Just Be The One Who Cares More
Somebody always has to care more.
This is the unfortunate, cardinal rule of how relationships function. If one person didn’t care a teeny bit more than the other, no one would ever get asked out. Or proposed to. Or counselled back from the brink of divorce. Someone always has to put in a tiny bit more effort than the other party is offering and throughout the course of your life, you’re going to be on both sides of the situation at least once.
You’re going to be loved by someone who you just kind of like. You’re going to be head over heels for someone who essentially thinks you’re okay. And I can almost entirely assure you that you’re going to loathe the latter situation. We all do. Being the one who cares more makes you feel uncomfortably desperate — like you suddenly have to justify your entire existence to somebody else.
“I’m a catch!” You’ll want to shout at them. “I’m smart and adorable and my jokes are well-timed and my hair looks fantastic today.” You’ll comb through possible reasons why they are not as ethereally pumped about you as you are about them and you’ll come up empty-handed at best, filled with self-doubt at worst. You will resolve to care less. You will strive to inhibit the most basic emotional response possible to a situation that you are happy about.
