... and did you ever get the realization that maybe you were withholding for the "seeming" that you are not available, and if that's true maybe there was a little bit of spite involved, know what I mean?

yes you have to check your motives but this is one of those splitting hairs kinds of distinctions, yet you can hardly avoid having to make it once you're in this business, when the best you can do is accept that your choices will never make sense to some people.

Maybe my question is: how would we define withholding and at what point/gray area is it really that?