Why Even Put Yourself Out There?

After all, you could get hurt. It might cost you something. It might change the way things have always been. Why go through all that? Wouldn't it be easier to just leave things the way they are? Why get involved? You have enough to deal with as it is.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers... of love is Hell."

~C.S. Lewis, The Four Lovers