capacity_to_love silentbob Ages 9-12: I would find one person and unrequited_love them with the whole of my heart, to be unloved_tenderly in my own private prison Ages 14-23: I would have crushes on lots of different people, with occasional actual_makeouts and occasional people I would fixate solely, to write every poem about. I also started asking people out during this time and it was usually a fail. Ages 23-27: I would lust for everyone, occasionally unrequited_love a few, occassionally hook up with strangers and friends. Ages 27-30: Trying to be in long term relationships with people I am attracted to, to generate feelings of lasting love with an actual person who is my partner, trying to do the thing I wanted to do when I was younger with women who will have me. The disconnect is what_i_want with what_i_have. I find it increasingly difficult to love the people I am with. To fall for people who will have me. And I do not know if it's an issue of finding the right person or the scary thing which is I do not have the capacity to love someone the way I wanted to from when I was younger, to love and be equal to a partner. I think I just want to obsess over a person and eventually accomplish being with them, which seems unlikely. But I never like people I date, and people I like never date me. And it is a problem of the pedastal, and how I act nervous around someone when I'm vulnerable But I also think there's an element of... if they like me, or don't like me, it's more about them. I can only be myself, and have little control over whether they like me or not. So the goal is just to find someone I can be crazy about who will also have me. But for everyone else, my_heart's_an_autoclave 140318 ... unhinged bodhichitta the_waitress - atmosphere 140318 ... unhinged (that is a lofty goal dear. i have to say mine is similar and most dating has left that goal unsatisfied. but, BUT, the small percentage of people i have actually attained that goal with, i have found completely by accident. and maybe, it is something in us that wants us to believe we will always be unloved failures. reaching a goal is not an all or nothing instantaneous thing. it is a gradual thing that takes a lot of effort like climbing a mountain. true partnership far outreaches any cost_benefit_analysis ; it is a conscious choice to lay aside ego for a greater we. it is scary, risky, difficult. it will end just like all things end. but as much as the heart_pang screams at me to crawl in a hole and die every time i get burned from cliff_diving the greater part of me always takes the chance whenever it is offered. abandon_expectation ) 140318 ... Risen I think that my capacity to love is inversely proportional to my capacity to be loved - and that applies to everyone I've ever loved or who has loved me. If I care about someone, chances are they either don't know I exist, or don't really care. But if someone really loves me? I tend to be indifferent in the extreme. I think you're right. It's probably a reflection on my feeling like I don't deserve to be loved or happy. I swear, I seek out the most impossible people to love. There is no chance of happiness, no hope whatsoever, so I never need to risk losing anything, or even more scary, risk being happy. 140322 ... silentbob Wow, samesies. We should probably start group therapy 140323 ... silentbob it is difficult to meet you and to know there is room in my heart for you and to know you could not reciprocate 140814 ... unhinged is still huge but my opportunities are ever shrinking 180620 ... unhinged gets diminished with every person that casts me aside 190512 what's it to you? who go blather from