Image by Thomas G. from Pixabay

POISE — PART 1

Why Availability Weakens Desire

On loving fully without losing yourself

It always begins the same way — you meet someone you like, and without meaning to, your world begins to rearrange itself around them.

Once I decided someone was worth my time, I was all in. I replied quickly. I adjusted my schedule without asking if they’d do the same. I made space in my week, my thoughts, my energy. I gave attention generously because I believed that’s what commitment looked like — you choose someone, you show up fully.

At first, it felt open. Honest. Mature.

Until I started to notice a familiar feeling.

A quiet deflation.

Not because he did something wrong. Not because there was conflict. But because somewhere in the rhythm of always showing up, I had slowly stopped showing up for myself.

I would rearrange my time without thinking. Wait for replies that dictated my mood more than I wanted to admit. Offer more energy than I was receiving, telling myself I was just being warm. Just being generous.

But adjustment isn’t the same as understanding.

You can bend yourself in a hundred small ways and still feel unseen. You can make space endlessly and never feel met.

What I thought was maturity — being flexible, accommodating, easy — was often just me compensating for a lack of mutual effort.

And over time, that compensation becomes depletion.

And depletion doesn’t feel magnetic. It feels hollow.

The shift didn’t happen all at once. It happened gradually — in the way I noticed I was checking my phone before doing the things that once grounded me. In the way my own plans became flexible while his remained intact. In the way my attention no longer felt chosen, but automatic.

At the beginning, it’s always beautiful.

Everything feels elevated. Attention flows in both directions. The connection feels expansive — almost weightless.

You float.

Until you don’t.

The intensity softens. The responses slow. The rhythm changes. Someone leans back. And when they do, you feel it in your chest before you can explain it.

Why does this happen every time?

That question hurt more than the fading did.

Because when the “over the moon” feeling disappears, it feels like heartbreak. And heartbreak is exhausting. Not just emotionally — physically. You come down from the height of it. You feel the drop.

And somewhere inside that sadness comes a quieter realisation:

I have been here before.

This is the point where I usually give more. Try harder. Adjust further. Stay available longer in the hope that intensity will return.

But this time, I didn’t.

One day, I stepped back.

Not to punish. Not to create mystery. Not to win anything back.

I stepped back because I needed to return to myself.

I decided I would match the energy I received instead of exceeding it. The generosity I offered so easily to others — I would offer to myself. If someone respected my time, I would meet them there. If they didn’t, I would redirect that attention back into my own life.

Something shifted immediately.

Not in him — in me.

My mood stopped rising and falling with response times. My days felt steadier. My attention began to have a centre again.

And here’s what surprised me most:

I was no longer twice-guessing whether he would stay. Or whether he would love me the same tomorrow. Or whether I had given too much.

Whatever he decided — to stay, to leave, to choose differently — I knew I would still respect myself. I would still treat my own time with care. I would still have somewhere to return to.

That was the “somewhere else.”

Not another person. Not a tactic. Not a performance.

Just my own life — restored to the centre.

Being free doesn’t mean being unattached. It means being okay if you are.

There is a particular calm that comes when you realise you can love deeply without abandoning yourself. When you can feel sadness without collapsing into it. When you can stand alone without feeling diminished.

That’s when availability stops being a reflex.

And poise becomes something you can feel in your body.