We let them ignore our messages. We let them take their time responding because they’re ‘busy,’ we act like we’re not upset because we’re ‘busy’ too and we talk to them like nothing happened, like it’s not that important to respond to us on time or it’s not that important to give us some attention because we don’t want to seem needy or clingy and because we don’t need their attention.

We talk to them for weeks or months without really knowing what we are, because we don’t want to push them away or pressure them, so we pretend to be cool with not knowing because we’re not in a hurry to be exclusive either and we pretend to like the grey are because it gives us options, but we don’t really want to talk to anyone else, we truly only want one person who is not really sure about us, so we continue talking to them until they change their mind and hope that they’re not talking to anyone else as well.

We bottle our emotions up and we swallow our words because we’re not in a position to tell them what we want and what we don’t want, so we act some more, we act like it didn’t bother us that they were hanging out with an ex the other day, or that they were tagged in a photo with someone who looks more than just a friend and we can’t ask because we’re not entitled to. We act like we don’t care because we’re cool and chill and that’s what dating is nowadays and we can’t expect more, we can’t be unrealistic and we can’t be hopeless romantics because the good old days of true love are long gone.

We act like we’re not hurt when things end, we pretend like it didn’t break our hearts because we were never together, because we didn’t really expect them to be the one since it was all a trial, we pretend that being ghosted or friend zoned is something we’re not ashamed of because we say that we weren’t into them anyway, that maybe it’s better that it didn’t work out because someone out there is so much better for us.

We pretend like we’re not entitled to feel anything or cry about it because they didn’t mean anything to us and we weren’t supposed to get attached to nothing. Also because they never promised anything and because we’re not that emotional.

So we forget. We forget what we deserve, we forget our self-worth, we forget that not too long ago, we wanted a fairytale, we wanted a love that is honest, true, genuine, strong and unaltered, we forget that we swore never to be in the grey area again, not be taken for granted, not to be another option and we forget that we promised to run away at the first sign of danger, we promised to walk away when we feel like we’re being played or when something doesn’t feel right and we forget that we promised to watch out for the red flags because they tell us how it will all play out and how it will all end.

But we like to ignore them because we see the best in people, we believe that they will change and we believe that we can be the one they’ll change for, so we hold on to that hope and we keep going with one foot in and one foot out, hoping that this time it will be different, that maybe this time we’ll get it right and maybe this time we’ll misinterpret the red flags.