The Sad Game of Winning People Over
July 06, 2025
How subtle rejection, murky friendships, and emotional breadcrumbs kept me trying to prove I was worth loving — and what it means to walk away from that pattern.
The Sad Game of Winning People Over
It’s taken me a long time to realise that a lot of the exhaustion I carry in my relationships doesn’t come from people outright rejecting me — it comes from the ones who stay just close enough to keep me hoping.
They might like my posts. They might say kind things now and then. But they never truly reach out. They never invite. They never make the effort to build something. And still, I find myself trying. Reaching. Hoping that maybe, if I prove myself, if I do the right thing, they’ll finally choose me.
That’s the loop. That’s the game.
And I’m tired of playing it.
I used to think “unavailable” meant emotionally walled-off or distant. But now I see that someone can be warm, polite, even affirming — and still be unavailable to me. Unavailable for mutual connection. Unavailable for real presence.
And the worst part is: those are the ones that confuse me most. Because they offer just enough to trigger hope, but never enough to land anywhere safe. They don’t reject me outright — they just never really meet me. And that limbo, that suspended state of “maybe,” has been so familiar for so long that I mistook it for connection.
It’s hard to stay hopeful when you see this pattern everywhere. Hard to trust that there are people who won’t need winning over. But the clarity is this:
Anyone I feel the need to win over… they’re not worth winning over.
If love or friendship feels like something I have to earn, it’s not real. It’s a performance. And I’ve been on that stage long enough.
Oddly, the people who are clearly not for me — like the neighbour who’s consistently disrespectful — are easier to deal with. There’s no ambiguity. I don’t get hooked into some fantasy of potential. The grief is clean. The boundary is obvious.
But when someone feels almost right, when they give me glimpses of care but never follow through — that’s where I stay stuck. That’s where I waste energy trying to decode behaviour that should’ve just been consistent if it were genuine.
And I suppose that’s what I want to do differently now.
I want to stop waiting to be chosen. I want to stop modelling for my son that love is something you win by being good enough. I want to stop giving energy to the people who don’t show up, while the ones who might are left standing at the edge of my life.
I want to notice when someone’s half-in and stop blaming myself for their hesitation.
Because I’m not confused anymore.
If they wanted to be in my life — they would be. If they wanted to see me — they’d make the effort. If they were capable of real connection — it wouldn’t feel like this much work.
And if it’s unclear… then it’s already a no.