"Curious. But I feel a range of sensations near him, majority of which are not painful," Al bit his lip and confessed. "I don't wish to lose them. They're quite... extraordinary."
He took a deep breath. "I've never done this before. So I'm not sure I can be relied on to provide a mutually beneficial relationship without a statistically significant chance of failure. And, as you say, failures in these kind of affairs can be painful.
While I accept the possibility of hurt, I don't wish to subject anyone else to it, especially an uninformed third party."