I spent a long time in my adolescence and 20s desperately crushing on a series of people, and I wrote a ton of poetic journal entries about the experience of being in love with them, hunting for signs every time we met that my affections would be returned (they were not.) I didn't have the self-awareness back then to ask myself the question: what did they see in me? What do I have to bring to the table? Specifically, what were /they/ missing, what were they desperately longing for, and was it a good idea for me to try to fill that need? What was the narrative of their life they were telling themselves, and how could I fit into that (or not)?
Somehow these questions were difficult to ask and difficult to answer, particularly when I was so caught up in my obsessions with how I perceived them to be filling some deep need in me. So thank you for this article; it reminded me of how hard it is to look at oneself through the eyes of someone whose approval one is desperately longing for.
I also wonder - this is a useful exercise, I think, but why do we so desperately want to be an object of the object of our affections? When you say that you want your essence to be drunk of, your countenance marveled upon - whence the desire to be an object? Why do we desire to stop being a Subject when we are in love; why do we want to be objectified by the lover?
I spent a long time in my adolescence and 20s desperately crushing on a series of people, and I wrote a ton of poetic journal entries about the experience of being in love with them, hunting for signs every time we met that my affections would be returned (they were not.) I didn't have the self-awareness back then to ask myself the question: what did they see in me? What do I have to bring to the table? Specifically, what were /they/ missing, what were they desperately longing for, and was it a good idea for me to try to fill that need? What was the narrative of their life they were telling themselves, and how could I fit into that (or not)?
Somehow these questions were difficult to ask and difficult to answer, particularly when I was so caught up in my obsessions with how I perceived them to be filling some deep need in me. So thank you for this article; it reminded me of how hard it is to look at oneself through the eyes of someone whose approval one is desperately longing for.
I also wonder - this is a useful exercise, I think, but why do we so desperately want to be an object of the object of our affections? When you say that you want your essence to be drunk of, your countenance marveled upon - whence the desire to be an object? Why do we desire to stop being a Subject when we are in love; why do we want to be objectified by the lover?
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