Desired, but not known

The ache of being wanted without being seen.

It’s hard to put this into words, but there is this draining feeling that comes with being desired but not deeply known. Desire fuelled by lust is hollow and is often very deflating. I’ve always been someone who craves depth and intimacy beyond the surface level and while I do understand not everyone wants that it leaves you second guessing when all you seek is to be understood but all that is offered is charm, attention, compliments.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate being desired, compliments, charm it’s just that desire without intention, without curiosity, without a desire to truly know me, feels empty. It feels half hearted. It feels transactional. It feels like my presence is only valued on the condition that their ego is flattered or charm entertained.

There’s a certain loneliness that comes with being seen through a lens of someone else’s fantasy rather than through the lens of who you actually are. Conversations are built around self gain with no intention to ask the deep and meaningful questions that would deepen an understanding of who I am.

It leaves you feeling like you’re only beautiful, worthy, wanted for a moment. Temporary desire on the basis the heart is never revealed or known. While I know and understand my worth and value is not based on how someone else perceives or treats me I also don’t want to be someone’s mirror reflecting what they want to see. I want to be a whole person in their eyes. The person who has a story, someone who is complex, layered, growing and for that to be the point of their desire.

I want curiosity to journey beyond my appearance, I want curiosity to seek out the quiet parts of me, the unspoken thoughts and ideas, the dreams and nightmares.

Because a desire to be deeply known? That’s when love begins to feel safe and connection goes beyond the transaction. That’s when it stops being about performance and about what you can gain, it becomes about sharing, revealing, caring with the question of who are you and how can I honour your story at the centre.

Lustful desire fades and as it does so does the effort and the person who sought you out. Proverbs talks about how charm is deceitful and beauty is vain and I truly believe this, eventually it fades and unravels and all your left with is a memory of a connection that was never going to grow.

But intimacy the kind that seeks out the heart, sees you past the physical, the kind that chooses you, asks, listens and learns that’s what will last, that’s what I crave. That’s what I’m holding space for and patiently waiting for.

I write this all to say, if you’ve ever felt that ache of being wanted, but not held; seen, but not understood you’re not alone.

You are not hard to love.

You’re just someone who refuses to settle for shallow when your soul was made for the deep.

And one day, someone will look at you not with hunger, but with reverence. Not with possession, but with awe. Not just “I want you,” but “I want to know you and stay.” And that is worth waiting for.

With all my love.