IV

You will never be a one-stop shop to anyone. Whatever unhealed trauma drives you to want to be is misguided. People need people, and by that, I mean a plurality of people. Other people. People are like shapes—they have different sides to them and rarely, if ever, is a single person privy to all of those sides. Of course, a person should always endeavor to bring their partner into the fullness of who they are, but this will never replace the basic human need for community. We are social animals. The distorted compulsion to want to be your partner’s entire world probably stems from the fact that your world as a child was one in which you didn’t feel seen—where you never felt important. A world filled with feelings of rejection and as a result, you turned inward. The irony is that, as isolated as you are, you continue to stretch cold fingers towards a world, towards someone, that might still care for you. The goal then is to recognize your dysfunction and the fact that your partner needs communion outside of you. Your only ask should be, Can your friends be good friends? Non-threatening friends? Friends who don’t lie in wait for an opportune moment to strike?