Obsession

Today I was looking through notes on my phone, and came across one that reflected an odd desire. Wanting to be wanted by someone. I guess that makes enough sense spelled out that simply, but the complete idea really isn't as easy to grasp as it may appear. I've had a couple of conversations on the subject, but none of them have really gotten to any conclusive point where I feel as though I understand it any more than I had before. The feeling is almost primal--it's partially a desire for dominance, superiority, a position above the competitors. Only in this case it is a much simpler, yet more complex, interplay of competition: it is the fight for the attention of one person alone.

Such a desire doesn't really seem to be completely conscious, but at the same time, I can't say I'm not entirely aware of it. It's wanting to impress someone, to be lusted after, despite not wanting a relationship or anything else. No less than being wanted for sex, but not wanting sex. There lies a fine distinction, but it's not obvious to any but those who experience it.

It makes some amount of sense that this desire is only natural. It's wanting to impress members of the opposite sex--even from an evolutionary standpoint that makes sense. But on the other hand, why want to make that impression, if not after what it would bring--be that a relationship, sex, or whatever else? The nagging feeling of wanting to be noticed, sought after, held in a person's affections...it seems to overpower the rational capacity and realization that one doesn't really want the end result.

Humans evolved to think as they do about impressing the opposite sex; the species would not have survived until now if they hadn't. It's this very idea that seems to be the basis of many of our actions, relations, habits, and thoughts. Yet the line that is crossed from that primal desire to wanting a specific person only for the sake of desire is convoluted and difficult to truly understand. Perhaps it is an act of the mind centering all of said evolved tendencies to impress the opposite sex onto one person, embodying the gender in one single physical and emotional entity.

Or perhaps it isn't simply desire for the sake of being held above others in a person's affections. Perhaps it is all an elaborate ruse of the brain to protect us from falling for those who consciously we know we should not want. I find myself enthralled by my own emotions--the mess that they are and the knot of them that I cannot untangle. And I remember writing that note in my phone...wanting someone because I cannot have them. Maybe it really wasn't that simple. Maybe I wanted more than just desire from the other end. I don't know anymore. The emotions that were mine then are no longer felt by me, and those that are, not nearly in the same sense.

So I am left to ponder that division, wondering why it is that we go out of our way to impress one certain person, with whom we do not even want a chance. At the same time, I have further to wonder whether it ever really is as simple as primal desire, or if it is a more complex blending of the passions, with a true attachment shrouded in fear or shame. As far as I know, maybe I was fooling myself, looking for something I know I shouldn't have wanted and covering it in blankets of excuses to keep myself and others from the truth. Either way, it's not a truth that I can know anymore, which perhaps makes the mystery all the more enthralling.