Love is not always magical. Not always lingering kisses and butterflies in the pit of your stomach. Not always long talks into the early hours of dawn. Not always your eyes dancing across the freckles on their nose and the scar beneath their mouth, or feeling simply entranced by the way they chew the inside of their lip as their mind wanders to faraway places.

Oh how I wish it was.

How I wish every girl would wait for this kind of love, fight for it even. I wish we could all see ourselves the way others do, a single snowflake in a blizzard. A beautiful, unique, irreplaceable collection of cells. A work of art in an ugly, broken world. The light in someone else’s darkness.

Because you are, every single one of you.

But too often I see people accepting less than they deserve. I see strong, wonderful, inspiring women giving cheaters, liars, game players and emotional abusers chance after chance after chance. Me being one of them.

We let them break us and then we pick up those shattered pieces of our heart and glue them back together to give them just one more shot, to salvage any redeeming quality we believe they possess.

Because we want to believe, we spend every night going over and over their distant, vague texts and their throwaway comments and we hold on to them. We store them away in a little box and retrieve them when we need justification for trying again.

“He’s changed,” “He said he will try harder this time,” “He said he’ll stop texting her.” Lies. Lies. Lies. You see, these men, the manipulators, the gorgeous men with their charming smile, they know exactly what to say. They know how to pull you back in when they feel you drifting, even if they don’t love you. Even if they’re only a little bit interested, they cannot bear the thought that you’re not anymore. They want to keep you hanging on to the tiniest bit of hope that one day, they’ll love you back, in all of the ways you love them.

In all of the ways you crave to be loved.

But they won’t.

And you’ll lose yourself. You’ll forget who you are. You’ll be driven by your need for them. And you’ll find yourself doing things you wouldn’t usually, just incase it gets their attention. Maybe you’ll dress differently, maybe you’ll cut your hair, maybe you have sex with them, but they still won’t love you.

Because they can’t.

Because they only love themselves, and you are there to serve them and their ego.

But honey, believe me when I tell you, there are wonderful men out there; I’ve seen them. The kind of men who will value you, whose only concern is your happiness. These men will look at you like you are magical. Like you possess the secrets to the world. They will fall in love with all of the things you hate about yourself and teach you to love them too.

They will run their fingers through your hair when you’re drifting off to sleep, and kiss your forehead when your eyebrows are pulled together in that way they always do when you’re worried or stressed. They will see only goodness in you and never, ever intentionally hurt you.

So, I ask you, please stop chasing after the guy who doesn’t reply to your texts. The one who is only ever interested when you’re on your knees in front of him. The guy who consistently lies and cheats and then tells you he’s changed. Stop trying to find excuses for his behaviour because you’re too afraid to admit that he’s just a player. A no-good guy.

You deserve better.

And I know you don’t want to be alone. I know the thought of loneliness suffocates you, I know it makes you feel hopeless but being alone is better than being in a false state of happiness.

Take the time to do all of the things he doesn’t allow. Drink wine with your girlfriends on a Friday night and buy that dress that’s a little bit ‘slutty’, enjoy having men’s eyes on you, because you are free. You are your own person. Visit your favourite coffee shop and read your novel, lose yourself in distant worlds and try new things. Fall in love with yourself. Take all of those things he said and made you feel, and lock them in a hidden part of your mind, they do not matter, not anymore.

You do.

And one day someone will notice that twinkle in your eyes or the tiny freckle above your lip and they’ll start to fall. They’ll want to protect you and love you and hold you close and whisper,

“You are the world.”

Because you are.