Sep 3, 2026 · 46 min · 9 segments
in this week's ep-- bunch of research stuff from feminist psychology, philosophy and literature-- something called *mattering,* the *narratable self* and *mutual recognition,* the practice my…
Dóri VargaHost
It's a totally different experience to speak it aloud versus just write about it, but I did feel the need to write about it well and write it out fully otherwise I feel like I tend to ramble way too much and my desire was to offer something more organized and structured and cohesive so so the past months I've been like I said circulating something I have been having a very difficult time looking at directly and that is that I feel lonely I don't panic from this feeling and I don't feel the need for someone to come and save me.
I'm just here feeling and taking a step back and then another and then another and another two, let's say, and I'm trying to accommodate myself the best way I can.
If you've been reading me, you're well aware because I keep repeating how few people I keep in contact with in my life especially in the physical space and that I'm a single mom and I feel that there's just so much responsibility falling on me alone constantly but in it mostly what feels the most devastating is that there's no one to look across the room at when something happens and you know just just feeling that that they saw it too and i can share in it with them i think if you have ever been a single parent you know this really tender feeling for a while now and since the ending of my last relationship about a year ago I thought what I wanted was just sex with someone and I think I've been telling myself that I want to be touched and desired and that I want just another body next to mine against mine but over the months of experimentation I'm realizing that I've been hiding inside this kind of mask I think sex is easier to want than this other thing I'm discovering.
It feels way more difficult to say out loud that I want to be known than I want to have sex.
What does it actually mean to be known? And why does it matter? Why does it matter to be known? Who am I even asking to know me? I have a family.
I have one or two friends who continuously show me they desire to keep getting to know me.
So is this longing I feel about a specific person or is it about something bigger? And underneath all of that, if nobody knows me, do I even exist? So really steeping inside these questions.
I've done a bit of digging on the internet because I wanted to know whether this is a real human need or I'm just isolated sort of and being dramatic.
And it turns out there's an entire field of psychology dedicated to this exact thing.
Mattering is the personal sense of feeling significant and valued by other people.
It's a totally different experience to speak it aloud versus just write about it, but I did feel the need to write about it well and write it out fully otherwise I feel like I tend to ramble way too much and my desire was to offer something more organized and structured and cohesive so so the past months I've been like I said circulating something I have been having a very difficult time looking at directly and that is that I feel lonely I don't panic from this feeling and I don't feel the need for someone to come and save me.
I'm just here feeling and taking a step back and then another and then another and another two, let's say, and I'm trying to accommodate myself the best way I can.
If you've been reading me, you're well aware because I keep repeating how few people I keep in contact with in my life especially in the physical space and that I'm a single mom and I feel that there's just so much responsibility falling on me alone constantly but in it mostly what feels the most devastating is that there's no one to look across the room at when something happens and you know just just feeling that that they saw it too and i can share in it with them i think if you have ever been a single parent you know this really tender feeling for a while now and since the ending of my last relationship about a year ago I thought what I wanted was just sex with someone and I think I've been telling myself that I want to be touched and desired and that I want just another body next to mine against mine but over the months of experimentation I'm realizing that I've been hiding inside this kind of mask I think sex is easier to want than this other thing I'm discovering.
It feels way more difficult to say out loud that I want to be known than I want to have sex.
What does it actually mean to be known? And why does it matter? Why does it matter to be known? Who am I even asking to know me? I have a family.
I have one or two friends who continuously show me they desire to keep getting to know me.
So is this longing I feel about a specific person or is it about something bigger? And underneath all of that, if nobody knows me, do I even exist? So really steeping inside these questions.
I've done a bit of digging on the internet because I wanted to know whether this is a real human need or I'm just isolated sort of and being dramatic.
And it turns out there's an entire field of psychology dedicated to this exact thing.
Mattering is the personal sense of feeling significant and valued by other people.
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