Steven Colbert's Americone Dream

Once, a young woman who loved a man for 6 years, asked a wise older woman why she thought this man was about to marry another young woman he had known for a few months. The wise older woman said, "Well, he didn't need you." Ouch. "And you didn't need him; people NEED each other for that kind of relationship to happen." (Or something to that basic effect - the young woman momentarily blacked out from confused rage, but fortunately came to in time to remember the conversation.) Several years later, the young woman reflected on this scene, after having recently finished reading significant portions of books about psychology, human relationships, intimacy, co-dependency... you get the idea. She remembered a wise man once recounting a piece of advice another wise man had told him, in relation to choosing, or not choosing a mate: "If you can live without her, do."
This young woman used to think this was a smart philosophy: it's a pretty black and white elimination process. But as she sat and thought about this, it made less and less sense to her, and seemed more and more ridiculous. "Do people choose each other based on need alone? Isn't choosing to be with someone merely because you desparately need each other a sign of some sort of dependency problem? And what's this about only choosing a mate because you can't live without her/him? I mean, hell - I can live without ice cream. But why the fuck would I?!"