The Romantic Correspondence Continues

Leif had trie to get together with LA but things kept interfering with their meeting in person. She lived in another town, which complicated things further. However, they continued to talk on the phone and communicate via instant messaging and email. Leif continued to reveal more and more about himself and his feelings about the relationships between men and women. LA's prolific and tantalizing letters elicited more writing from him. In this one, he explains his attraction to women, theorizes why he is attracted to thin, clear-skinned women, and what kind of dominance he wants to have. He tells us how important it is to a man to have an attractive wife and why. As he says, people don't say these things out loud, but he is willing to put a lot of faith in LA's understanding of his male viewpoint.

Sadly for him, he lost the weight battle. I wonder whether he would have felt any differently in early 2008 than when he wrote this in July 2005, though I doubt it.

At this point, he and LA had been corresponding for about a month.

Saturday, July 23, 2005 11:38 PM
Subject: more babbling please

Hello My sweet.

I love it when you babble. It's cute. One thing that I may not have told you before is that unlike many men I actually find your peculiar, irrational, feminine emotionality rather appealing. Don't get me wrong; if you start to get neurotic and irritating I might get annoyed, but I am extremely rational and perhaps a little emotionally repressed. I love the fact that women are so much more emotional. I find it fascinating. In fact, I find women utterly fascinating period. And the more archetypically female the better. Women are so beautifully alien to me. I just cant get enough of them.

On one hand I understand women well, better than most men, but that understanding is like the sort of understanding a biologist has of the way a bird flies. You understand how it flies and the reasons it flies but that does not mean you understand what it would be like to fly, and that is fascinating, like watching a bird and trying to comprehend what it might be like to be one of those beautiful creatures. That is kinda how I see women, as beautiful alien beings which, no matter how much I study them, remain irresistibly inexplicable.

I also like the fact that you feel comfortable talking to me about your emotions. I like that. It means you trust me.

I guess I have an unusual idea of what dominance or power means to me. Many simply enjoy the idea of simple power, the ability to do what one wants and to get other people to do what one wants. And yes, that has a certain appeal. However, I am reminded of a saying I heard in the military when it comes to leadership. It says that POWER is described as the ability to make people do something they do not want to do. There are many means to power; bribery, coercion, fear, etc. By contrast, LEADERSHIP is defined as the ability to make people want to do what you want them to do.

There are many powerful people. They can say, “you will follow me into battle because if you don't I will burn your homes,” but the true leaders are the ones whose people follow them willingly because they are just that cool and noble, whose people follow them because it is to their advantage, not just to their detriment not to.

To me, achieving dominion over a woman like you is not so much about being able to force you into submission. Rather to me it more like the ability to tame a wild animal. Sure, any brute can lasso a horse, put it in a corral and then, with help from others, tie it down and mount it and force it into submission, but how many can walk up to one in an open field and over the course of a few days or weeks get close to it, touch it, and earn its trust to the point that the horse will let him on its back without coercion? How many could make that horse a loyal friend that would actually protect its master? That is a true accomplishment.

I see the winning of a woman the same way. Any man can rape a woman, beat her into submission, force her to comply with his desires or suffer pain and degradation if she doesn't. That is no challenge. There is no satisfaction in that. But how many men could get a woman to voluntarily open herself to him? Let him in where he pleases? How many could obtain her willing subjugation? How many men could have a woman on her knees pleasuring him willingly and eagerly and thankful for his presence? Not many. That is the power I seek.

And while any man can claim a woman and “say she is mine because I say so,” how many can say she is mine because SHE says so? I can tell you that if you are desirable, as you must be, getting hit on all the time, that there is no greater feeling of pride that a man can have than to walk into a room with a woman that every man in the room wants and desires and have them all know that she is his by choice and chose him above all of them. It is the greatest status symbol a man can have, to have the woman that they all want.

This is another important insight you should have when it comes to your own appearance. Men compete in everything in life. And we compare everything. The quality of a man's woman is part of that competition. The man that shows up with a "catch" is held in very high esteem. "Wow, he must be a real man if he got her" kind of thing. A man who has a fat ugly wife that doesn't take care of herself looks very badly for the man. Now we would never say any of this aloud, but for example I have a customer that I consider to be a good looking guy. He is of decent height, is well built, and has a winning smile. I would think he is a good looking guy. His wife is not very pretty, is fat, and she doesn't seem to make any attempt to look good for him. I see them and I pity him. I think not only that he could do better but that he must have little self respect to stay with her, and I think that she is disrespecting him by not having the decency to try and look good for him. It shows a lack of respect for him.

