Don't Take It Personal

People are self-centered by nature. I'm guilty of it, and you probably are too. Despite that fact, most people know when to push their selfish tendencies aside. Some people never learn when they are supposed to put a lid on their selfishness. They only think about themselves and they don't consider how their actions affect other people.

If a person is in a place where they aren't capable of letting the selfishness go, that person should think twice before pursuing romantic relationships. I decided to let someone back into my life who I have previously dated. I stopped dating the guy because he didn't make time for me and he was emotionally unavailable to me most of the time. After I ended things, he called a couple of months later asking for another chance to make things right. I usually don't date throwbacks, but for some reason I decided to give him another chance. We had an extensive conversation about where things went wrong, and what needed to be done to fix things.

That was several weeks ago, and now things are exactly like they were before. He's going back to being unavailable and not making time for me. Funny thing is, I don't feel neglected or hurt, but I do feel disrespected. I have expressed to this person my needs, wants, and expectations, but he doesn't seem to take them seriously. When I tell him he acts like he understands what I'm saying, but things don't change. He has told me several times that he wants to have a relationship with me, but I don't understand how that can be if he brushes me off when I communicate things to him.

At first I took it pretty hard that he wasn't considerate of my feelings. But I began to realize that I shouldn't feel bad because he is self-centered. His actions have less to do with me and more to do with where he is in his life right now. It sucks that he is leading me on when he's not ready to seriously date someone, but I'm not about to feel bad because he can't get his shit together. Who knows why he is telling me one thing and his actions say otherwise? I'm not about to get all up in arms about it. I have way too much stuff going on to be worried about his ass.

My powers as a black woman are limited. I can't make someone be a certain way. I can only express to them how I expect to be treated. If they can handle it, cool. If not, there's the door. There's a saying that goes: "you teach people how to treat you."

Another saying goes: "everything happens for a reason." I'm sure I'm supposed to learn something from this. So far, all I got is that some people are just selfish assholes, and there is nothing you can do about it.