone around Holly's age. I have to admit that I'm a bit anal when it comes to emails and texts and tend to expect a reply if I send one out. I would never knowingly not reply to one myself, if I thought the sender wanted a reply. In my experience - and I have 2 girls younger than Holly - it is quite common for their generation not to reply, or not to reply as quickly as I would myself. I also guess that a girl like Holly, who is juggling studies, a personal life, an AW life and a job, must get loads of emails and texts and must find it hard to reply to them all and even keep a check on those that she hasn't read or replied to. I should remember that more often, but its not easy to when its against your own nature. I once read that because my generatiuon grew up receiving very few emails and texts initially, we became accustomed to replying to each one of them and so it is more in our nature to deal with them all and reasonably quickly, whilst a younger generation has almost had email/text overload from an early age so get less hung up on an odd missing reply. Both Owwhatanight and myself seem to have been in that boat with Holly, by chasing her up because she didn't respond in the time limits "we" thought were acceptable.
As a final thought, the last time I saw Holly we briefly talked about another girl's blog. If you get a second read the blog dated March 11, 2015 for this girl, who I have never seen but is on my HL:
External Link/Members Only or
External Link/Members Only I brought it up with Holly and I can't recall the conversation we had, but I know at the time I felt that I could never possibly be put into one of the categories. How ironic!
