Need

At some point it becomes so much more carnal than that. Need. One sideways glance and it was clear that all he needed was affection. After the routine of a stingy lover, we begin to define ourselves by the number of kisses shared and the number of times they didn't call. Here was half a person. I saw enough of myself in the glimmer of his eye to recognize that look. Why do we let people define us?

Why do we need people at all?

But need is a rabbit hole. And the further you fall, the less you feel yourself falling. The less you know yourself at all. I think I got I lost somewhere between promising myself I was okay and giving up on the notion altogether.

This was the first year I realized how much I need people. That realization fills the rabbit hole with dread-- I would be drowning but I float in the promise of a city full of solitary moments. Like Martin Buber’s asks, between It and Thou relationships: do we really want to live in a society in which all of our encounters with people involve genuine human engagement? The INFJ in me says yes. That is why I shy away from anything less deep. The girl I have become, however, says no. It is much easier to float above the dread that fills us.

And Buber says, man is unfulfilled and alienated. Need ignored. Needy.

And that makes man less attractive, interjects the society that has made man so.  

And man needs again: Needs approval, needs encouragement, needs man. 

This is how man gets into trouble.