Was it ever real: the way we felt about another person? Or was it always a projection of something we needed or wanted regardless of them?

Although we profess to be in love, and to have lost ourselves in this other person, we are barely (at this early point) doing them the justice of considering them an actual human being. They begin as a projection of our needs; we hope that he or she will be the perfect match, the magical ‘other’ who will satisfy us. Like the projections we make

Here is a man tallied – he realizes here what he has in him, The past, the future, majesty, love – if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.

THE MORE LOVING ONE

by W.H. Auden

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think