need to be wanted

Thought experiment: You are single. You’re eager for a sociable night out on the town. You step into a bar full of attractive people. You:

— See a hot someone across the room and think, I want to be all over him/her.

— See a hot someone across the room and think, I want him/her to think I am so appealing that they just want to be all over me.

Which one is lust?

The lust I heard about in church only ever dwelt on the first train of thought. This lust was an overwhelming desire for someone else, to the point of obsession, objectification, or infidelity. It was dirty, aggressive, mulled over in accountability groups and discussed in sermons of marriage and singleness. ... I didn’t relate to it at all.

In conversation with other close Christian women, I learned they didn’t really relate to it, either. We didn’t treat men or other women as objects of desire. We had hormones, sure, but they were … different. Sometimes we saw men as actively desirable, but not necessarily. We usually just wanted men to want us.

Sometimes we wanted them to want us really, really badly.

Sometimes we needed them to want us. Sometimes that was the only thing we could think about. Sometimes we’d fall into a prolonged pout if men who OBVIOUSLY SHOULD WANT US because we were HOT AND AWESOME, in fact, didn’t.

... Oh. Hmmm.

*Lightbulb*

Is it possible that lust works in multiple ways? Is it possible that the all-consuming desire to be desired is just as lustful as the all-consuming desire to have?