Don't throw your love at people hoping they would reciprocate your feelings back at you!!!

We often profess to love others unconditionally without loving ourselves, we often mistake the pain we feel in our relationships as a measure of how much we must love the other person, and we project our love onto others expecting how we feel to be reflected back.

I always thought that when I fell in love, I’d be on cloud nine, skipping through Elysian Fields and would sweep up in a tide of reciprocated feelings. Instead, the first person I fall for had me quickly languishing in a world of mixed signals and ambiguity, where often I would be uninterested, he’d chase me, I’d ‘give in’ and get swept up in all his big declarations and gestures, only for the tables to get turned on me.

In life, I learned that my feelings are not always going to be reciprocated. If you have been lucky and this never has happened to you, let me tell you, it  hurts like hell, and it feels like an injustice that  the object of my affection does not feel the same way about me, but the sad truth is, my  loving someone does not put the other person automatically with the obligation or an IOU. I cannot say "I am crazy about you" so "you must be crazy about me too." It just does not work that way. Two people, two beings. 

If two people attracted to each other and it goes beyond superficial stuff, there are strong character, shared values, and a respect for boundaries with decent relationship habits, along with love, compassion, respect and trust; then they can have a decent chance. But that has to come from both sides. If what one want, need, expect and feel are not what they want, need, expect and feel, it is not going to workout.  

Too often we are so caught up with our own feelings and love for the other person,we are so busy planning a wonderful future together, we forget to check if the other person is on the same page. We feel and expect that they should feel the same as us and envision the same future. Or, we pretend that they do.

Expectations are often off and unrealistic. One major point that we need to remind ourselves, even if we don't want too, is that they may not want or even ‘need’ our love and may perceive us as throwing our love at them or even ramming it down their throat. And they wouldn't be wrong in that assumption because sometimes that is exactly what we do!

When we are infatuated, we lose sight of reality and because we believe that all we want is to be loved and how better and different our lives will be as a result of it, we make assumption that if we tell them that we love them and try to be and do everything for them, that they’ll reciprocate our feelings right? Wrong…

I've said so many times in the past things like ‘I would never treat someone like that!’ or ‘If I have to behave that way, If I treat someone that badly, I’d want someone to tell me the error of my ways.’ However, that was where I erred. I may never do a lot of things but that does not mean that others won't. There’s no point languishing in disbelief as someone is actually doing or being something and saying ‘But I wouldn't…" If I knew that I wouldn't do it and they are doing it, this is a red flag in itself that something is wrong and it’s likely to be a crossing my core values. It is time for me to take off those rose tinted glasses and see the situation as it is, not as I want it to be.

My advice is to be careful when you go out there and throw your love/heart at people hoping they would reciprocate your feelings back at you. Whatever you are feeling or think the other person is feeling about you, do a reality check to get real perspective. If loving someone means that you can’t love yourself and have to sideline yourself and disrespect yourself, cross your own boundaries, putting your values aside, take loving you every time.  

As hard as it is to believe, telling someone that you love them does not stop them from doing what they want…that sometimes includes taking advantage of you and hurting you. 

At the end of the day, if you act with love, care, respect, and trust, and you get something entirely different, you’re not on the same page. If you act with love towards yourself, you’re likely to discover that you don’t feel the ‘love’ you thought you did for them.

Be careful, be very careful who you invite into the chamber of your heart!It is better to have loved and lost than to have loved someone and persisted in the illusion, never accepting the reality and giving yourself a chance to opt out and live and love.