TIT-FOR-MESS (ohGOD)

Although it’s true that all types of adult relationships — friendships, business partnerships, team memberships — involve some level of joint dependence for success, their spheres of influence are usually fairly narrow, meaning that individual breaches of trust, though unwelcome, don’t necessarily make one feel universally vulnerable. But this statement comes with one big caveat: love. When it comes to romantic relationships, most adults can have their seeming self-sufficiency momentarily obliterated. It’s not that we become paralyzed or cognitively helpless. We can still reason, research, and analyze. We can still work, cook, and plan for retirement. What we can’t do, though, is turn off that burning desire to connect with a partner — to share, to merge, to depend on, to bare our souls to him or her; disse o namorado do DeSteno.

Stick Garden, Madeline Cass