I Can’t Make You Love Me, But I Can Love Myself

This is me letting you go. This is me understanding that you’re not the one for me. Realizing that you’re not someone who brings joy to my life. Understanding that you’re someone who will never be selfless enough to love another.

Honestly, this is me realizing that I can’t make you love me. I can’t make you see in me what I thought I saw in you for so long. And I’m done trying, done hoping, done waiting. I’m done because you’ve hidden behind the excuse that you’re unsure of me and unsure of us, but really, you’re just unsure of yourself.

I don’t want love that is forced. I don’t want forced attraction. If something is lacking or simply isn’t there, I don’t want it. I don’t want you to see the good in me and think I’m logically the best choice for you, think that I am someone you should try to be with, and then attempt to create something that is unnatural and clearly not meant to be. 

I don’t want an “us” when there isn’t supposed to be one. Sometimes it’s best that the purpose we serve in each other’s lives is simply friendship, and sometimes the purpose is nothing at all. Just because you meet someone who seems great, it doesn’t mean that you have to entertain a relationship or even the idea of a relationship with them. Sometimes you meet a good person and it’s just an affirmation that good people still exist.

I don’t want to be with someone who can’t love me for my flaws, can’t appreciate the fire I had to go through to get to where I’m at today, is incapable of supporting and encouraging my passions, someone who can’t even be true to himself. This is the someone who maybe just loves the idea of me. The someone who sees me as a prize to be won. He’s also the someone who is never sure, the someone who has wandering eyes, the someone who can’t get the “grass is always greener” thought out of his head.

I can’t make you love me…nor would I want to. I wouldn’t want to try so hard at creating something that isn’t supposed to be.

Love and relationships cannot be forced. Love is hard work. It’s giving wholeheartedly, it’s transparency and vulnerability, it’s accepting the good with the bad, and it’s understanding that there are never any guarantees.

The truth is, the love you’ll put the most work into is the love you have for yourself. Because sometimes you have to go through the lowest lows, the internal battles, the dark times, to finally achieve that self love. And when you do, it’s something that you will not compromise for anyone else, no matter how much you may think you love them. The man who lacks depth and ability to appreciate the struggles you’ve overcome to get to where you are, the man who can’t even make up his mind about you, the man who wants you only on his own terms, is a man you are better without.

At the end of the day, if you don’t love yourself, you can’t truly love another person. The same way you can’t expect them to love you wholeheartedly if you don’t even love yourself that way.

The only certainty any of us have when it comes to love, is self-love. And while I will never try to make someone love me, the one thing I can make sure of is that I will always love myself.