Wanting to Be Wanted (And Other Small Fires I Keep Starting)

Lately I feel like my love life is a vending machine: tap, get a quick hit, promise myself a real meal later. Short-term gratification makes sense everywhere else finish a paragraph, deserve a coffee; finish a workout, deserve a reel. But in relationships the math starts lying to me. I’m not sure if reaching for the small hit (a late-night text, a kiss after wine, a weekend “almost”) is harmless… or the thing quietly starving the bigger thing I actually want.

Here’s the mess I keep trying to write my way through: I don’t want “just a hookup,” but the fear of only being a hookup is so loud that part of me wants to fast-forward the other person into a relationship. I want them to want to want me. And whatever “free-flowing” used to mean in my twenties feels far away now. There was a time I didn’t audit my impulses I called when I wanted to call, texted when I wanted to text, and let the moment find its size. No internal legal team asked, “Too soon?” “Too much?” “Too clingy?” I used to be me and trust that was enough.

Then Mumbai happened again the city that sells momentum by the minute. So many loose ends have grown hands: Is a text too soon? Should I wait? If I wait, am I performing cool or postponing truth? What if I’m the only one initiating? If I am the engine, does that mean the car isn’t going anywhere unless I push?

Psych gives names to these tiny wars. Approach–avoidance conflict explains the tug: I want closeness; I fear it won’t be reciprocated. Ambiguity intolerance dates modern romance my brain wants a label so it can rest, while the city rewards “see where it goes.” Then there’s intermittent reinforcement: attention that arrives unpredictably (a great night, then silence) is the stickiest. Slot-machine logic, human hearts. Of course I keep checking my phone like a stock ticker.

What I can’t tell is whether my craving for quick reassurance is me being honest… or me outsourcing self-worth to someone else’s response speed. The small hits are so tidy message sent, bubble read, dopamine delivered. But big love is messy, and mess doesn’t come with read receipts.

A thing I’m noticing: when I call myself “clingy,” I’m often just being consistent. I like asking questions. I like knowing what someone ate for lunch. I like mapping the tiny cartography of people their snack loyalties, their 6 p.m. moods, which lane they pick on the Sea Link. If my curiosity is “too much,” maybe the mismatch isn’t in me; maybe it’s in the fit. If someone wants silence and I want running commentary, we’re not broken we’re just tuned to different stations.

I keep circling back to reciprocity as a sanity check. Not 50/50 by the clock, but an alive give-and-take: if I initiate three times, do they bring the fourth without being asked? If I share a real story, do they meet me with one of theirs? Signalling theory says people reveal commitment not by slogans but by costly signals effort that’s harder to fake than to feel. In dating language: show up when it rains; remember the thing I said I was scared about; text first sometimes; ask a second question. If the signals never cost them anything, maybe I’m buying alone.

There’s also the Mumbai problem: the city trains us to triage. We become calendar managers of our own hearts—prioritising what screams loudest, deferring what asks for time. And time is intimacy’s oxygen. I’m trying to notice where the city ends and I begin. Do I want a quick spark because the day was loud and I’m tired? Or because the person is actually interesting and I want more than spark?

Some gentle experiments I’m running on myself (not rules; just lights on the dashboard):

• Ask myself “want or ward?” Am I reaching out because I want them or because I’m trying to ward off anxiety? If it’s want, I hit send. If it’s ward, I breathe first.

• Count returns, not pings. I don’t tally messages; I notice momentum. Do we keep adding layers, or are we refreshing the same surface chat?

• Let curiosity be a filter, not a performance. If someone reads my interest as pressure, we’re misaligned. If they take it as an invitation, we’re playing the same game.

• 
  

I’m also trying to remember what self-determination theory keeps teaching me: I feel okay when three needs are met autonomy (I can be myself), competence (I can do this), relatedness (I’m not alone in it). When I delay a text to “seem chill,” I lose autonomy. When I over-engineer every move, I lose competence. When I carry the whole conversation uphill, I lose relatedness. No wonder “casual” leaves me exhausted; I’m doing three people’s jobs.

Here’s the question that steadies me: If my natural pace is care, can the connection survive care? If not, it won’t survive me either. And if I want to be wanted, maybe the assignment is to want clearly to risk the little embarrassments that make big things possible. (The pratfall effect reminds me: a well-timed stumble makes the competent more lovable. A crack in the performance is sometimes the invitation.)

So what do I do with the vending machine reflex? I’m not fasting from small joys; I’m just pairing them with bigger bets. If we kiss, I want to earn the silence before it. If we text, I want to hear what isn’t typed yet. If I’m afraid I’m the only one initiating, I’ll say it once, plain: “I like driving, but I need a co-driver.” Then I’ll watch what they do, not what they caption.

I don’t think free-flowing is lost; I think I mislabelled it. Free-flowing isn’t “no feelings, no plans.” It’s “feelings are welcome, plans can evolve, and we both keep showing up.” I want that version the kind where my phone can rest face-down because the signal between us doesn’t depend on reception.

If you’re reading this and nodding in a cab somewhere on Linking Road, here’s our exit question for tonight: If your way of loving had zero audience no friends to impress, no stories to perform, no algorithm to chase how would you reach for them? 

If the answer looks like you, send the text. If the answer looks like waiting until you feel safe again, wait. Either way, choose the move that lets you recognise yourself when the lights are off and the city finally goes quiet.