#2: i don't crave love

Remember when our mothers fed us (or still do) - those small bites of fresh cut fruits, mini snacks, or even fully prepped meals - remember when they never let us sleep on an empty stomach.

Remember the times when our fathers made sure we got what we wanted, our siblings who were always there beside us, the friends who made sure we were okay despite being miles apart, people who made sure to walk beside us so that we would be safe on the roads - this is what I crave.

I don't crave love - I crave the warmth, care, human existence. I crave belongingness.

I crave the bare minimum that anyone should have and get - something that has become a luxury these days.

We're so disconnected that the mere existence of someone is out of reach at times. And even if it's in reach, there are always obstacles to crossing that barrier to accessibility.

That barrier has given birth to isolation; something even worse - where we are satisfied with the bare minimum. Now I don't know who or, rather, what to blame but this is what most people are failing to understand. Most people are settling for less in the hopes that they're at least getting something, regardless of the fact that they can get more (or even less).

I'm guilty of this too. I've found myself accepting crumbs of connection because asking for more feels impossible sometimes. We've been taught that independence is strength and needing others is weakness.

Yet we've created this strange contradiction in our society. On one hand, we glorify those who "need no one" - we celebrate the self-made, the independent spirit. On the other hand, we're constantly told that finding a romantic partner is the ultimate goal - to find your "other half," someone to "complete you." Somehow, this is the one exception where dependence is celebrated.

We're trapped in this false either/or that doesn't match how humans actually exist. Throughout history, we've always been interdependent creatures. We relied on webs of connection - a neighbor to help fix your roof, a friend to listen to your troubles, an elder to share wisdom. No single person was expected to be everything to someone else. No one had to carry that impossible weight.

This is where we've gone wrong as a modern society.

When I say I don't crave love, I'm not dismissing romantic connection. I'm pushing back against the idea that it's the only valid channel for human care. The fathers who provided, the siblings who stood by us, the friends who checked in - these weren't romantic gestures but the essential fabric of human connection.

I'm craving a world where needing each other across all types of relationships is recognized as normal, not weakness. But I struggle with this too. How do I reconcile my own difficulty in asking for help with my hunger for connection? How do I break down my walls while pushing against a society that has made basic human care feel like some kind of luxury good?

Perhaps what makes these simple acts feel so rare today isn't actually their scarcity but our reluctance to admit we need them. The isolation so many of us feel comes from this contradiction. We settle for less not because we don't deserve more, but because we've been told our only options are complete self-reliance or finding "the one" - with nothing in between.

What I'm really craving is permission. Permission to need others in all the small, human ways. Permission to offer care without it being misread as romantic interest. Permission to create connections that don't fit neatly into the titles we've been given.

I don't crave love in the narrow, commercialized sense we've been sold. I crave the recognition that human beings aren't meant to exist as islands, that reaching out isn't weakness, and that care flowing between people in countless directions isn't a luxury but the foundation of what makes us human.

Maybe it starts with me being brave enough to ask for help when I need it. Maybe it starts with all of us admitting that independence was always a myth, and that what we really need is each other - not just in grand, romantic gestures, but in the thousand small ways we can show up for one another every day.

Fin.