The Eight Happiness Essentials: LOVE Edition
When Someone Wants You, Do You Have to Say Yes?
Happy Thursday!
I just came back from Paris, where I went for a writing workshop. Paris has long been called the City of Love, and it earns the name in small ways everywhere you look. Hearts painted onto shop windows. Je t'aime printed across postcards in every kiosk. Love locks fastened to railings near Notre-Dame and along the Seine.
Most days, when I was not in the workshop, I walked. The Eiffel Tower, Hemingway's bar, the steps up to Sacre-Coeur. I talked with whoever happened to be standing next to me in line.
One afternoon, I was walking through the Tuileries Garden, taking photographs and watching people. A man came up beside me. He liked the dress I was wearing, and he wanted to walk with me, talk with me. I could have said yes. He seemed nice enough. However, that is not what happened.
I did not want the company.
“No, merci,” I said, and kept walking.
There was no conflict in saying it. I meant it. I was enjoying my own company and taking pictures as I wandered through the garden. His attention was flattering. It still did not make me want to change what I was doing.
I think real intimacy depends on knowing the difference between attention you can accept and connection you actually want.
This can be harder than it sounds.
Especially for women, being polite and accommodating can become so familiar that saying yes happens before you have even asked yourself whether you want to. You can find yourself staying longer in a conversation or accepting an invitation because declining feels harder than simply going along.
Sometimes you want the connection. Sometimes you do not.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying someone's attention or changing your plans because an unexpected connection interests you. The more useful question is whether you are choosing it.
That distinction matters.
When you are comfortable with your own company, another person's interest does not automatically become an opportunity you need to take. You can enjoy being noticed without owing anyone access to you. You can welcome connection when it interests you and decline it when it does not.
And when you do say yes, the yes carries more meaning because it is actually yours.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about saying “You got this” to myself when fear got loud in the middle of the night. That was about how we treat ourselves when we feel uncertain. This is another side of self-love: listening closely enough to yourself to know what you genuinely want before the instinct to be agreeable answers for you.
What do you accept, out of politeness or habit, that you would not actually choose if you were completely honest with yourself?
Being wanted and wanting are two different things.