Ultimately, be it power, wealth, or whatever, all male competition comes down to the pursuit of quality mates. The man with the quality woman is held in higher esteem even over the rich and powerful. A lot of that is tied to her appearance, and while you can't control everything about your looks or weight, a woman that "lets herself go" and doesn't even attempt to stay fit for her man is disrespecting him in the worst way. She is saying, “I don't care about you enough to look good for you and I would rather eat a pint of ice cream a day even if it makes me look unattractive to you and lowers your esteem among your friends.” I hate women that do that to their men. It is so insulting. Sure, while everyone get a little out of shape with age, some women don't even try to look nice. Sweats, T-shirts, pony tails with no make up. It's like they just stopped caring about their husbands now that they got the ring. That is one thing I have always respected about my mother, is that she believes it is herduty as a wife to do her best to look as good as she can for my father, within reason, not only for his sake when they are alone but for the way it effects him publicly.

In fact, this can even affect a man's career, as a boss that sees an employee with a beautiful, loving, happy wife sees a man worthy of respect. By contrast, if he has a crude, ugly, overweight, unkept, wife that is rude, he will think less of that man. On some level he is thinking, “man, if that is the best you could do, you must not be much of a man.” A very sad thing when a woman changes like that. he not only disrespects herself, she disrespects her husband.

Also, it can affect how the man treats you. A man that is proud of his wife wants to show her off, wants to buy her pretty things and take her out on the town and show her off. He wants everyone to see his beautiful wife and think how lucky he is to have her. He wants to keep her happy because she makes him happy. By contrast, if she is unattractive, particularly due to things she can control like her weight and her grooming, and her behavior, then he wants to hide her. He is ashamed of his wife and does not want anyone to se her. He resents her and does not want to do anything for her as she is not doing anything for him. It can be a vicious circle as she does not want to do anything for him and he does not want to do anything for her.

There is no greater feeling than to be proud of your mate and wanting to show her to everyone, like “Look and me and the gorgeous creature I was able to tame,” as opposed to having to go out and know that every one is thinking, “look at the horrid bitch that poor slob is stuck with.”

Anyway, just some stuff I thought you should know. I think it goes for men, too. I struggle with the genes myself and don't have the will power to stay in as good a shape as I would like.

That is also one of the reasons I am so attracted to thin women. I think that people naturally try to find the person that will balance them and make the best children. I am big and strong and fight with being overweight. I also had bad acne as a child, so thin clear-skinned women are very attractive to me. I guess I think mating with one of them would save my kids the same demons and balance them out.

Anyway, there is a bit of my own babbling for you.

You asked about “chemistry.” Chemistry is when you BOTH feel a strong desire, a level of excitement, and euphoria around each other, and feel very comfortable. I have been on many dates where things were forced, a bit flat. You might even like what you see but the person just doesn't seem right. Chemistry is when you just like each other a lot and get along effortlessly, and you want to be close and touch and kiss and can't get enough of each other. Basically, it comes down to if you feel good around each other and if it seems natural or forced. And it must be mutual or else it's just one person's desire.

I must say that chemistry, in my experience, is almost always immediate. You feel it and then it is confirmed over the course of a few hours. A first meeting can be a bit awkward but you feel a desire to get closer and then you wait to see if you can tell if the other person feels the same. Then once you get past the guarded stance and acknowledge that you both like each other, then you just feel really good around each other. It is largely a feeling of validation that happens when two people like each other and they know that the other likes them back. I like you and you like me and all is well with the world.

Well, anyway, I will chat with you some more. Since I am not going to see you I, am going to be a bad boy and drink some beer and play some games and I will sleep in. I hope to talk to you tomorrow. Gimme a call some time. I miss your voice.

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Sadly, I have few photos of Leif during the last three years of his life, because I didn't see him as often in those years. I've posted most of the good ones already, sometimes more than once. I liked to post photos that were taken at about the time of the events I'm writing about, but in this case, I don't have a good 2005 photo to use, so I'm posting one he took of himself in August 2003, actually two years before he wrote this email to LA. He took it in the living room of the house where he was living at 710 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas, a couple of months after he graduated from Kansas State University. I think that period from 2003-2004 was his handsomest period during his post-army years.