I only want one person

4 Reasons Why We Want That One Person That We Can’t Have

Most of us have experienced a burning desire for the one person who’s just out of reach, the one person we just cannot have.

Maybe it’s because this person is taken; maybe because this person is too hard-to-get. Or, maybe, this person simply doesn’t reciprocate our feelings. The fact is, despite all that rejection, we just want that one person so much more.

Then, there's the all-important question: Why? Why is it that when we can’t have someone, we want the person so much more? Why do we overlook other suitable partners, who may be more readily available and potentially better for us, in favor of one who’s out-of-reach?

The answers boil down to the dynamics of the human mind, with four specific principles at play:

1. Vanity

I’m not talking about the, "Don’t I look amazing in this sparkly dress?" type of vanity. I mean the type of vanity that pertains to one’s own self-image and is intrinsically tied to our senses of self-worth.

We, as humans, are vain by our very nature. We all like to feel special, attractive and important, as these are all things that pump up our pride, confidence and self-image.

Nobody wants to feel powerless, unattractive or unable to affect people.

The same is true of carrying a burning desire for that certain person you cannot win over. The fact that you want him or her but can’t have him or her is a blow to your personal vanity.

With personal vanity wounded, your mind will try to get your own sense of self-worth back up to what it was. It does this by pushing you to obtain the thing that did the damage in the first place, which, in this case, is that person you can’t have.

Chasing this person more aggressively will most likely push him or her even farther away from you, wounding personal vanity further and making you want him or her even more.

2. Scarcity

Our minds place value on things without us even realizing, and there are forces at work, which determine the value of a certain thing (or a certain someone). These forces are called supply and demand.

Yes, it may seem odd to use a core principle of economics to try and explain the inner workings of the human mind, but allow me to elaborate.

Something low in demand but high in supply is seen as less valuable; whereas, something high in demand but low in supply is seen as more valuable. The same is true of us humans when we place value on objects, experiences and even people.

If a person’s availability is restricted and we want the person's time (whether it be in person, on the phone, through text, etc.), we have a demand for the person and the person is in low supply. This makes the person more valuable to us, which in turn, makes us want the person more because we see him or her as higher in value.

The truth of it, in those cases when we desire someone, the more restricted and scarce he or she is to us, the more we want him or her. It’s the essence of why those who are harder to get can be more attractive to others.

3.

Desire

Desire is double-edged. We desire others according to our personal tastes, experiences and sexual preferences, but desire also has a social element.

We tend to more so desire those who are desired by others. The same is true of objects and things. For example, if you’re looking for a restaurant, you’d most likely choose one that has more people sitting in it, as opposed to one with no one in it.

This is due to social proof. If someone else desires something, our minds tell us it may have a quality that could interest us, which we find intriguing. So, if other people also desire that one person you want, it will make you want the person even more.

This also has an explanation rooted in jealousy. If someone else wants what we want, it may trigger our natural competitiveness in order to beat someone else to the punch. This goes back to both vanity and scarcity.

Being with that one desirable person will boost self-esteem; it feeds our personal vanity and the desire to be in favor with someone we perceive as high in value.

4. Over-Investment

One of the principles by which our minds work is reciprocity. If we do something for someone, we unconsciously expect the person to do something for us in return. If someone does something for us, most of us feel compelled to reciprocate by doing something of around equal value in return.

When we invest time in someone, we unconsciously expect a return for the time we gave. If you add other things into the mix — favors, dinner dates, etc. — our level of investment becomes higher and the unconscious expectation for a return greater.

The less the person reciprocates, the more time we tend to invest trying to get the person to reciprocate. This makes us more invested and raises our unconscious expectations of some kind of return from that person.

So, when we can’t have that one person we want, we may tend to invest a lot trying to have him or her. The more we invest, and the less the person reciprocates, the more we want the person because we have invested a lot.

Annoyingly, investing too much time and energy in someone without the person wanting it will usually push the person away.

