i think being vulnerable is one of the most humiliating positions to put yourself in.
because you're laying it all out, skin flayed away, so that someone else can see and join with you.
but you can never have a guarantee that the other is willing to travel that path of intimacy with you.
and maybe just maybe, vulnerability is sometimes an imposition on the other person.

the alternative, however, requires a hardness, an edge to protect the tender layer beneath. a space, a gap and an appearance. the alternative is a safe ignorance, an aversion to being discovered and discovering, but an attraction to seeming.

welcome to the rock and a hard place.