Why I'm Giving Up the Chase (and You Should Too)

Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.
This quote has stuck with me for a good, long time and I think I finally understand why.

Beautiful things don’t ask for attention. They exist, they flourish, they grow. They exude something—a boldness, a confidence, a grace that simply can’t be ignored. Their beauty isn’t simply skin deep–it’s internal, it’s everlasting. It doesn’t need to ask.
This is the way I want to live my life.

Now, I’m not saying I think I’m beautiful. I, just like every other living, breathing human being, have things I would really, really like to change about myself. I have the nose of a hobbit, I have the face of a moon, and those thick thighs I was talking about yesterday, hell, I think I’d be way better off without them.
But still, I have worth.  I am grand.  I am important.
I deserve love.
And one day, I want someone to tell me that.

This is something everyone, absolutely everyone, should experience in their lives, at least once (and more than once, if I’m being completely honest). Every single one of us deserves to have someone stand in front of us, their feet firmly planted, their voice unwavering, and say, “I want you.”
I want you. I want you. I want you.

That is, perhaps, the most beautiful thing this life has to offer. To be desired by another human being, fully, unapologetically. To just be wanted, to just be loved.

It’s something I want desperately.
And it’s something that, up until this point at least, I have searched for and I have searched for hard.
I constantly think about the when and how and why of my falling in love. And I have thought about it for years. I’ve thought about it since the time it was appropriate to think about it—we’re talking 7^th grade, we’re talking forever.
I’ve been so fixated on it—this thing I want most—and as years pass and I continue to not get it, it’s started to hurt and burn and ache.

But beautiful things don’t ask for attention. Beautiful things cannot be chased. And for the first time in my life, I actually get that.
I’m giving up the chase, guys.
I’m giving up the trying to fit square pegs into a round hole. Every single guy I’ve ever gone out with (the number of which is, admittedly, almost embarrassingly small), I’ve put on this pedestal. I take personalities I like, traits I like, faces I like, and bodies I like, and I try to turn them into love.
It never works. And it never will.

Because beautiful things don’t work like that.
Love doesn’t work like that.

Love and that beautiful, carnal, unstoppable pull you feel for another person can’t be built. It simply exists. It simply survives, it keeps fighting and breathing and grasping against all odds. It flourishes. And reaches out and grabs you just when you’re least expecting it—only when you’re not looking. It’s the sort of beauty that just knows, the sort of beauty that lives in the center of your chest (or a little bit to the left), the sort of beauty that thuds against your ribcage—a heavy, unrelenting bump, bump bump. The sort of beauty that desires, and yearns, and wants.

It doesn’t ask.
It doesn’t have to.
It’s just there—this beautiful thing that wants you and finds you (yes, you) wholly beautiful too.