I’m not here to tell you about love. I’m here to tell you about the world of expectations and mind games. Most of us do fall in love–whether one-sided or mutual. And honestly, I believe the number of people in one-sided love is far more than those actually in relationships.
There are many situations where two people are not in a relationship, yet remain close, often as friends or best-friends. One may be craving a relationship, or at least clarity, while the other chooses to ignore those feelings. There can be many reasons behind such behaviour. Past trauma, betrayal, or heartbreaks that make a person believe they cannot love again.
But do you know who suffers the most in these situations?
The one who waits. The one who patiently hopes that someday the other person will understand their feelings and give a clear answer. Wanting clarity is not emotional pressure. It is a basic requirement of mutual respect. When honesty is delayed indefinitely, the cost is rarely shared equally. That person lives in a mental cage– neither rejected nor accepted. We often give so much value to our emotions that we stop thinking clearly. When we care deeply, we assume that the other person will always stay. But at some point, someone new enters their life, and suddenly our efforts start feeling invisible. What hurts the most is not rejection, but being taken for granted — when care exists only from one side, and hope is kept alive without clarity. And cages are often hardest to escape when they don’t look like prisons.
It’s not hard to understand. Imagine liking someone and staying in close contact with them as a friend or even best friend, fully aware of your own feelings. You may have conveyed them, but those talks and feelings got lost somewhere in between silence and avoidance.
As a genuine person, you don’t want false hope– you want an honest answer. Not to force anything, but to move forward in life without constantly weaving dreams around someone who may never choose you. Until you get concrete answer, your mind keeps insisting, let that person at least define my place in their life.
Over time, this waiting exhausts you. One day, your mind gets so tired that it starts pushing people away. And you become the person who has lost the will to make even slight efforts for anyone else.
And the harsh reality is this: in this world no one loves you unconditionally, no one will love you if you don’t make any efforts. No one stays if you are emotionally drained or unavailable. Who would know this better than you—someone who has been in the same situation? Silence, when stretched for too long, doesn’t protect anyone–it only damages both sides.
I can’t point to one specific reason for writing this, and honestly, that surprises me too. You may or may not relate to it– and that’s not the purpose of writing this. I observed things around me, felt them deeply, and put them into words.
