Have you ever felt completely invisible or maybe you think there’s something wrong with you? We put ourselves out there, we put our hearts on the line only to be hurt yet again. Time and time again we pick ourselves back up and think, “maybe I need to spend some time with myself, focus on me.” We all have been in this situation before. We crave good conversation, that feeling of staying up late talking to a crush from class or someone we matched with on Tinder or Bumble. Those first few exchanges are exciting, we start to come up with scenarios in our heads until it’s all we can think about.
Now that we’ve brought down our walls, opened up our hearts, and maybe even made plans with the person, we get left on read or opened three hours ago — very reassuring, right? All of that excitement, those scenarios, and premature plans fade away as quickly as they came. The harsh reality is, we’ve been here before, this crushing feeling of false hope. So, why do we still fall for it again and again?
Our friends will try and lift us up and say something like, “you’re so independent, you don’t need a relationship.” Like, we get it. We’ve heard this a million times before, but that’s not the point. Yes, we definitely don’t need one, but we want one. We want to find someone with shared interests, someone to talk to late at night when we can’t sleep, someone who will lift us up and make us laugh on the worst of days, someone who believes in us. If you’re that friend who sits back and watches all their friends find that exact thing we’ve been looking for, something we’ve only ever seen in cheesy rom-com movies, then I am right there with you.
As your honorary friend, I’m here to say keep your chin up and don’t let that crown slip. Just because we constantly get hurt, ignored, or ghosted doesn’t mean we get to lose self-confidence and lower our standards. Don’t become a desperate fiend looking for your next heartbreaker. You know what you’re worth. Maybe you spent your Friday nights alone or you scroll through all the mushy Valentine’s posts on Instagram. While that all sounds horrible, it’s given you time, time to spend with yourself, learning what you want and what you deserve, falling in love with yourself. If you haven’t, then you better take a good look in that mirror. There is only one you, and that’s worth a lot more than you give yourself credit for.
We all deserve to find the kind of love that those coming of age Netflix romance movies show us. Maybe you already did and I am so happy for you! But, for my amazing, beautiful people who haven’t, don’t forget to keep your head up and remember, confidence looks good on you. Flaunt it and don’t settle for anything less.