17 Aug 2025
Giving the Love You Never Got
Garry Shandling once said, “A real man is someone who can give love he never got.”
It’s one of those lines that sticks with you because it’s both simple and incredibly hard to live by. Most of us love the way we were taught (or not taught) to love. If you grew up without certain kinds of affection, trust, or emotional safety, giving those things to someone else means you have to build them from scratch through trial and error.
It’s not about being flawless. It’s about refusing to pass the deficit forward. About noticing the places you felt unseen, and deciding you won’t let the people you care about feel the same.
And maybe, if you can give that love to others, you start to learn how to give it to yourself.