So, when you want someone whom you simply cannot have, the best thing is to relax, step back and not invest so much into that someone (no matter how difficult that may be).

When You're No One's Number One

“You had someone to go places with. You had a date on national holidays!” - Marie, When Harry Met Sally, 1989

For Sarah*

Perspective is everything. The way we understand and react to things is influenced by what we’ve experienced. Being single is a perspective. Being single for a decade is a perspective. As a single woman, when it comes to alone time, my bathtub runneth over. I love being alone, having space, being the sole input to the Spotify algorithm, etc.. But my abundance of solitude means that on occasion, I view time with other people as a treat. For my friend who’s a mom of 2-year-old twins, alone time is unheard of. An uninterrupted pee might as well be a trip to the spa. Perspective.

It’s impossible to truly understand a situation until you’re in it, and the longer I’m single, the more I understand that it’s not that the world doesn’t care about things that happen to me, it just never realizes they’re happening in the first place. Single women exist in a bubble, or in my case a crumbly Brooklyn apartment, and what happens to us is largely invisible to the societal eye.

Most notably, we don’t have a casually present partner in life, a person we can always assume we’ll do the things that people do things with, with.

There are the big things, the Christmases, the New Year’s Eves, the motherfucking Valentine’s Days. We won’t be participating in cultural norms on these holidays, we’ll be MacGyvering the single woman’s version of all of them. And we’re good at it, too! Have you noticed the “Galentine’s” cards section at Target this year? The name is repulsive, but the message is great. We’ve versioned a holiday, you guys — they see us!

Birthdays are another fun one. With the exception of my 30th, I’ve been planning my own birthday celebrations for a decade. Nobody’s ever like, “What should I do for Shani for her birthday? I’ve got it, Kitten Party!!” It doesn’t happen. What typically happens instead is I email 10 people, five of them are available, I make a dinner reservation, the end.

If I’m honest, the big things don’t bother me half as much as the tiny ones. The morsels you’d never give a thought to until the world is spooning them down your throat. Those are the ones that pile up and suffocate me over time. For example, who’s your In Case Of Emergency person? Mine is my mom. She lives 1800 MILES AWAY. And yes, I could list a friend, but I don’t like how that makes me feel. Have you ever really been in an “emergency?” It’s terrifying, and I don’t like assigning that potential imposition to a friend.

And I’m a lucky one, I have my mom. Not everyone does. But at a certain point in life, I developed a need to be number one to someone other than a parent. And I’m not. Past the age of three, I never was. I have three brothers. We share the number one spot. Do you like sharing first place? Me neither. I have in me the desire to matter most to someone, to be the first phone call, the first person they think of. I’m 36 years old and I don’t think I’m wrong to want that.

“

I have in me the desire to matter most to someone, to be the first phone call, the first person they think of.

”

Have you been sick recently? I haven’t, but I think that’s because I work from home now and have reduced my subway activity by 95%. But I’ve been sick, really sick, pneumonia sick — while single. You know who takes care of single women when they’re sick? Themselves sure, but really, it’s delivery people. Complete strangers that bring supplies and soup to quarantined quarters and hold the baggie as far away from their own bodies as possible lest they contract the plague. Strangers literally restoring my health and not even knowing it. Heroes.

Oh but my favorite one — the one I’ll miss the least when I’m part of a partnership someday — are the nice, little things. The nice, little things people do for their significant others, because it’s nice to be nice to the person you’re in love with. The things that can only really be fully appreciated when you feel their void. Enter my single woman world for a moment (it’s fine, I just vacuumed), and know that in the last decade, no one has: brought me a cup of coffee, made me breakfast, taken out my trash, put an extra blanket on a cold bed, buzzed in a delivery person, picked up a missing dinner ingredient (or wine) on the way home, turned off the lights before bed, or entered my front door using their own key. I’ve done all of this by myself for the last decade.

