Growing up, I think I believed people loved each other simply for who they were. The older I get, the less sure I am what that even means.

We all seem to need something from each other. Support. Company. Attention. Knowledge. Connection. Sometimes access, status, or the feeling of being close to someone other people want to know. Even when none of that is obvious, there’s still something. We say we’re drawn to someone’s energy, but maybe what we’re really drawn to is what that energy gives us. Some people make us feel safe. Some make us feel alive, understood, inspired, wanted. We like who we are around them.

And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that. Maybe that’s just how human connection works. But it makes me wonder where loving someone ends and loving what they give you begins.

If your warmth makes me feel safe, do I love your warmth or the safety I get from it? If your mind fascinates me, do I love your mind or the way it makes mine come alive? If you make me feel less alone, do I love you, or do I love not being lonely?

Maybe it’s impossible to separate the two completely.

I think that’s what makes growing up feel strangely disappointing. As a child, I thought there was some untouched version of love where someone saw you, beneath everything you could offer them, and that was enough. No one tells you how much need can exist inside love. How much loneliness can exist inside friendship. How easily being wanted can depend on what you provide.

Maybe genuine connection isn’t about needing nothing from each other. Maybe it’s simply being able to love what someone gives you without turning them into the source of it.

To enjoy someone’s warmth without making them responsible for your comfort. To value their mind without only coming to them when you need answers. To love how their presence makes you feel without forgetting that their life doesn’t exist in service of yours.

I don’t want to be loved because I am useful. But I also don’t think I want to be loved for some imaginary version of me that exists separately from everything I bring into a person’s life.

I think I want to know that if what I can give changes, the way you see me doesn’t disappear with it.