(cont'd from previous post)
>>There are degrees by which we are all entirely dependent on each other in order to survive and thrive. Since I don't grow my own food and don't know enough about plant life to even forage, I depend on the grocer and the long line of people that supply the food he sells. Unless your name is Les Stroud, you will depend on others.
But the point, as you yourself seem to concede with that last sentence, is that it is at least theoretically possible to survive independent of other human beings. It is not possible, theoretically or otherwise, to love -- and be loved -- independent of other human beings.
>>I must clarify a distinction: To deserve something is no guarantee that you will get it.
On this, at least, we agree. Yet I cannot say I share your optimism that people would be willing to help someone out romantically, even as "charity work." People all have their own problems; why would they willingly choose to enter a relationship where they have to deal with someone else's (arguably more intense) problems in addition to their own? The other person has to know that this will be an uphill struggle; why shoulder that additional burdern, when the healthy party could just as easily find someone more normal?
I'll grant that this sort of thing likely does happen, albeit uncommonly, but the how and why of it is mystifying to me.
>>What we all deserve even more than love is hope. And I feel you're saying there are some people out there that should not be afforded that limitless commodity.
Oh, people are free to hope all they want. But there is a point at which hope becomes a fool's errand. I think we, and especially those of us who qualify as "damaged goods," have to recognize that fact. Eventually, hope becomes counter-productive.