Nonreal Targets

I want to feel more loved

I want to share the mental load

I want you to communicate better

I want more of you

I want to feel closer to you

I want a different response from you

If you are asking for more, better, or different, you are asking for something else, for someone else.

This person's style of loving is not working for you.

If you need different, better, or more, you need someone else. This person is who they've shown themselves to be, they are giving their best, they are doing their most. This is what they have to offer you.

There, now that you know they don't need to change, do you want to love them as they are?

Maybe you do, maybe you don’t.

If it’s true that something ephemeral needs to be different, figure it out and ask for something real, or make the ephemeral different via being different context for the connection.

How can you know they should be different instead of you being different? How do you know you shouldn't value what they're giving more? How do you know you shouldn't ask for less or give them more?

Cause that's the real thing—if I'm not interested in giving different, giving better, giving more, I'm not really loving that person.

If all my concern is that they be different (for me), give me better, give me more, I'm not actually interested in *them* so much as *what I want.* My dissatisfaction is evidence that they are not it.

This is where a lot of women have their sense of lack confused with their desire.

They want more FROM him

but they never wanted HIM in the first place.

They wanted someone, and an assortment of things, feelings, experiences from that someone.

They saw him and thought he might be someone.

But he's HIM.

I catch myself in this plenty often, I hope you know I am speaking from the lowest possible horse.

I want! I want! I want! And I say I want it from him! I say I want him!

But then I check in with myself—what am I remembering about our time together? What ways are these thoughts cherishing of what we have shared? In what way am I in empathy for his here-and-now, in what way am I seeking to be of service or supportive to him? What of him am I craving, what do I visualize as I crave him?

Sometimes, these have not been the nature of my thoughts at all. These are thoughts of desire, and thoughts of lack only examine my own emptiness.

I want him here holding me. I want him to text. I want him to call. I want him to take me out, I want him to make me feel special.

These lack-thoughts want someone.

And I dehumanize him when I render him down to someone.