You hear what you wanna hear — and that’s how you get hurt.
Despite our copious, ardent complaining of misunderstanding one another, human beings are surprisingly direct. Sometimes. People tell you a lot of things, if you can really listen to them.
“I’m not looking for a serious relationship. I’m just looking for fun” — and we don’t listen to that. We think to ourselves ‘oh, they’re hurting, they’re vulnerable, we can save them’. And then, fast-forward months later, and you’re kicking yourself in the head, saying why didn’t I listen to them?
Well, because you saw what you wanted to see, even if there was nothing there. You wanted to see them as ready for commitment, because you were ready. Except they weren’t, and you forced them. Well, you didn’t force them, no one forces things, but you forced yourself into a shitty situation.
When you could’ve just as easily listened when they treated you lightly, when they told you, when they were joking around whenever you tried to get serious with them. That was their way of telling you not to go any further with this.
Sure, they could’ve sat you down calmly, and explained
You know, I’m just not ready for this. I’m dealing with my own emotional background right now, and my own hurt.
But if they told you that, it would result in a serious conversation — and people in that situation aren’t looking to put themselves in a vulnerable position with you. They’re already vulnerable, and hurt to begin with. People who aren’t looking for something serious aren’t looking for someone to help them, either.
But why did they let me think this was something serious?
Except that’s not how it works. They did tell you. Several times, except you weren’t listening. You can’t come in and say why didn’t you tell me?
Obviously, it’d be easier if someone came up to you and said “I’m just playing the field, I’m not looking for a serious connection”, but many things in life just aren’t that easy, and straightforward. So you need to develop other ways to read people. You need to start watching what they’re signaling to you in a relationship.
If your partner’s signaling that they’re confused, if you care about them, and especially if you’re looking for something serious, your answer will be:
I can unconfuse you. I can help you be less confused. Talking to me is gonna be all the magic you need to become clear inside your head.
… but that’s not how it works. They need to become unconfused on their own.
This is why, if they’re trying to keep you at a distance, and sending you conflicting messages, it’s usually best to believe the more upsetting messages here. Mixed signals are telling you that they want you, in part, but that they also kinda hate you.
The trouble is, we usually latch on to that first one. We assume oh, they love me, they’ve just never been in a serious relationship before, or they’re conflicted.
We’ll believe literally anything, as long as it hurts us a little less in the present moment.
But by believing this lie, you’re only setting yourself up for more hurt. If you’d refused the lie, you’d be in a lot better place by now. Maybe in a relationship with someone who was looking for commitment, and who didn’t fuck around with you.
And that’s the worst part, really. You can’t blame them.
You really should’ve f!@king listened.
We reveal a lot about ourselves by the words we choose, so you need to start paying attention to the conversations you’re having. Especially repetitions. If someone tells you once, maybe as a flirty joke, that they’re not looking for anything serious, maybe you can let that slide. But if it crops up twice, then maybe it’s not a joke.
Although in retrospect, it might look like it came from nowhere, they actually couldn’t have told you any clearer than this.
So when someone tells you something of this nature, make a mental note of it. Pace yourself. Tell yourself
Okay, this person isn’t looking for something serious. Maybe they’re not even hitting on me. Though they probably are. We’re constantly flirting — without meaning to, or without looking for more — since flirting is one of our natural states. Flirting is play, and through play, we establish the dominance hierarchy in our universe.
So maybe they’re flirting with you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re where you want them to be. It’s the same later on in a relationship. Because you’ll get to a place where you’re madly in love, and think it’s you against the world, and worst of all, you’ll assume your partner feels the same. Like you do, when you’re young and in love.
But then, you’ll look back, once the butterflies have chilled in your gut, and you’ll start noticing moments, and texts, and phrases that you never thought much of, at the time. But that, once you can view them objectively, clearly tell you — this person never thought you were the one. It was never you two against the world. It was just you.
People won’t tell you things clearly, because we usually don’t think things clearly. No one in their right mind can think objectively about themselves I’m not in a good place right now, and I’m playing games with you, and it may have very real consequences for you.
Most of the time, we’re just trying to think up ways to keep ourselves alive.
We can’t afford to think about other people. So if your partner’s pushing you away, or giving you a bad vibe, or treating you poorly, then that’s also a message, in itself. We expect to be spoon-fed information.
We actually think we want someone to tell us I’m not happy with you. I don’t want this with you. And I don’t love you. (Or maybe they do love you, but in a very sick way, and maybe you’d be better off without that love)
Except we’re stubborn people. We’re not ready to call it quits until they tell us to our face. And it’s crushing when they do, and you can rush to your friends and say, what an asshole, how could he say that?
Well, because you refused to understand from the get-go that they’ve been telling you for months.
We’re always listening to the pleasant truths, in relationships. We’re always quick to seize on the “I love you”s and “Baby you’re amazing” and “OMG you’re so hot”. We capitalize on those things, and we scroll back through the conversation at night, and re-read, and screenshot these amazing messages that made us feel like the happiest person on earth.
But we don’t scroll back to the bad stuff. We pick and choose about what we want to hear in a relationship. So when he tells you “I love you, I’ve never felt this with anyone ever,” you think this is something special. Maybe this is it. But then, he’s also telling you a lot of bad things, but you don’t want to hear them, because that would be momentarily distressing, and would force you to quit this relationship, and find something new.
Usually, though, it’s way worse to let it run its course. Usually, it would’ve been better for everyone if you’d just ended this at the two month mark, when you realized this person wasn’t serious about you. But you chose to go on, and not hear that, so now you find yourself at the end of a 2 year relationship, saying how could I waste all that time, when he didn’t even love me?
But that was your choice. Not theirs. they’re not responsible for protecting your welfare in a relationship. and to their credit, they did try to signal the truth to you, just not directly.
It takes two to tango
You could’ve seen that. No one is that good at pretending, except maybe sociopaths. But most of us aren’t in relationships with sociopaths, but with regular, normal human beings, who are a little lost, and a little fucked up in the head. So they’re probably not that good at pretending to be in love, or to be serious about this.
You can’t come at them, afterwards, and blame them for wasting your time.
You wasted your own time. It’s your time, and you’re responsible for how you spend it. You chose to spend it with someone who wasn’t worthy, in the end. That was your bad choice, and you should let that be a lesson for your next relationship.
Latching on to someone just so you can “have someone” on Saturday night… well, that’s okay. That’s part of life, too. But you’ll have to ask yourself if, at the end of the day, when you’re out of the relationship — which you will be — if it will have been worth sacrificing all this time and energy and love, and bruising or maybe even breaking your heart for this person? If it could’ve been avoided?
You can only cross the street on the red light, but there’s always the acknowledgement you may get run over. So, are you comfortable, crossing that red light, or should you have just waited fort the green light to flash?
Maybe you should’ve taken the light at face value, to mean don’t cross now, it’s dangerous, and you will get hurt.
