You never returned the attention given to you. You glanced at my texts — texts that took me forever to work up the courage to send — and responded with one-word answers. Sometimes you didn’t even bother to reply at all.

You left me sitting there, wondering whether you were busy and I should patiently wait for you to answer at the end of your shift at work or whether you were already bored by the topic of conversation and I should quickly come up with a way to resurrect it.

I spent more time on you than you realize. I dressed up with the plan of posting pictures of myself, hoping you would see. Hoping it would nudge you to initiate the conversation for a change.

I fought for you to acknowledge my existence — and it only worked half the time.

Even on the rare evenings when you would answer my texts, when we were deep in conversation, I would wonder how much longer until you grew bored and pulled your disappearing act again. I would constantly be nervous about sending the wrong message and making you shut down.

The nights we spent bantering until midnight were the worst because they renewed my hopes of becoming yours. We obviously had a connection. There were sparks flying between us. We could talk for hours. But only when you wanted to talk. Most of the time you didn’t want anything to do with me — but I had a hard time accepting that.

I liked you so much that I assumed you must have shared my feelings. It didn’t feel one-sided on the nights we spent talking — but the nights you spent ignoring me made it perfectly clear you cared about me less than I cared about you.

I kept chasing you, though. I thought texting you and complimenting you and appealing to your ego would change your mind about me. No matter how many times you ignored me, I didn’t want to give up on you. A part of me still wants to cling on after all this time. But I know you are bad for my mental health.

Chasing you deepened my insecurities. It drained my energy. It ignited my abandonment issues.

Every time you ignored me, every time you scrolled passed one of my posts, every time you saw my name on your phone and failed to respond, you made me feel worthless. You made me question whether anyone would ever want me. You made me hate myself a little more each day.

Chasing after you, and getting nothing in return, messed with my mind.

It made me cringe at the mirror. It made the little voice in the back of my head use words like ugly and boring and useless. 

I wanted you to love me but you only made me love myself less. 

I know you don’t owe me anything for my kindness, but it sucks that I spent so much time chasing after you and you still want nothing to do with me. It sucks that our love story was one-sided all along.