Life’s little normalities are different for single women. When I look at them in sum, what they really mean is that I’m nobody’s number one. I don’t have a natural, assumed partner for the basics, and I don’t have someone to share joy with in the special moments. It’s a really untethered feeling. For me, it kind of feels like wearing a coat without a back, or always sitting on a wobbly bar stool that’s about to give out. It’s not a good feeling, I don’t want that feeling. And, since the chance that I can end that feeling by starting a new relationship seems to have the same likelihood as it raining Cheetos tomorrow, I’ve tried over the years to feel more fulfilled on my own.

“

In the absence of being someone’s number one, I’ve learned to be nicer to myself.

”

I’m in a dinner group. It was my friend Monica’s idea. Once a month I meet up with three other single women, and we each take turns picking the restaurant. It sounds so small when you type it out, but it’s not. It’s something I look forward to all month, something I get excited about. We all take pride (if not a competitive spirit) in selecting our destinations simply to delight the other three. We are being creative and invested, we’re doing something nice for each other. You might be more familiar with this event as date night. But we don’t have date night, so we do this for each other and ourselves.

I’ve also taken up cooking and baking. It might be anxiety baking, sure, but what it’s really done is given me a thing to do that I enjoy (I think they’re called hobbies). Baking is a nice, little thing I can do for myself — by myself. It’s also made my freezer look like a game of Tetris so somebody please come over and take these scones home, thanks.

I make my iced coffee at night, so it’s ready for me and not a chore in the morning since there’s no one else around for me to share this task with; and I have my apartment lights on smart plugs so I can turn them off from my bed. I keep a small pharmacy on hand in the event of an illness. In the absence of being someone’s number one, I’ve learned to be nicer to myself.

I’m never going to stop craving company, not with this much alone time on my hands. I’m never going to stop wanting to matter most to someone. But the way I deal with those truths isn’t by waiting for someone to fill an empty space for me, or by viciously searching for a partner, because I don’t think that works. I mean, it’s been a decade — I think I can assume it doesn’t work. I have to find ways to give myself what I need, to make moments large and small more meaningful to me. It’s a bit Hallmarky, but hey — whatever works.

Being no one’s number one can feel really bad. Not mattering most or more than anyone else to someone can be a very empty feeling, and it’s okay to tell the truth about that. But I don’t want to feel empty, and I don’t want other single women to feel empty, either. I want us to take an active role in our own happiness. I want us to do things that delight us, bring us joy, and connect us to others who are living the same way. Because it's fine to be no one's number one, as long as we remember how much we count.

*Not long after Every Single Day launched, a woman named Sarah asked to meet me for coffee. We chatted about everything — careers, being single, friendships, etc., and when we got around to being no one’s number one, it was clear that this particular topic was big, and challenging, for both of us. I reminded her that she wasn’t alone, and she did the same for me.

I only want one person

Julia (23 years old) 05/31/2018

4.5 years ago I met a man twice my age. he began to show sympathy, of this I have no doubt at the moment. but I was small, I didn’t understand this, I didn’t know how to behave, so I didn’t behave in any way. I also really liked him. I tried to catch my eye more often. and here comes the time, he pays some signs of attention. and so it goes on for a certain time. it seemed that this would all be continued, because everything is going to this way. but nothing further happened. there was no further action on his part. a year or two passed, all this time I waited, organized meetings, but nothing. then I grew up, plucked up courage, mind, and after two and a half years I already began to try to somehow hint myself, try to recognize him, communicate, do at least something. but again nothing. I absolutely did not understand why he did nothing, because I saw how his eyes were burning, how he was talking to me. I was sure he liked me. I managed to fall in love, become attached. and fell into depression. it was very difficult to get out of it. then he abruptly began to ignore me, stopped looking at me, just complete indifference. if once he waved me across the street with a smile to say hello, now he can just walk by. the hardest part was to stop trying, to let go, to come to terms with it. I didn’t understand why, because he likes me so much. and then I find out that for a year and a half he has been dating another girl. I made a decision to protect myself from meetings with him. . I left all the classes in which we saw each other, I stopped coming to him. attend all the events where we could meet. But fate decreed that it did not work out. there were so funny situations, it seemed that we simply couldn’t meet here, but no, we can .. every even a second meeting brought great pain, I cried to hysterics after each meeting. even on distance. as hard as leaving classes in which we most often saw each other, there was nothing for me yet. It didn’t help that I didn’t see him, didn’t get along. another year passed and nothing. I cut myself, I cried every day, I wanted to die. I didn't want a relationship with anyone but him and I didn't have one. not before him and during all this time. I became addicted to alcohol at one time, although I had never drank before. I started smoking, even though I had never done it before. then a person appears in my life, the first one with whom I decide to start dating, I really liked him, it almost came to bed. very interesting with him, well, I liked him, but I kiss him and think that I love another person. and of course he felt this and nothing really worked out for us. but he helped me normalize my condition, at least a little bit. because it seemed that a little more and that's it. nine0003

