I feel good this morning. Grandma is still sleeping. She doesn’t usually sleep past this hour, but she probably needs it. I’ll check on her in a bit.

We’re bringing a pie to the guys who put some new gravel on the road. It made a huge difference. I work in the hat shop today, and I’m still enjoying this part of my journey, immensely.

Angering the internet is fairly easy

I angered ‘the internet’ yesterday (this isn’t my first rodeo). I made a comment on someone's post that was saying, ‘you need to find someone who can meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves, and that that creates the most fulfilling relationship’.

And I said, stop being a needy fucking child and grow up.

What I meant was: stop expecting someone to be a carbon copy of your emotional world. Stop expecting them to hold the same depth, the same reflections, the same exact mirror. That’s not how good relationships actually work, and it’s not even how desire works.

I said what I said because this narrative has been pushed on women for years, and it is misleading and doesn’t help find a good match. It misses the full picture about what you need in a partner as a woman who desires a man.

I actually agree with the heart of that quote: A partner who refuses to be vulnerable, self-aware, or emotionally intimate will never create a fulfilling relationship. But here’s where I see it differently: “matching your depth” doesn’t mean they have to feel or express it the same way you do. Depth isn’t about mirroring; it’s about capacity = the willingness to open, to stay present, and to hold themselves and you without shutting down.

Fulfillment more often comes not from sameness, but from complementarity. One person the riverbank, the other the water. One grounded and steady, the other expressive and flowing. Different, yes, but both emotionally responsible, both capable of meeting life and love with an open heart.

Wanting a partner to “meet your depth” is really about wanting to feel seen in the places you usually have to hold alone. You want someone who doesn’t flinch when you open your heart all the way. Someone who can stay present instead of shutting down, fixing, or fleeing.

Being met in depth might look like:

• You let your grief spill out, and they can hold it without fear.

• You share a wild dream, and they encourage the spark in your eyes instead of dimming it.

• You speak a raw truth, and they meet it with presence instead of judgment.

But here’s the thing: that’s just what it means to be an adult. It means you can be the riverbank to the river for yourself first. It means you can function in love. Those are the same bullet points you would use to raise children, attune to life, and stay with your own discomfort instead of running from it.

And if you can’t do it for yourself, you can’t do it for children, so, babes who want to raise good kids, move on from a man who is still infantilized. When you can’t do that, you’re still just a 38-year-old that’s trying to get your needs filled from a girlfriend you’ve made your mommy.

Half the time, when people say they want someone to “match their depth,” what they really mean is: I want someone who won’t emotionally abandon me, won’t freak out when I have feelings, and can communicate like a grown-up.

That’s baseline maturity. Let’s raise the bar, people. We need presence. Maturity. Vulnerability, on the ground floor. When we do that, we let depth be something more.

But first, where I do agree with the original post is this: vulnerability is hard in a world that is fully disconnected from the heart. Some people can’t (or won’t) be vulnerable. They shut down. They armor. They intellectualize. They perform strength instead of feeling. And yes, that will block intimacy every time.

But vulnerability doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. One person might cry and pour out their feelings in a daily newsletter (me). Another might just say how can I make you smile today. That’s so vulnerable! That’s the heart here and open. Both are depth. Both are love.

And depth, when we’re not trying to use it in place of emotional maturity, belongs to the mystery. It’s the part of me no partner will ever fully touch, and I don’t need them to. My depth is ever expanding. Is forged in places I’ve walked alone. In grief, in God, in the wild edges of my own heart. I’ve seen things and felt things that are only mine to carry, mine to know.

A man can hold me, love me, cherish me, but he cannot walk into the deepest chambers of my soul. He can’t be in the feminine mystery with me. He can’t feel life being created in my womb. Those places are for me. For God. For the women who know how to meet me in the void.

So no, I don’t need a partner to “match my depth.” My depth is my own. It’s a sacred inheritance, a mystery I live with every day. What I need in a partner is presence, maturity, and an open heart willing to witness me, as I witness him, while we each keep a piece of ourselves in the holy unknown. And in that, we sit in the mystery of life together.

And, in the beauty of not needing someone to “match your depth” is that it frees both of you to just be curious, respectful, value-aligned humans who can dance in the beauty of difference, and admire, adore, and hold their own waters without drowning each other. Who’s there not to heal my inner child for me (I do that) but to simply be open and loving, moving through the growing pains of life together, and becoming who each of us is supposed to become.

Love,
Val