I refuse to let the wrong ones make me less vulnerable. I’ll always be vulnerable around someone I like. I’ll always be softer when it comes to someone I care about and I’ll always be honest. I refuse to play games and play hard to get. I refuse to be mean or guarded or selfish. I refuse to mold myself into what someone else wants. I refuse to change my core for the sake of a shallow relationship.

I refuse to let the wrong ones make me give up on love. I refuse to accept that real love doesn’t exist anymore. That almost relationships are the new norm. That you’re lucky if you can get past a third date. I refuse to believe that modern dating is love. Maybe it’s harder to find something real, but it’s there. It exists. And I refuse to believe that I’ll never find it because I know that many people still believe in it. Many people are already tired of the meaningless streak of dates and almost relationships they’ve been in which leaves them feeling nothing but emptiness.

I refuse to let the wrong ones make me angry or bitter or resentful. I’d rather think of them as lessons or stepping stones to the right one. I’d rather feel sorry for them and their inability to be vulnerable and truly love someone instead of feeling sorry for myself. I’d rather look like a fool and say I tried than look like an asshole because of my pride. I refuse to let the wrong ones turn me into one of them. Heartless. Selfish. Emotionless. Indifferent.

I refuse to let the wrong ones change my heart. I refuse to let them win. I refuse to let them change the way I love. The way I care. The way I feel when I give someone the best of me. I refuse to let them convince me that this is only going to let people walk over me. I refuse to let them convince me that this will always end in heartbreak. They’re not always right. Maybe they get what they want temporarily, but they won’t find their forever. Maybe they feel good at the moment but they won’t feel great down the line.

Sometimes people are ahead of others in the game of love, they understand it, they cherish it, they appreciate it and it’s up to them to make the world a better place, to give people the love they’re not used to, to be a breath of fresh air in their polluted world.

Sometimes it may take others a while to catch up with us, and they may even push us away because they don’t know what to do with hearts like ours but that shouldn’t stop us from being who we are or changing the way we love.

If anything, it should make us fight for it, it should make us even more stubborn because we know that if the tables were turned, we would want that kind of love, we would want kind hearts and vulnerable souls and honest feelings. And it’s only fair to give what we want to receive — no matter what the outcome may be.

Rania Naim’s new poetry book
All The Letters I Should Have Sent
is now available for pre-order here.