I am a very beautiful girl, smart, talented.

I am surrounded by interesting people, wonderful men. I can date them, sleep with them. but I dont want.

I only want one person.

I get up for him, I get better milking him, I play for him, I sing for him.

I am very tired. I want to want to love, meet, communicate with other people.

but no matter how interesting, beautiful they are, I still feel that I love him and that's it. nine0003

and this thought that I will never be able to be with the person I love, that I won't be able to wake up with him is killing me. and it kills more so the thought that I can no longer love someone else, but I will just meet just to get away from loneliness. and still sorry for the time. one life, youth is gone. and I've been sitting and for the fifth year now I can't get out of this state.

We choose each other not by chance

641,999

Man and woman

Why do we meet millions of people, but love only one?

Why did Marina and Ilya, having worked together for three years, look at each other with new eyes only now? What pushes Elena into the arms of Mikhail, when, it would seem, there are so many factors that separate them: age, education, and social status? nine0003

Is this an accident? Of course not. Even if each acquaintance seems to us the result of a chain of unforeseen coincidences, in our souls there is always a certain set of criteria that we cannot consciously formulate, but which nonetheless determine our choice.

According to the French psychologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, every person is like a hermit crab: our personality is sentenced to eternal seclusion in a shell, and the only chance to get out of it is to trust a loved one ... to reinvent each other. nine0003

“After all, we are collective beings,” adds psychoanalyst Lola Komarova, “we have a biological need for contact.”

We meet someone we already know about

You don’t need to be a sociologist to say that our chances of meeting you are greatly increased if we study at the same faculty, work in the same company, live in the same area, go to the same fitness club… But this does not mean at all that we get acquainted only with people of our circle. Love is a more subtle matter. nine0003

A partner attracts us because his image has been living inside us since childhood.

Sigmund Freud was the first to express the idea that we meet only those who already exist in our subconscious. “Finding an object of love ultimately means finding it again” - this is how the law of mutual attraction of different people can be formulated. Marcel Proust means the same thing when he says that first we draw a person in our imagination and only then we meet him in real life.

“A partner attracts us because his image has been living inside us since childhood,” explains psychoanalyst Tatyana Alavidze, “hence, a handsome prince or princess is a person whom we have been waiting for and “knew” for a long time.” nine0003

Get away from loneliness

Emotional connection with the mother leaves an indelible mark on our soul, and therefore in adult life we invariably strive to repeat our early experience.

“For a small child, a relationship with a mother is equivalent to life,” says Lola Komarova. No other relationship will ever be as meaningful. The childish irrational fear of being alone entails a need for close connection with another that accompanies us all our lives. Such a fantasy may also arise: if I remain small, helpless, the other will not leave me. nine0003

That's why 23-year-old Yulia chose Boris: “I love tasting the dishes that he lovingly prepares for me. I can see that he really cares about me, and only in his arms do I feel really protected.

Sometimes it seems to us that we have known someone for a long time, whom we fell in love with only recently. “As if they had always known each other!” The lovers are surprised.

