David McElroy

If romantic love is mental illness, do many of us want to be cured?

By David McElroy · September 4, 2019

Love is the only form of madness which most of us gladly seek.

I came across an anonymous post on a social media site in which a man was gushing about his happiness at finding the love of his life.

“I found her,” he wrote. “In the most bizarre place, I met the woman who has become the most important person in my life — and my lifelong partner.”

To “find” someone implies that she was lost — or that there was someone he had always needed to find. Is he crazy? Or is this the most clearly he will ever see this world?

“I lost hope for the longest time,” he wrote. “Thinking no one will ever be able to understand me. To really take time to get to know me. I thought I was always going to be alone in this world. I’ve always felt like an outsider from this world. Like everything I do is wrong. Like the person I am is just not how a person is meant to be.”

I know exactly what he felt. Do you?

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What if emotional baggage we carry isn’t really our core issue?

By David McElroy · September 2, 2019

I’m not the same person I was 15 years ago. I’m a better version of myself. I feel certain of that. But am I fooling myself?

When I was looking for an old email a few days ago, I ran across something I wrote 15 years ago. I’ve updated it a couple of times since then, but this was the first time I wrote it. It was a detailed discussion what I perceive to be my faults and flaws. I was trying to explain my negatives to a woman, because I wanted to make sure she understood what she might be getting into by dating me.

I know I’ve grown a lot since then, so I thought it should be satisfying to read this old list. It would show me how many of the items I’ve struck off because I’ve conquered them.

After I read it, I felt confused. There’s no question that I’ve experienced massive change and growth since then. But every issue I wrote about 15 years ago is still part of my life.

How could that be?

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Well, if you really want to know, this is what I’m still looking for

By David McElroy · September 1, 2019

Most of the email I get from readers here is asking for advice, so this was very different.

Amy was very direct. She told me she had started reading my articles a couple of years ago when her marriage was falling apart. She’s 28 now and divorced from a man she said was a terrible choice for her.

As she continued reading what I write — about love and life and my own needs — she started wondering if she and I might be interested in each other.

“I know this is very presumptuous,” she wrote, “but when I read about what you want in a wife and a family, I keep thinking we want the same things. But you’ve made it obvious you still hold love for someone from your past. I don’t know if you’re willing to find someone else yet, so I thought I’d ask.”

Amy had a number of interesting and insightful questions. With her permission, I’m sharing some of our correspondence with you.

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