Or maybe he is, but isn’t capable of loving you the way you want to be loved. Not need, want. Yeah, you may need to sort out your house chores or need help with an assignment for work, but to have that instead of the grand gestures and the devotion and the sonnets written for you? Who does that in today’s time, you might think, well I know someone does because I do (for the right person of course). If loving you is basically a chore for him, you don’t want to be loved that way.
What way do you want to be loved then? You want the simple things, really. Well, there are tiers to it. You want the bare minimum, the romantic and the grand gestures. Let’s break it down. Every girl wants the bare minimum from their partner. Help with chores, reply to texts, have phone calls, meet often… but then there’s the romantic tier, a tier above the bare minimum- this is where they step up the game, buy you unprompted (and unbegged) flowers, take you out on romantic dates, buy you presents, leave you cute love notes, love you in your preferred love language- make you feel special for simply existing. And then there is the grand gestures, which is romance on steroids. Instead of getting a regular bouquet of flowers, they fill your entire house with flowers, they remember the things you like and want to do, for example, a dinner in the hot air balloon overlooking scenic views; and they not only book the hot air balloon for the entire evening, but also decorate it too. The grand gestures are the definition of if he wanted to, he would.
And let’s take money out of the equation. If he wanted to, he would plant you a garden of roses and tend to them till they bloom a perfect scarlet for you to admire. If he wanted to, he would make you that vase you wanted for the centrepiece for your house but it’s sold out. If he wanted to, he would do anything to make sure you are happy. Happiness is often fleeting and the people who value it, make sure to surprise us in ways that keep it continued. I know such people exist because I am that person.
What happens when you are the type of person who is so giving, so loving, to the point of over-giving and over-loving and the other person is incapable of understanding the depths of your being? You become sour; you harbour resentments. You think to yourself, is this a compromise I am willing to take for my entire life? Don’t I deserve the same love, energy, effort, happiness that I give out to others? Why when I ask for the same, I am met with defensiveness and disagreements and just a long list of bare minimums? Don’t I deserve more?
But perhaps you are asking for too much and grand gestures are only nice in movies and unrealistic in real life. Yet there are people who do what they can, with what they have, for the one they truly love. It’s not so outlandish to expect to be appreciated by your partner. But then the tough questions start to roll, maybe in a spiritual sense you are matched with a partner who is rather practical and flawed in “logic” to think that this all fluff is unnecessary. They “I do the chores for you” what more could you possibly need? Well, I want to be loved. And because it’s so easy for you to love, you may get carried away by emotions and get unrooted from reality and he is there to keep you grounded. And maybe you are there to teach him how to love more expressively.
It sounds perfect on paper, but what if you don’t want to be the teacher anymore? What if you don’t want to be the nag who always begs and asks and prompts and nudges and he, like a headless chicken just runs around in frenzy. You don’t want to be with an emotionally inept man-child anymore. You want more. Because you have everything you need but it’s not what you want and that’s okay. You love too deeply and you speak with emotions and he takes a sterile steel and tears apart your words for what they could be.
It’s what it is and it’s a free world, you stay if you have to, you leave if you want to. You can’t change the identity of a person, their core values, beliefs and upbringing and make a new man out of him, Find a new man instead. The question is not that he’s just not that into you, the question is, are you that into him to compromise on your own core values, beliefs and upbringing that make you, you?