maybe, you don't like him?

on perception, desire, and the quiet comfort of being assumed

My friend and I were sitting in the car at a park after a walk, the kind where you let your thoughts wander as much as your feet. Kids ran through the grass. Dogs pulled their owners in patient circles. We were talking about a crush I’d had not too long ago—me venting about the same thoughts I’d already vented to her a million times, hoping repetition might finally turn confusion into clarity.

At some point, I admitted something I hadn’t fully named before. That I loved how people would look at us when we hung out. How strangers seemed to assume something about us. How standing side by side made us legible as more than we were, as if the world had already filled in the blanks.

I told her that with him, it felt like I was constantly fighting to be liked back—reading into texts, overthinking tone, waiting for clarity that never quite arrived. But to a group of strangers, none of that effort was visible. They already assumed we were together. There was no uncertainty there. No proving. No waiting. It made everything feel easier, like stepping into a story where the ending had already been decided.

My friend didn’t hesitate.

“Maybe you liked being perceived as desired.”

The sentence stayed with me. The more I sat with it, the more it explained things I hadn’t wanted to name.

It’s true—I liked how we looked together. I liked how people assumed. When we went out, there was a quiet satisfaction in the way strangers read us, as if something had already been decided. People thought we were dating, and I loved that. I loved being legible as wanted, even if only briefly.

I don’t think I liked him in the way liking is supposed to work. What I liked was the reflection—the way standing next to him softened me in other people’s eyes. The way desire didn’t have to be spoken to be understood. There was comfort in that ease, in not having to explain or ask.

There is a particular kind of hunger in wanting to be wanted. It isn’t loud. It doesn’t ask for attention. It lives quietly beneath the surface, showing up in small moments—when someone’s arm brushes yours, when a someone takes a cute photo of you, when you are seen as someone worth wanting without having to ask for it. I think this hunger often gets misnamed. We call it attraction, or confidence, or chemistry. But sometimes it’s simpler than that. Sometimes it’s just the relief of being perceived well. Of being read generously. Of letting the world be kind in the way it fills in the blanks.

What surprised me most wasn’t that I felt this way—it was how invisible the desire had been to me until it was spoken out loud. I hadn’t realized how much I enjoyed being understood without explanation. How much I liked not having to prove anything. How perception, even fleeting, could feel like validation.

And this isn’t just about romance. The desire to be perceived shows up everywhere—in wanting to seem interesting in conversation, in enjoying how you look next to certain people, in noticing how your presence shifts a room. In wanting to be assumed capable, admired, or chosen, without ever having to ask. Some people might call this shallow. To me, it feels human.

If I think about this too long, I start to wonder whether this says something bad about me. Whether my intentions were misplaced. Whether I cared more about optics than honesty. It’s easy to be harsh here, to turn self-awareness into self-criticism. But I think we’re too hard on ourselves. What’s so wrong with wanting to be perceived well? With enjoying the feeling of being read kindly by the world? With holding onto a possibility simply because it feels sweet?

Being perceived as wanted offered me a kind of calm. It answered a question I didn’t know I was carrying. Not do you want me? but could someone? And for a while, that possibility felt like enough.

It took time to admit that, in that situation, the image mattered more than the reality. That realization was a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t dishonest. It felt clarifying—like noticing a quiet truth about myself that had been there long before this moment.

I don’t feel embarrassed by this. I feel informed. That crush definitely didn’t teach me anything profound about love, but it taught me something precise about myself: how much I value being seen, and how easily perception can stand in for connection.

Liking him was never the point.

The point was what had surfaced within me.

Knowing yourself doesn’t always come from introspection. Sometimes it drifts in through attention—through noticing what calls to you, what soothes you, what makes you feel safe enough to stay. The question shifts from why am I like this? to what am I seeking here?

Because at the end of the day, isn’t this what we’re all doing? Wanting to be seen. Wanting to be chosen. Wanting the world, even briefly, to look at us and decide kindly.

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Hope you guys liked this piece! Took a lot of self reflection and patience with myself trying to put these thoughts onto paper. If this post found you, I’d love to connect! Until next time <3