One of the big themes in the book “Under the whispering door” by TJ Klune is the distinction between what we need and what we want. The meeting and love between the two main characters brings them (& one of them in particular) to articulate this explicitly around their relationship: how it brought him to realize “not what he needed, because that would imply he was lacking in some way, but what he wanted. Which is something people often don’t recognize the difference between.”
I feel that this lonely summer and my having found words for my sexual & relational orientations as ace aro have helped me to better understand what I need in/from my close relationships and also realize that I often should express or explain those needs more clearly to the other people involved in the relationships with me.
But are those needs or wants for me? Are those things that I feel I’m nor getting in my relationships things I actually need or things I “just” want? I instinctively call them needs. And I would argue that they are, indeed, needs since connection is a real human need: it’s a proven fact that disconnect, isolation, and loneliness impact our health very negatively.
So is it my relational needs or “just” my relational wants that aren’t getting met and therefore are leading me to feel so lonely? And if it’s my needs, then does it mean I’m somehow lacking? Or, if it’s my wants, then does it mean they’re less important and I should “just deal with it”?
The Little Prince and the Fox 