Re-Program Intimacy; How Do We Move From Lust to Love?

Do you know the difference between lust and love? I’ll go with the hard one first; Love. Love is when you want to take time to really know someone, to care about how they feel, what they need and what makes them tick. You want to be their friend. The problem here is friendship usually turns guys off because they want to get kinky and nasty with their fantasy brains too much. Sometimes women do too. That can get mean which I don’t feel is part of friendship.

Friendship is the basis of all lasting, lusty, good relationships. It takes time and maturity to grow. Lust is everything else. Anything that’s not love is lust. Lust is the emotion behind most human interactions and has the face of greed, trolling on Facebook, offloading on strangers and the like. If you have no foundation of care and face-to-face friendship with someone you are indulging in instant gratification lust and there is nothing loving about it.

This issue has been challenging for me. I’m a very passionate, physical woman and have no problem lusting after men who are very attractive to me. I don’t act on it; it’s just fun. My personality and values are all about love. There isn’t really any other material thing I lust after; unless I’m really hungry. then I lust after food.

That’s a good segue because food hunger is almost exactly like sex hunger in the brain. And notice how many people overeat when they just need some love, affection, and sex. We’re looking for a serotonin spike and some other juicy brain chemicals that make us happy. I know I am. Food doesn’t come close to making me happy the way intimacy and love does. I don’t even like bothering to stop and fix food because I’m busy with my projects, writing, chores, things I love to do! Why do I have to stop and eat? I’ve always been like that. I’m not terribly fond of slowing down.

Now we see a problem here; denial of human need when you know it’s not likely to be easily fulfilled! I’ve been married three times to great men and had several great boyfriends. I’m still not satisfied. They weren’t perfect or didn’t satisfy me the way I really want to be. They didn’t make my brain and body explode with orgasmic happiness, although my last mate Michael came close. He loved me…really, really loved me and I loved him. Love is the sexiest thing going. Then he died suddenly. That’s not helping the situation. Love is definitely tragic.

It makes me wonder about eating disorders. If you take that denial of the need for love, warmth, and affection far enough it would make your brain or specifically, the hypothalamus gland stops craving food. So the emotion of lust would be good at this point versus the emotions around deprivation.

I’m not into deprivation at all but I am sorely afraid of loving a man, pulling him to me, and pushing him away because I need to be alone with my ideas, my mind, my life, my work, and my writing. I don’t want to hurt him. There has to be some intimacy and some time shared with your loved one or they will go away. I hate that.

I think I’ve stayed in lust mode in my brain because I’ve lost too many people I’ve loved. It’s like a car idling. My life isn’t idling but my feelings about bonding in a relationship are definitely idling. Maybe I’m stuck in lust gear because it’s emotionally safer. There is no risk of having your heart ripped out and stomped on the floor by death and life itself if you don’t go into love gear and really start driving.