Is it something to imagine, something to think of with desire or hope, that isn't in itself indicative of something lacking in yourself? Is the fact that you fantasize about any number of scenarios that play themselves out in a relationship making you uncomfortable? Do you not allow yourself to do it? To imagine someone holding you, someone reaching for your hand as you're walking. To close your eyes and pretend to be kissed. To lay in bed and feel the emptiness and void that exists there.

Is it wrong to want to be married, even if you're not ready right now? Is it somehow unhealthy to want someone who wants you for keeps, who would do anything to keep you? I long for those things, and I dream about them in those many moments when I am alone. I try to avoid thinking about it among other people because I don't think anything good comes from wanting something for lack of it by comparison, to want someone with you right then because everyone around you has someone and you don't want to be left out. I don't want to be desperate with my dreams of love, nor do I want them to guide my daily life. Then, and only then, if it were to become this way, would I really be concerned that wanting to be with someone is in any way bad or in itself a detriment to me.

There are other ways to hope for connection, to be sure, and I am in no shortage of those as well. I hope for communication with God, God who is here and who is not silent (to quote Francis Schaeffer) on a daily basis. I would like to make more friends. I hope to get closer with my family, or to at least come to terms with how things are with them and I. But love is always there, represented albeit poorly, all around me. And by allowing myself to hope for it, I am giving it some room to breathe. I don't see too much harm in wanting that, even if I won't have it for a while. Do you?

I absolutely understand you ™. What you are describing is the struggle between our instinct and the learned cultural experiences. When you imagine being with someone, you’re just crossing the limits of culturally modelled relationships.

For our old brains, evaluating another companion is transparent, it is just good old evolution again.

I don’t want to feel guiltiness when I imagine how would be this and that… It is perfectly normal to think, when you can’t act. We should value what we really want, hefting the emotional part and the rational and*

*(as if it was easy to decide if feelings are certain or just passing thoughts, as if one were better than the others!)
What a cruel decision, the tragedy of choosing!

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