You’ll Be With Someone Safe

They say a man should find a good woman and thus, become a better man for her. I thought this was common sense – I thought all men would feel the same and put in the work.

Society has taught us women that it’s good to be strong and independent. Fight for your rights, fight for what you want.

So I did.

But when it came to all the men that I have loved…it turns out they were looking for the “safe” bet, and it was always safe to bet that I was not that.

To the men that I have loved and I know have loved me in return:

You’ll choose the next girl because she’s safe.

You’ll choose her because she won’t challenge you. She won’t ask you why, she won’t play 21 questions with you just to get to know the way your brain works, and she won’t make you question whether she will leave you for someone better, for more of a man. She won’t make you feel inadequate or insecure. In fact, she will make you feel like more of a man because you subconsciously know you are better than her. The safe bet is always the easier option, the road less traveled.

The girl who isn’t a safe bet will be the one that scares you. She’s the one that can boost your confidence but tear it down all at the same damn time. Her heart is pure and when she readily gives it you, you won’t know what to do with it. She will demand you challenge yourself. She will demand you to grow and become a better human being. She will push you to build a life you could have only ever imagined right alongside her as she builds an empire of her own. And she will always be the one who could possibly know you better than you know yourself.

You will choose the girl who is safe, the girl who does not scare you. You’ll settle for the safe bet, yet always wonder what life would have been like had you taken the chance, had you not gone the route that “made more sense”, had you taken the road more traveled.

And for that, I can’t feel bad for you.

Because you were too lazy, too scared, too young, too incapable to see a good woman and be what she deserves. She scared you and instead of facing your fears, you told her it wasn’t right, that you were too young, that a serious relationship was just not for you right now. One drunken night it’ll come out of you and you’ll tell her the truth: that you feel like you’ll never be enough for her. Still, she will try to convince you stay, tell you that you are more than enough, she will fight for you with everything she has, and still, you’ll go back and forth, unwilling to let her go but unwilling to be the better man for her.

Fear the day when the girl who scares you loses the will to fight. She will decide to leave.

You will sit and convince yourself that it’s for the better, that you two didn’t belong together and were not worth the try. You tell yourself whatever it takes to make yourself feel better.

30 to 60 days will go by and you’ll realize you made the biggest mistake of your life. You’ll go back to her to make it right, but she will have most likely moved on.

Time will pass and you’ll end up choosing the girl who is safe. She will never love you the way the other one did, but you’ll stay. You will come from the same social world, your families will be friends, and she will make a good mom to your kids. You will love her, sure. You will make her think she is your true counterpart and that you’ve never had better chemistry with anyone else.

But you’ll never forget about the girl who scared you. She loved you in ways and to a capacity no one else could. She was your biggest and truest fan. The girl who genuinely loved you for you, not where you came from. The one whom you shared the best chemistry with. And to you, deep down, she will always be the one that got away. The one you stepped up too late for.

Or, who knows, maybe it wasn’t too late and you ended up together. In an ideal world.

You’ll never know unless you try.

Let’s face it, most likely you won’t.