Why?

These days i am confronted with a knowledge that things are never as they seem.  I am especially speaking of relationships with people.  How is it that one can say they love a person, yet their body language and actions convey the completely opposite message?  It matters not if the person is a friend, relative, or a significant other.  The result is always the same.  One person ends up giving more of their heart to the relationship than the other and that one ends up feeling used and abused.  That is not to say that we do  this without being aware.  Sometimes we walk into a relationship knowing that it will be hard to maintain, yet we consistently do it over and over again.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  I think it is because we all need intimacy in our lives.  I am not speaking necessarily of physical intimacy (but that counts too) but intimacy of the soul.  To reach out to a person who knows you for who you are, warts and all, and not be afraid.  This quest for intimacy, at least for me, has resulted in a number of close friends all over the US, as well as a lover or two in the past.  Yet here I sit wondering if and when the next relationship will be different--wondering if the next partner will be "the one" that will equal my commitment.  Without a doubt, I am not (can not possibly be?) the only person in the world that realizes this.  One day perhaps....I remain cautiously optimistic that there is someone out there (other than my close friends--you know who you are) that would be willing to put their heart on the line...to reach out and touch a soul...