Day 328 (Three-Hundred & Twenty-Eight) of 365 days

You deserve more than a cold text message when you can’t give what the other person wants. You deserve someone who respects you for the principles you uphold; someone doesn’t become extremely upset if you’re unable to provide them what they need because you’re just not ready yet; someone who sees value in the right timing and understands the virtue of patience because they know that love overpowers lust in the long run.

You deserve better than someone who forces and pressures you to do anything that makes you feel uneasy in your skin. You do not need to give up the beliefs you have built all these years for someone who just recently comes into your life — it is not worth the compromise. You deserve more than being ghosted. You deserve someone who is going to be always around once they start professing their feelings towards you, not when they only show they like you, tell you lovely words for a week, then completely shut you down afterwards for no reason and leave you hanging without any warning. You deserve better than someone responsible for keeping you awake at night and driving you into constant paranoia about anything you might have done wrong.

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but you deserve better. You deserve a partner who texts you back. Maybe not immediately, maybe not every single time, but reliably and honestly and with care. You deserve someone who wants you to feel secure and heard, who answers your questions and asks you about your day and your mood and sends you memes they saw on Instagram. You deserve someone who wants to talk to you, no—someone who wants to talk with you, never just at you, no monologues or one-sided status updates, no director’s commentary on your life. You deserve conversation, flirtation, consideration.

I promise you, you’re not being too demanding. You’ve shrunk your expectations, slowly eroding that part of yourself that knows this is bullshit, this is laziness, this is rude. You’ve quieted that voice protesting that they should be trying harder, that they’re not good enough for you because the world wants you to think you’re not good enough. Please hear me when I say that you are good enough. I don’t care if you are terrified or awkward or depressed or herpes-positive or fat or emotionally scarred—you are a human trying your best. You deserve a partner who is trying their best. If you are worried you are too demanding, too needy, too desperate, you probably aren’t. When did it become wrong to have needs?

We deserve nice things. We deserve nice people. Care is the bare minimum, not a lucky extra. You can tell them I said so if you want. Blame me for giving you big ideas about this world and what you deserve. Tell them you’ve been corrupted to expect better than their piss-poor imitation of courtship. Tell them it’s over and then buy yourself an ice cream cone. Take your time with it even if it melts on your hands and makes your fingers sticky. Savour that pleasure because you are a human who deserves this refreshing sweetness, this indulgence. This is for you. The time you’ve spent denying yourself what you deserve is over.