Have you ever found yourself head over heels for someone who doesn’t give you a second of their time? It may sound trivial to even think that you would be dumb enough to care about someone who ignores you but it happens more often than you think – maybe not as blatantly obvious as that, but to some similar degree.
You enjoy being around them. Maybe when it’s just the two of you they act different; they open up more. You share meaningful conversations and there is an inherent reason you feel the way you feel. By chance, in public per se, they act ‘different’. Less social, less open, more ambivalent to you. Do you make excuses for them, saying maybe they are busy or shy or just don’t want everyone in their personal business so they keep things very low key when you are around. It sounds plausible; key word is sounds.
Maybe you’ve been the person who kind of ignores someone in public but changes when in a group setting. Do you know why? Does it make the person act more clingy, to which you pull further and further away? There is a cycle there, kind of like cat and mouse.
The place where we get caught up is when we make excuses for the person’s behavior as if to say it is okay to treat us this way. It’s not. They wouldn’t like it if they were being treated this way, or maybe the person they are really interested in is treating them the same way. We’ve all heard the saying, “The person you want doesn’t want you and you don’t want the person who wants you.”
It’s a vicious cycle. The key to breaking the cycle is to start with yourself. We have all heard the saying “You cannot love another or accept another’s love for you until you learn to love yourself.”
That statement is very true. When you learn to love yourself, you realize what you are worth and don’t allow others to treat you less than you deserve. When you love yourself, you can begin to open up to love others. You are less inhibited to treat others badly because you are aware of their feelings and know that it’s not right.
When you love yourself, you attract the right attention. Others who value you and respect you. Others who will love you for who you are and not what you can do for them. When you find love like that, trust me, it is amazing. It makes all of the bad relationships worth it because every bad experience helps make us who we are. Hopefully it doesn’t make you bitter though.
Just think; if you could love the wrong person with as much passion and energy as you did, think of how much more you can love the right person?
The Pleasure Principles 