Wired for Deep Connection

I am wired for connection in a way that runs deep through me. And for most of my life — and still, sometimes now — I’ve treated that wiring like a liability. I’ve carried the shame of wanting too much, of feeling like my hunger for intimacy was a flaw, proof that I was somehow excessive.

That shame shaped everything. It shaped how I related to myself: sometimes showing up for my own needs, other times shutting them down, contorting myself to fit someone else’s model of love. It shaped my relationships, too: chasing closeness, then abandoning myself when the other person couldn’t meet me there, then drowning in resentment at the distance.

I lost myself in relationships with people who were built differently, people who either couldn’t or wouldn’t meet me in emotional depth. And every time, the mismatch confirmed the story that my needs were too much.

But being wired for connection is not a flaw. It’s not immaturity. It’s not weakness. It’s a form of strength. It means I can feel love fully, give it freely, and experience intimacy as a living, breathing force in my life. It means I can sense emotional currents other people miss.

And yet, the world tells us otherwise. The culture we live in worships independence, treats a lack of emotion as maturity, and frames longing for love as weakness. Dependence is pathologized. Independence is idealized. The message is: the more self-sufficient you are, the more whole you are. Need is weakness. Desire is clingy. Asking for closeness is “codependent.”

This is individualism turned into morality — and it’s deeply unhelpful. Because the truth is, being wired for love is not pathology. It’s actually a biological need, wired into our nervous systems. We are built to attach. Infants literally can’t survive without proximity to caregivers. Adults don’t lose that wiring; it simply shifts. The need to belong doesn’t disappear just because you have a job, a mortgage, or a self-care routine.

The tragedy is that when you live in a culture that moralizes independence, if you’re a person like me — someone who longs deeply for connection — you start to believe you’re wrong. You pathologize yourself. You confuse biology for failure.