The internet is a vast and interesting place. It’s like society on steroids! An amplification of the things we don’t generally see on a day-to-day basis. Exposed. You’re one scroll away from someone telling you a secret. You’re one scroll away from someone’s story time. You’re one scroll away from seeing how desperate people are and, in this case, desperate to be loved.
In this article, we’re going to talk about why people are so desperate to be loved, and how they don’t even realize that the rest of us can tell.
Take a recent example circulating on TikTok. This isn't particular to this one person or her exact situation; it’s just one of millions of stories out there with the exact same theme. A woman saved up all her money, lived in her vehicle at one point to cut costs, maxed out her credit cards, packed it all up, and left the country to start a new life with a man.
When people bring these stories online, the public immediately judges their illogical choices. Then, the creator gets upset, calling everyone jealous or "haters," saying the public has no right to judge them. But nobody asked for the story! They brought it to the public domain without anyone asking, and now they’re resentful of the public’s opinion.
Situations such as this one happen because people live in their own bubbles. In this case, this woman is in a honeymoon bubble. "I’m packing up, I’m starting my new life with my man." She feels great. In that feeling, she doesn't understand how others could have an opinion so completely different from what she’s experiencing.
But from the outside, people don't share others’ emotions. They don't see what you see, and they don’t feel what you feel. Because of this, they evaluate things more objectively. This doesn’t mean they are correct. However, subjective experiences (all those emotions, all that energy, especially when it comes to matters of the heart (or matters of the coochie) blind people from seeing things for what they are…or aren’t.
In fairy tales or movies, when a protagonist makes enormous sacrifices, it usually pays off in the end, and they live happily ever after. We accept those stories in movies because we get a full two-hour arc: we see the progression, and we see the conclusion. Because the protagonist gets what they want in the end, we decide the ends sometimes justify the means.
In real life, we only see stories in installments. Up until this moment, all we see is a woman maxing out credit cards, living in questionable conditions, taking all her money, and moving overseas for a man. Period. No one knows what happens next. Because we’re still in the middle of the process, there is no trust in it.
Because the truth is that we don’t trust the process to begin with. But that’s a story for another time.
Stories such as this one are interesting to me because they show that people are so desperate to be loved that they will do things that make no damn sense. Including erasing themselves if they must, just to have what they want. Take, for example, the man who likes a certain hair color, so the woman changes hers, and women wanting things to look a certain way, and a man changes himself to fit that mold. When you make drastic choices to fit into a box, you risk entering as an outsider forever having to prove you belong, while erasing the very things that made you who you were in the first place.
And I say "loved," but I put loved in quotation marks because the word is used very loosely to cover up other things. What are these people really desperate for? What are they actually craving while we chalk it all up to love? What is the concept of love hiding?
We label these behaviors as "desperate to be loved," but love is often masking deeper-rooted desires like the desperate need to belong or the need for attention. There are categories people want so badly (like being a husband or a wife) that they modify their looks and actions to fit into them, even when those choices don't align with who they really are.
Then comes the need for validation and oftentimes attention. They put it online so the public can witness their belonging. It’s like the concept in the book Games People Play: the way people modify their behavior to fit into social categories. We’re conditioned by fairy tales, media, and upbringing to seek partnerships above all else.
And that's where the tragedy of it all really kicks in. You can gauge how much someone feels like an outsider by the extreme actions they take to fit in. But here’s the irony: the more illogical the action, the more desperate they look to the outside world. Instead of seamlessly joining that desired category, they enter it as an outsider.
People see them wrapped in their partner’s arms, claiming to be a wife/husband, but from the outside, people think: "he’s just being used for money," or "she’s just using her for a green card." They wanted to belong to the category of "desired partner," but you ended up categorized as "desperate." And so they never fully belong.
It’s worth looking at this from both sides.
As the subject, why do you want this so badly? What are you really looking for? Can this person, action, or group actually give you that? How much of yourself do you have to erase to fit in? Is it actually worth it?
As a spectator, we pass judgment very easily. But we forget that our judgment is preconditioned by our own past experiences/biases and observations. We see step one, assume steps two and three will follow, and judge the situation like our opinion is the law of the land. We don't give people the grace to let their own stories evolve. We only see the action, and because we can only see the action, we think we know it all and can judge the story in front of us. But we don't see the thought process behind it, the emotions behind it, or the influence of their friends, family, and environment.
Are these people truly desperate for love, or is it something else? Do they just want to belong to a category they’ve been locked out of, or get the attention they couldn't get elsewhere? And are we, as spectators, failing to see the thought process, emotion, and influence behind it, and judging them too easily and too harshly?