Toxic Humans Are Not Going To Appreciate Your Soft Heart 

What It Means To Love A Girl Who Is Used To Being On Her Own

A girl who is used to being on her own will be unlike any other girl who you will ever love. That much is guaranteed. She’ll be the toughest nut to crack and her walls will be built up the highest.

Because for so long they were just that: her walls.

They’re a part of world that she built entirely on her own, and while yes they are in one part protection, they’re also just as much a source of her identity. They’re the encompassing shell of a place she made, a life she built, a world that belongs to nobody but her. And while it protects her, maintains her, and keeps her safe, it’s also simply, just what she knows.

So finding space for someone else is going to be hard for her, it’s going to be a challenge.

A girl who is used to being on her own will probably say (at one point or another) that she “doesn’t need you.” She’ll spout variations of “I can do it myself”s and “Don’t worry about it”s and “I’ve got this shit handle”s so often that she’ll begin to sound like a one-woman, independent broken record.

And to a certain extent, it’s all true. She probably can do it herself, you don’t need to worry about it, and she’s got this shit handled.

But just because she can do it herself, just because realistically she probably doesn’t need you, doesn’t mean she doesn’t want you.

Just because she’s got this, doesn’t mean she doesn’t want you watching her handle it.

Just because she can walk the road alone, doesn’t mean she wouldn’t enjoy your company.

See, the truth about being on your own is that after a while, being on your own becomes your comfort, becomes your safe space. There’s a reliability in answering to only yourself, to only minding yourself, to only worrying about yourself. And though at times it can be lonely, it’s a softer lonely. It’s a loneliness that eventually becomes familiar and almost beautiful.

So when someone else comes in, and shakes up that world and that loneliness, it’s jarring.

It’s a shake up not only to her world, but to her routine, but to what she knows.

And so, for a while, there’s going to be some adjustment. There’s going to be some ebb and flow, some give and take. There’s going to be some fear on her end. Not only because she’ll be tentative to let you into her world, to let you scale those walls, to invite you into a life that previously only hers.

But there will also be the fear that if she does let you in, does trust you, that she’ll stop being comfortable on her own, and start to only be comfortable with you.

And the intrinsic fear of getting comfortable with another person is,

“What do I do if they leave?”

When you love a girl who is used to being on her own, you’re loving a girl who is scared by the possibility of ever having to relearn how to do that. You’re saying, “Please let me in,” while she’s saying, “Please don’t go.”

There’s an ease to being on your own once you get used to it, but the getting used to it part is often times an uphill battle, an incredibly difficult journey, and she really dreads the possibility of having to do it again.

So when you love a girl who has been used to being on her own, please be prepared to stay. Be ready to hold her hand when she says, “I can do it,” and respond with, “But I can help.” Be ready to learn about her life, her world, and find a way to respect it while still being a part of it.

Be ready to scale the walls she’s built around herself, and her heart, and be ready to never worry about what’s going on outside of them.

Because when you do, when you really do, she’ll be ready to never let you go. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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