Five times out of ten, it’s the latter. There are people who will try to make you feel like what you deserve is too much. That is because they are lazy and even if they care about you, they don’t care about you in the way that you need to be cared for. That is a very important part of friendships and relationships.
You can care for somebody but you have to realize, every single person is unique and every person gives and receives love in a different way. If you’re going to consider someone your friend, you have to know your love language, you have to understand the way in which this person receives love. It may not be the way that you are used to giving love so you have to take yourself out of what you’re used to.
If you really care about someone, you got to take yourself out of the way in which you’re used to giving love and tailor it to this person. You need to not only love them, but love them in the way that they received love. The reciprocity is never something that you should ask for.
This is how much love I’m willing to give, if I’m going to call you my friend, so this is the amount of love I expect back from you. Not only the amount but this is the kind of love I expect from you. You got to stop trying to persuade people to love you.
See if they’re willing to meet your standard or they don’t care about you enough. This is just that black and white, they are either willing or they are not. If they are not willing, it is not your responsibility to reach down under your standard and try to pull them up or convince them to love you. You should never have to convince someone to love you or show that they love you. So if I’m going to call you my friend or my partner, then this is the standard you need to meet, and if people who aren’t willing to put the effort to meet this standard, then let them fall below, let them categorize themselves and show themselves exactly who they are to you and exactly what you mean to them.
When you find the people who meet your standards, you often find it they go above it because these are the kinds of people who care about you. When it comes down to understanding yourself as a person is understanding exactly what your worth. Well maybe this is just the kind of person I am and not everybody is like me, well no, because everybody is capable of loving.
We get so caught up in people, I want this person to love me, I want this person to love me in this way, I want this, this and this. That is what I want from this person… What you want from that person, they may not be ready to give you or willing to give you. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t force someone into loving you. You can’t force someone into caring.
If you go to work tomorrow and you want a promotion, do you think they are going to give it to you? or are you going to have to meet certain requirements and have certain credentials and be willing to do a certain amount of work before they can give you that position? why is that any different from your friendships and relationships? do you give Busboys CEO positions? why are you giving somebody that is only willing to do the work of a waiter, the position of a manager?
Ask your friends what is it that makes you want to be in my life, and when you get your answer ask yourself am I getting back what this person is receiving from me!