Expectation

“It would have been better to come back at the same hour,” said the fox. ... "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am!" -- Fox to the Little Prince, Saint-Exupery.

There is a strange connection between sense of belonging and routines. Even when things feel weird, you start to miss something once it becomes part of your routine. You have the agency to do different things but you end up doing the same thing over and over because that's how you define yourself. I think that's why it is easier to accept a new person when you are younger, your movement are being shaped by the years you spent together. Once you are getting older, you have years of moving by yourself, synchronizing your steps with another may take more effort. But as time pass by, you start to wonder whether this is what you want or not.

This is the part where you create a space of expectation. You create an idea of what you want but it's still not part of your physical world. Expectation is part of an imaginary world where you mix part of the reality with what you expect to be the truth. You feel happy not because of the reality but of a hope blanket you put around the reality. The key for this expectation to last is a constant supply of part of the reality. You still need an external trigger, which is the basic ingredient for your expectation.

The question is if you are super skeptical about love, why you only allow certain people to enter, why not increasing the chance of never being alone by having parallel relationships? Apart from moral consideration, relationship takes energy i.e. memory for remembering all the details and not mixing their stories, time, emotion, so at the end, the cost for energy is higher than the risk of being alone. At the end, you have to put yourself out there and wish your brain still working until expectation and reality become saturated.