Touch and Love

“I want a warm body pressed against mine to know I exist.”

I heard something along those lines in a movie recently, and it stuck with me. It was said by a teenage girl, which makes a lot of sense. When I was younger, my first set of crushes was purely based on the fact that they were boys who liked me first. Hypothetically, if I lived the entirety of my life without ever being touched by another person, it’s true—I would feel as if a part of me never truly existed. A human truth: that all we really want out of love is to be acknowledged. To have the things we see every day in ourselves be recognized by another, even for just a moment. It makes us feel less alone.

To be loved is to be known, they say. All we want is to be known, because as innately self-absorbed creatures, we must have someone love us as much as we love ourselves—or else, is our self-admiration even valid? You may follow that idea up with the question, “Then why do some people choose to be with people who don’t love them or treat them poorly?” It’s because those people don’t love themselves, and in some weird, fucked-up way, being with someone who confirms the degrading idea you have of yourself is easier than changing that idea.

Oops, I said something depressing.