“We have a desire to be understood, and this is also connected with the relationship between the child and the mother,” explains Lola Komarova. - The life of an infant depends on whether the mother feels his desires well, whether she understands him without words. And if we didn’t have this in childhood, we will strive even more strongly to find a person who will understand us.” If our parents did not give us warmth and affection, we can become emotionally dependent on our partner. nine0003

“I can't leave Igor: then who will love me? I’m scared to be alone,” says 30-year-old Nina.

“The lack of love in this case becomes a “hook” from which it is very difficult to get rid of,” comments existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. - Very often, the relationship of such people is practically “blind”, they can be defined by the words: “I need your love so much that I don’t want to think about whether you need mine.”

Dance together

We crave attention, tenderness, passion... But the question is: are we really ready to accept all this wealth? nine0003

“Intimacy scares many of us,” explains client-centered psychotherapist Marina Khazanova. “Genuine relationships are really risky: we open up to another person, but the coincidence with him may not happen, and this will hurt.”

This is why we so often avoid deep relationships. But is it possible to love, to give, if you do not allow yourself to enjoy receiving?

“Truly adult, mature love relationships are like dancing together,” says the therapist. - Partners move together, to the beat of common music, but at the same time they have the opportunity to change places, step aside or take a step forward. The love that you give and receive only expands the boundaries as a result of this alternation. nine0003

Many people in their declining years ask themselves: “Have I managed to fall in love? Have I been able to convey the power of my feelings to my life partner? Could he rejoice in his feeling? Throughout our lives, we learn to give and receive, so that as a result we can say to ourselves: “How wonderful it is to feel love!” In both senses of the phrase.

The one who completes me

Today we put too many hopes into relationships, we want them to be flawless, ideal. Perhaps that is why we are looking for a partner who looks like a person who has everything that we would wish for ourselves. We are looking for a mirror that reflects a positive image of ourselves. nine0003

This is exactly what 28-year-old Veronica felt when she met Alexander: “He was wonderful: rich, self-confident, always cheerful. He had everything that I lacked so much, and most importantly, he had a family, a father and mother, which I could only dream of in my childhood at the orphanage. I thought: since such a wonderful person loves me, then I really am worth something.

“There may be a rational reason to look for a partner who would complement us,” says Lola Komarova, “but it may also be that a person does not want to recognize some of his qualities and seems to “transfer” them to another. nine0003

For example, subconsciously considering herself stupid and naive, a woman will find a partner who will embody wisdom and the ability to make adult decisions for her - and thus make him responsible for herself, so helpless and defenseless. To see another in another is a great psychological achievement with us, but in a more pronounced form. nine0003

In psychoanalysis, this tactic is called "exchange of dissociations" - it allows us to ignore our own shortcomings, while the partner becomes the bearer of all those qualities that we do not like in ourselves. For example, to hide her own fear of action, a woman may fall in love only with weak, depressed men.

“To see another in another is a great psychological achievement,” says Lola Komarova. “Sometimes we choose a partner because he plays the role of some part of us for us, not necessarily positive, often on the contrary, unpleasant and rejected.” nine0003

People with similar complexes group together, fueling their own problems

For example, I don't like my own laziness and slovenliness, and it turns out that my loved one has exactly these qualities. Thus, I get the inner right to say that he is lazy, but I don’t have this problem.

Treat like with like

The association of people is often based on the principle of similarity, sometimes complete. It is to him that the narcissistic personality aspires, choosing a partner who is similar to her not only internally, but also externally, and sometimes even with the same name. nine0003

“A narcissistic person wants his partner to talk about the same thing with him, to experience the same feelings,” says Jungian psychologist Stanislav Raevsky, “but, on the other hand, he wants to be constantly praised and recognized for his unusualness. When two such people begin to live together, mutual demands and envy eventually destroy their relationship.

In The Family and How to Survive It, the English psychiatrist and psychotherapist Robin Skinner argues that people are often united by common complexes. “People attract each other by what they have “in the window,” comments Stanislav Raevsky. - But in fact, the main thing is that "behind the screen." nine0003

A person can say: “I love cheerful people, but I can’t stand boring ones!” - and chooses a girl who has endless fun. And deep down, both have anxiety or total emptiness, and they have fun all the time to hide it.

