I really liked you and thought you felt the same — and you did, to an extent. You were super into me… as long as it didn’t work out with your first choice. I wasn’t the girl of your dreams; I was just the girl you thought you could live with settling for. Here’s why that’s total BS:
I deserved better than to be your backup plan. I hate that you treated me as an afterthought or a consolation prize when you failed to win first place. You actually expected me to wait around for you just in case you were someday ready to settle — that’s how little you thought of me. Thankfully, I know I deserve a hell of a lot more than that.
I don’t want to be your second choice — I want to be your only choice. Whether I win or lose in love, I definitely don’t want to settle for anything in between. I’m not interested in waiting around to see how things play out with the girl you actually want to be with. If you don’t know right away that I’m the right one for you, I’m clearly not, and I love myself enough to wait for someone who chooses me without hesitation.
She deserves your full attention. If another woman is right for you, then she doesn’t deserve for you to have me waiting on the bench. If you can’t go all in with me, then commit yourself fully to her. No matter what, if you’re going to be with someone, then really be with them. Give her your full attention and stop saving some of your energy to keep me on the hook. It’s not fair to either of us.
I could’ve used this time to find someone else. You were out looking for someone else, someone better — why shouldn’t I have been able to do the same? You made me think that we were headed somewhere real. I focused on you because I thought we had a future. You knew you were Mr. Wrong and you still chose to waste the time I could have been using to find Mr. Right.
I’m a person, but you treated me like an object. You showed me exactly what you thought of me — that I was worthless. I didn’t matter to you; I was just an object you could toss away and then pick back up when you were feeling bored or lonely. You never considered how leading me on would affect me. You never cared about how I felt because, at the end of the day, you didn’t see me as someone worthy of respect and consideration.
I can’t believe I ever loved you. I don’t know how I ever had feelings for someone who was and is so incredibly selfish. Only a narcissist would leave a girl waiting on the bench. I can’t believe I loved a man who thought of me as nothing but second string. I may have been a fool for love, but what you did is inexcusable.
Love can’t be forced, so we were never going to work out. Love isn’t a choice. You either feel it or you don’t, and you can’t create it out of thin air. What would have happened if things never worked out with someone else? Would you force yourself to be with me even though you didn’t really love me? I can’t think of anything worse than a fake relationship.
I didn’t want just a piece of your heart, I wanted the whole thing. If I was going to be with you, I wanted all of you, and I don’t think that’s even a little bit selfish of me. I don’t want to be the girl you throw a few breadcrumbs at just so she’ll stick around. I wanted everything from you or nothing at all. It really is as simple as that.
I know I’m a catch and that there’s a guy out there who will see it. If you can’t see how lucky you were to have me in your life, that’s your loss. I have an actual sense of self-worth, and it doesn’t depend on you. I know I’m worthy of a good man and I deserve to be treated right. That means not sitting on the backburner hoping one day you’ll pay me the attention I deserve.
I won’t beg you to pick me. I won’t compete for your love. I’ll fight for you, but I won’t be pitted against another woman. If you really cared for me, there wouldn’t even be another woman in the picture. I want to be the only woman in your life, not just one of many. If loving me even has to be a choice, then I choose to leave.
Now you don’t deserve either of us. She’s too good for a guy like you and so am I. You’re someone who uses women and leads them on just so you’ll never be truly alone. You don’t care about anyone else’s feelings but your own. You’re too selfish to deserve real love, and if you keep playing like this, you’ll never find it.
If you didn’t love me, you should have just let me go. Sure, knowing you didn’t feel the same way I did would have hurt, but I would have gotten over it eventually. Telling me the truth would have been the kind thing to do. If you cared about me at all, you wouldn’t have strung me along. Leading me on was just plain selfish. If you didn’t love me, the best thing you could have done for both of us was just let me go.
By Kelsey Dykstra for Bolde