Addicted?
- Sleight The Poet
- Jul 6
- 2 min read
Behind the Poem
What’s the difference between love and infatuation? Or are they one and the same?
For a long time, I thought those were two completely different experiences. Now I’m not so sure. I don’t think love and infatuation have to be mutually exclusive. Sometimes they arrive holding hands.
Love has the power to change us. It calls us to become more patient, more selfless, more compassionate. It challenges us to grow beyond who we are today.
Infatuation can look surprisingly similar on the surface. It can consume our thoughts, reshape our priorities, and convince us that becoming someone else’s ideal is the same thing as becoming our best self.
So maybe the better question isn’t, “Where does love end and infatuation begin?” Maybe it’s, “When does one begin to outweigh the other?”
I wrote “Addicted?” after a breakup, but interestingly enough, I didn’t sit down intending to write about that relationship. I wanted to write about toxic love—the kind of relationship that feels intoxicating, like alcohol. The kind that leaves you craving another sip long after you know you’ve already had enough.
But as I wrote, something unexpected happened. The poem slowly became about someone who had genuinely changed my life. I remember feeling like my entire world shifted when I met her. I couldn’t stay in a bad mood around her. I wanted to spend every moment with her. I wanted to grow, to improve, and to rise to the standard I believed she represented.
She challenged me. She broadened my perspective. She made me want to become a better man. I didn’t just admire her—I admired the person I was becoming around her.
Looking back, I don’t believe those feelings were fake. In many ways, they were beautiful. But somewhere along the way, a question emerged.
When does becoming better for someone turn into becoming a different person for their approval?
That’s the tension this poem wrestles with.
To be clear, the danger is not wanting to become better. The danger is slowly beginning to measure ourselves by how much we think we can make someone else happy. If we think that, in order to love well, we have to earn someone else’s approval, then we’re missing something. Without realizing it, that mindset allows another person’s presence to become the center of our emotional world.
And that’s the danger.
Healthy love should stretch us. But it shouldn’t require us to become someone we’re not.
One realization has stayed with me long after the relationship ended. The better version of me was awakened through her. But it remained long after she left.
Because that growth was never hers to give me. It was mine to discover.
I still don’t know what it looks like for love and infatuation to exist in harmony. Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my life exploring that question.
But I do know this: The truest love won’t require me to disappear. However, it will inspire me to grow.
Beyond the Blog
What relationship, friendship, or season of life challenged you to grow without asking you to become someone else?
If this reflection resonated with you, you might also enjoy my book, Behind the Smile, and my spoken word album, eight twenty eight. Both explore healing, identity, love, and the journey of becoming.
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