To My Best Friend, This Is Why It Hurts Me To See You Settle

We’ve been through just about everything together. Every heartbreak. Every good day. Every bad one. Every funeral. Every milestone. I’ve had the privilege of growing with you, as we changed from little girls into women. I’ve watched your success take off and I know the hard work you’ve put into it. I so proudly call you my best friend. I know with confidence you’ll be in my wedding, even if I’m unsure of who it is I’ll marry. I know the person you marry will be someone who deserves you because I would never let someone stand next to you who is anything less than the best.

But until that day comes and we fumble through the confusion that is dating, as a 20 something-year-old, I want to talk about you and your dating habits.

Let’s start with I think you’re perfect. There isn’t a hair I’d change on your head and I know there are things you’d like to change about yourself. Maybe if you were this or that, you’d stop getting hurt. Maybe if you changed who you were, you’d stop running to me in tears so often. But if you changed anything about you, you wouldn’t be who you are and that’s someone you should be proud of because I am.

1. Because you are setting yourself up for heartbreak.

I’ll always welcome you with open arms and tissues every time you get hurt. I’ll continue to add names to what is becoming a long shit list of people you can’t seem to hate but my heart has no problem with it. Because I know you deserve more than what you are settling for and it actually hurts me to see you not getting what I know you want so badly. But the honest truth is you’re the one setting yourself up for heartbreak.

2. Because you aren’t listening when I tell you what to do.

I give you advice and you do the opposite. I tell you who a person really is because I see it and I have no emotions attached to them but you choose to try so hard to find goodness in everyone. It’s a quality I admire about you. But at the same time, it frustrates me because we keep finding ourselves at the same relationship dead-ends, just with a new main character. I say we because I’m with you in this and I always will be.

3. Because you give your best to people who aren’t worthy.

I think it’s wonderful you give your best and jump into things fearlessly. But I don’t think everyone deserves you at your best. Save it. Play the good cards you have, when someone plays theirs first. Don’t keep trying to prove to these people, that you deserve them and are good enough because it’s them that has to prove it to you.

I see you in your best light but the thing is I’ve also seen you at your worst. I’ve been that person holding you up drunk in the bathroom when you thought shots were the answer to heartbreak. I’ve been the one holding your hair back as you puked. I’ve been the one who has dried every tear and has listened to you analyze these situations with guys who don’t even deserve to be talked about. And these are guys in the beginning who were seeing you only at your best and still took off and hurt you. It’s them who doesn’t deserve you. I can’t say it enough.

4. Because you don’t love yourself as much as I love you.

I know you don’t believe me when I say all these good things about you. I could say ten good things and all you’ll hear is the one bad thing, an ex-said and that’s what you cling to. You have to look at yourself the same way I do. And I know that’s hard for you to do. I know it’s no simple task the art of self-love and putting you first when all you’ve ever done is put me and many others in front of you. You’d give your favorite shirt off your back to someone if they needed it. I just wish you saw yourself for a moment like I did. If you did, you’d never get hurt because you’d respect yourself to not give the wrong people too many chances.

5. Because you give too many chances.

And speaking of chances the reasons guys from the past continue to come back is because you let them back into your life with open arms, no matter what they did to you. And I try and support you and I try and put up a good front when you bring these pieces of shit back around but when I look at someone with their arm around you, all I think about is that person I held as she cried over him. All I think about is how much pain I knew you were in and I couldn’t fix it, so instead I stood by you and was loyal to you. And I don’t want to say it’s a slap in the face to me because it’s your life but it does hurt me sometimes to see you give people more than one chance to hurt you. It hurts me that I’ve been loyal and these people haven’t and they get you at your best when they don’t deserve you even on your bad days.

I admire you for forgiving people as often as you do, it truly is a sign of strength but the only reason you are this strong is because certain people made you feel weak. Certain people stepped on you to get somewhere and you let them. Then you rose up yourself, surpassing them, it was only then they reached for you and you seem to take their hand every time. Don’t bring people to the top with you who were the same ones to knock you so hard, you hit rock bottom and I picked you up.

When you settle and when you choose people you shouldn’t, it hurts everyone except the person who deserves the most pain, that person who is using you and abusing you and trying to get something out of you. And you don’t see it but they’ll do it again.

6. Because you’d never let me settle, so I won’t let you.

You’re a good person who I love dearly which is why this is all hard for me to say but you deserve so much more than what you settle for and I don’t know how to make you realize it. I wish loving you was enough to make you realize these guys aren’t worthy of your love and your heart.

If someone ignores you, whether that’s a snap or a text or anything, say goodbye. If someone cancels on you don’t reschedule. If someone makes you feel inadequate or not good enough or they aren’t giving you what you need in a relationship, just walk away.

Because there is someone like myself who will admire your kindness and generosity and goodness to a point where it will be reciprocated and you won’t feel empty giving parts of yourself to people who don’t deserve it.

So I’ll say this once and only once, hold the same standards you have for me and if at any point it’s something you wouldn’t tolerate or allow for me, hold that same standard for yourself when you look in the mirror.