I Didn't Know I Needed This: The New Rules for Flirting, Feeling, and Finding Yourself—An Unfiltered Relationship Manual with Candid Insights, Embrace the Chaos of Modern Dating

by Eli Rallo

I’ve always been a nervous person. And my nervousness was planted, and grows, in a soil of perception. I fear being perceived—fear the perception others may have of me. The idea of anyone having an opinion about me makes heat crawl up my neck. The reality is, nobody is perceiving you with the intensity you think they might be. I promise you, we are all thinking of ourselves approximately one thousand times more than other people are thinking of us. We are selfish beings. You’re not thinking of the person who believes you’re thinking of them, and vice versa.

I won’t patronize my past self—her world was over in a way mine wouldn’t be now. But that was her world then.

There is no state of being more indispensable, more concrete, than to be, or to have, a friend.

A love story to me was everyone loving me. Everyone adoring me. Being surrounded by an excess of people and success. Not just Cinderella and the prince, but Cinderella, the prince, her wicked stepmother and stepsisters, and the mouse driving the pumpkin.