is it possible to love other people?

if i´m lonely and in pain, everyone outside me is potential relief - i need them. but can you really love what you need so badly? isn´t a big part of love caring more about what the other person needs? how i am supposed to subordinate my own overwhelming need to somebody else´s needs that i can´t even feel directly? and yet if i can´t do this, i´m damned to loneliness, which i definitely don´t want... so i´m back at trying to overcome my selfishness for self-interested reasons. is there any way of this bind?

{david foster wallace}