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I deserve better than to beg for scraps.
By Alex Alexander — Written on Oct 17, 2016
For the majority of my life, I've been treated like I was expendable. Nowhere was this more true than my dating life.
Getting treated like I wasn't important also was the straw that broke the camel's back on my attempts to ever find a man to marry. I remember the day I realized I simply couldn't take the worthlessness men made me feel anymore.
After all, it wasn't so far away in the past. It was last Valentine's Day. The father of my child left me because he "just didn't feel like" being with me. I was alone. My heart was breaking into tiny pieces. I thought about the one guy who had been sour about me dating the guy who left me. I had chosen my ex over him, and to a point, always wondered what could have been if we went out instead.
It's not like I didn't do anything to try to work things out with Mr. "What If" in the past. I reached out to him multiple times asking him for a date, only for him to tell me he was busy. What I hadn't realized at the time was that Mr. What If was chronically insecure and was in disbelief that I'd date him. When he saw me with my now ex, he burst into tears and left his own party to collect himself. He was heartbroken back then, just as I was now.
Mr. What If had wanted me for years, and to a point, I blamed myself for breaking his heart when I started dating my ex. This guy and I had a past filled with emotional turmoil but somehow, that month I decided maybe I was stupid for thinking I'd do better than him.
So, I decided to ask him out while we were at a party. I had brought a small gift in my purse.
The only problem was, he didn't give a f*ck about me enough to actually talk to me for more than 5 minutes. In fact, he had decided this was the perfect time to kick the dog while she's down. He began to flirt with other girls in front of me, and I got jealous. I began to do the same, but all it did was make me feel worse.
By halfway through the night, I was hurting. Visibly so. As in, I was silently considering throwing myself in front of a subway train out of the despair I felt abandoned and alone at that moment. It was despair in its purest form. As in, I was literally excusing myself to go outside in -30 degree weather so they wouldn't see me crying, despair.
I kept waiting.
I kept getting ignored.
I kept waiting.
I kept getting ignored.
Finally, after one good look into his eyes, I left without a word. I went home, alone, freezing in the cold, on Valentine's Day after throwing the present I bought him on the train tracks.
I went home and realized that I didn't deserve this. At no point did I ever hurt him as badly as he did me.
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I didn't deserve to be ignored, to basically be trained to follow a man like a lost puppy. I didn't deserve how often I bought guys presents, pampered them, and did what I could for them, only to be thrown away when I was an inconvenience.
I didn't deserve how many guys just dumped me because they "didn't feel like being in a relationship anymore." I didn't deserve guys getting sour for me not lingering around them because someone else wanted to date me.
I deserved someone who gave a f*ck about me enough to be the one to wait for me, and give me a present. I deserved someone who would actually reach out to me. I deserved someone who legit cared about me enough to NOT hurt me.
While he later apologized to me for the way he behaved, and we did try to work things out, I realized it wasn't worth it. I deserve better than to beg for scraps.
I don't think I'll ever actually get what I deserve, because I'm honestly not completely sure any guy out there will treat me well. But, at the very least, I can stop letting people who don't care about me have that power over me. And I guess that's alright, right?
