an aching need

A friend is going through a rough time...he recently had a woman leave him, and he is devastated. They hadn't been together long, but he fell hard for her...and she did the leaving, so it left him with a lot unresolved.

The timing is bad for this...he has been going through a period of existential crisis lately [it has been building for a while], and being an introspective type, it has been hitting him hard. To make matters worse, other people close to him are accusing him of going through a "midlife crisis", essentially dismissing his feelings and ruminations as "a phase" and "not fair to the people around him" [never mind being fair to him].

We talked, and I tried to gently find a way to tell him that he is
grasping for connections, desperately clinging to any bit of affection
and distraction he can get. He has recently admitted to himself that he is missing fulfillment and a human connection; he has people around him, and he cares for them and they for him, but he has realized that his needs have evolved and changed beyond what he is getting in his daily life.

Enter this girl. She gave him what he was so desperately craving: an external focus, someone to care for and who would hopefully return that affection. Sadly, it didn't work out...for reasons I don't think anyone will ever fully understand, she grew to dislike him, even as he grew more and more smitten [one theory: he was so attentive/needy and so focused on her that she couldn't handle it, and freaked out]. So now he is adrift; his daily life doesn't give him what he needs, and for a brief time he had something that he thought would fill that void...and it was taken away before it ever really started.

In an ideal world, he could take time to be totally on his own and get comfortable in his own skin...then hopefully he could see that he doesn't need fulfillment to come from external sources, that sharing life with someone is better when you aren't looking to them to rescue you or to "make you whole". Sadly, our world is far from perfect, and he has to keep slogging along day to day, while keeping up the mask and the front for the others close to him [who continue to make him feel guilty for having these feelings].

My fear is that he is now going to be seeking connections anywhere and everywhere, trying to fill this hole that he has only recently admitted was there. We all have needs and wishes and desires...the hope is that we can control them, rather than them controlling us. All I can do for him is lend him an ear and a shoulder, give him my love, and let him make his journey...he's spent so much time taking care of other people that he has no idea how to take care of himself.

I hope he can learn.