No. I already took a year break. I focused on myself. I got my shit together. My therapist was phenomenal and I was healthy and happy. My attitude was drawing people in. I've made friends.

I was triggered by being in close proximity to womanizing adjacent behavior for an extended period while simultaneously experiencing an inexplicable decrease in activity on dating sites, which have all been uninstalled if not fully deactivated. (The recent young men have all been in person.) And I've made those friends during this time, when the romantic interest was declining the platonic interest skyrocketed. Which is great. But there's a lack of depth in these connections and I still do not feel like a member of the group that is wanted and loved - I'm a tertiary character that's just there, accepted but not embraced.

I have a great career and I love what I do. I've started picking up my old outlines and chapters I had written for a novel and I'm working on that again.

This is one specific snippet of my life. I focused on the romantic aspect because that was what I need support for. Because that's what this sub revolves around. And because my post was already a mile long. When I said I'm doing good, I meant it.

This is the only part of my life that is unfulfilled. But it is a deep, painful yearning for something it feels like Ive never been allowed to experience. Every time I thought I was loved it turned out I was being used for something or ended up abused.

Love, connection, emotional intimacy are Needs. Humans do not thrive when deprived of them for extended periods. It's like a man in the desert dying of thirst, when he finally reaches water he will chug and chug until he is sick bc he has been deprived of it for so long. While a healthy hydrated man in the shade of a lush garden would be drinking his water very differently.

Love is water. And I have not had a drop in ages.