I have always pondered about what the difference is between these two concepts. They present so similarly, they even seem to be anchored in the same core human experience, but simultaneously, the difference is so large and so frustrating it deserves to have books and essays written about it. And I suppose it has.

This is my addition to that literature, maybe.

My whole life I’ve struggled not with knowing the difference (I can always tell) but acting on my knowledge of the difference. I know why you call me so often, why you text too much, why you ignore my do not disturb and relentlessly reach out. You are attached to me, and maybe you love me too. But a single drop of sewage ruins an entire barrel of the world’s best whiskey, and it’s hard for me to see how you love me when all you show is how much you need me to play a role for you.

These are different. Attachment is full of insecurity, resentment, blame, judgment, and scorekeeping. It’s selfish, it’s what can this person do for me? instead of what can I do for this other person or even what do I value, admire, and love about this other person? When people get attached, it isn’t their fault, and I know this better than most. It comes from a lack of security in the self, a boat that cannot weather long voyages on its own so it latches onto others, tugging along behind.

I know what it’s like to be pulled on. I remember all too well how it feels to have someone else need me for some reason that has nothing to do with me. You need me because you feel anxious without me. You need me because you admire me and you’re worried I hate you. You need me because you don’t have anyone else, and I’m filling in that empty space.

None of these positions, jobs, are fair for you to expect me to take on. These diminish my humanity and degrade my sense of worth. You become too blinded by insecurity, pain and fear that you miss the potential that we do, really, have for intimate connection.

I don’t like how much you call. You, either. I don’t like how special you think I am, I don’t like how obsessed with me you at least appear to be. Some people have told me this is a problem with me; if someone else shows me love I run away, I avoid it because I don’t trust that I deserve it.

That opinion could be true, and I’m sure it is, at least partly. But I, in general, have no problem connecting with people. I have no problem with being vulnerable, and especially when it comes to friendship, things come naturally and easily. My time with friends is not full of the anxiety and fear that your time with me seems to be.

I used to tell myself that it was because I was better than people like you. I think I found some security in people’s attachments to me, which I suppose all of us do. There was a time in my life where I didn’t feel love easily, and I depended on others’ attachments to me to satisfy my thirst for love. Of course, giving someone who’s thirsty a saltine does nothing. It’s a solution for a different problem.

Attachment cannot replace love.

Attachment cannot replace love.

Attachment cannot replace love.

That’s the crux of it, really.

Now trust me, I get it. I understand that you’re in pain and I truly do not want you to be. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, and I have tried to help for such a long time. I’ve also been attached to people before. My attachment, especially (well, only) when it comes to romance comes barreling in and smacks me over the head, and after a single date I’m writing poetry about what our future looks like together. Often that’s because of an artistic imagination that I am proud of, but sometimes it’s because I get attached to a person that I dehumanize and turn into an idea.

Your responsibility now is to erase all the blame you place on me. It’s to re-examine, through a critical lens, which of your behaviors are irrational and unfair. I understand they’re hard to see. But the only way you will ever find peace, in your relationship with me or with anyone else in the world, is to let go of your attachment to make space for genuine love.

If you don’t all you’ll see,

all that you will continue to see

are signs that people dislike you. And when you search for those, you will certainly find them. Soon, you’ll be creating them, and you’ll die running away from the single thing you want most in the world.

Give up the hunt.

Give up the chase.

Cultivate the love.