People with similar complexes group together, thus feeding their own problems and cultivating them in each other. You look around - everyone is the same, which means that everything is in order with me!

And until a person is aware of the game he is playing, he will act out the scenario of the same relationship. nine0003

The search for Oedipus

From the point of view of classical psychoanalysis, in a mature relationship, the partner corresponds with the images of our parents - either with a plus sign or a minus sign. He attracts us so much because, with his qualities, he resembles or, conversely, denies the images of a father or mother.

“In psychoanalysis, this choice is called the “search for Oedipus,” says Tatyana Alavidze. “And even if we consciously try to choose a “non-parent” — a woman who is unlike her mother, a man who is unlike her father, this means the urgency of the internal conflict and the desire to resolve it “by the contrary.” nine0003

How do you explain that 34-year-old Anna, the daughter of a prosperous university professor, falls in love with a reckless, penniless rock musician?

In many cases, the choice of a partner who is radically different from the image of the parent indicates protection from the "Oedipal" model of relationships, in which the threat of incest is possible.

A child's sense of security is usually associated with the image of the mother; it can be expressed in the image of a large, full partner. “A thin man in such pairs usually strives for a “nursing mother”, who seems to “absorb” him into herself and protects him, says Tatyana Alavidze. “It’s the same for a woman who chooses big men.” nine0003

Our brain looks for complementarity factors in another person

“It would be naive to believe that a partner really overlaps with the image of one of the parents,” says Lola Komarova. “In fact, it does not coincide with our real father or mother, but with the unconscious idea of \u200b\u200bthem that we had in infancy.”

Love, fragrance and… immunity

Our brain looks for complementary factors in another person. When choosing a partner, we unconsciously adhere to this logic: if my immune system protects me from one group of viruses, and my partner's immune system protects him from another, then our child's immune system will be even stronger than ours. nine0003

A special role in this process is played by odors that convey genetic information about the structure of immunity.

“We have two olfactory systems,” says Sergey Stolyarov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head of the Embryology Department at the Institute of Human Morphology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. - In addition to the main one, there is also a second one, which is called "vomeronasal" and serves to clarify sexual priorities.

With its help, we capture sexual odors - pheromones. After analyzing them, the brain sends a signal to the endocrine system, which produces sex hormones, and love begins. nine0003

To give what we don't have

In love, we want to receive what we cannot receive - feelings that connected us with the objects of former affections. We want to enjoy again the joy that they gave us, or heal the wounds that they inflicted on us. But when we expect someone else to make up for what we missed at the time, we harbor false hope.

19-year-old Alexander loves Irina, who is 16 years older than him. His friends do not understand this connection and are angry with his beloved, because of which Sasha stopped meeting them in the evenings. But in relations with Irina, the young man seeks not only affection and understanding - he needs strictness and a sense of security, which Alexander did not receive in childhood and which she generously gives him. nine0003

Be ready for the main meeting

Our acquaintance involves not two people, but at least six: on the one hand, me, father and mother, on the other, you, your father, your mother. Plus a few more of our ancestors, a first love in kindergarten, a beloved uncle or cousin who played with us in childhood, and some other people.

That is why the charm of each other at the initial stage of acquaintance with such difficulty turns into a strong and long love relationship. To this natural complexity is added the problem of time: we can simply meet at the wrong time - not to be ready for love at this moment, not to free ourselves from the previous romance internally.

Learn more

I only want one person

4 Reasons Why We Want That One Person That We Can’t Have

1. Vanity

2. Scarcity

3.

4. Over-Investment

When You're No One's Number One

I only want one person

See also

We choose each other not by chance

We meet someone we already know about

Get away from loneliness

Dance together

The one who completes me

Treat like with like

The search for Oedipus

Love, fragrance and… immunity

To give what we don't have

Be ready for the main meeting