I never thought I would be the person who said I learned an important lesson from watching The Bachelor. My roommate and I took up watching this show as a way to turn off our brains at the end of difficult Mondays. The entire concept of the show is completely toxic, but as we got more engulfed in watching the show, we both found something in it that was extremely relatable to our own lives.
At the end of the show, the bachelor, Colton Underwood, fell in love with one girl. If you don’t watch the show, basically there was a very intense episode where he jumps over a fence and quits the show after being rejected by the girl he is in love with. Ultimately, he ends up going to great lengths and sacrificing a lot to be with this girl and to try and get her back. My roommate and I found ourselves saying, “I need to find someone who will jump a fence for me.”
I did some thinking and realized that this is actually something I really needed to hear. I’ve been holding onto a person that’s not trying to hold onto me for a long time. I’ve always made excuses for guys that make minimal efforts with me, that make half-assed attempts at showing they care about me, and ultimately would not care that much if our interactions ended. For the longest time I made the excuse, “This is just how college guys act,” or “I can’t expect someone to make an effort for me, because everyone’s life is hard.” However, these beliefs came from a place of low self worth.
What I’ve learned recently, and in the past few days in particular, is that if someone wants to be in your life then they will make the effort to be there, you want have to beg. You don’t have to accept anything less than someone who will try their very best for you. You’re worth a lot. Like a lot a lot. You deserve someone who is so in love with you, who will sacrifice and compromise for you, and who will treat you like the beautiful amazing queen you are. You don’t have to accept anything less than that.
Even with this mindset, it’s still easy to think that maybe it’s okay to have people in your life that aren’t necessarily all the way there. Sometimes it is, but I always was able to convince myself that it was okay to try and make the effort to keep up a relationship with people that weren’t making the same effort back. In my creative writing class, one student said that, “when you’re writing, make sure that every single line has meaning, and the story would not be the same without it. If it doesn’t have meaning, cut it out.” I like to take that advice lightly with people in my life to.
I want every single person in my life to be contributing positively to it. I want them to be there for a reason, and I want them to have meaning in my life and I want to have meaning in theirs. If it seems like they’re contributing negatively to my life, then it’s okay to distance myself.
Before holding onto someone too tightly, hold onto your self-respect. If they let go, they were never meant to be in your life in the first place.