IDGAF (ok fine, I do)

When I was in fifth grade, I loved playing flag football. For some reason unknown to me or any of my P.E. teachers, I had a pretty strong arm and I caught the ball almost any time it was thrown my way. My love for the game soon turned into aggressive competitiveness that I had not felt before. I did anything it took to win; tackling my peers, jumping for a ball, and breaking my arm doing so, as well as continuing to play despite the bright green cast I had to wear after said unfruitful jump. During 8th period gym class of the 2014-2015 school year, I learned about how good it felt to be victorious and that I was a cutthroat, competitive person who would always care about coming out on top.

Flash-forward seven years to something that’s going to seem completely irrelevant until I explain.

I’m in bed, reading a book called What a Time to Be Alone by Chidera Eggerue. It’s about self-love and all that stuff; a close friend gave it to me after one of my many failed talking stages. I thought it was going to be super cheesy and I was going to hate it, but I decided to try it out anyway (mostly because I wanted a distraction from feeling like I was a failure at boys/love/shit my hormones make me care about). A handful of pages in, I read a paragraph that struck a chord:

“To be constantly ‘unbothered’ is to be dead inside. For a lot of people, caring means losing. These are the people who invest all of their energy into performing instead of living, because to appear unbothered all of the time, you must be in a constant state of pretense.”

Wow. Wowowow. Woah. I am “a lot of people.” I do anything in my power to make sure that people think that I couldn’t give less of a fuck. About anything, At all. I want to be the cool, carefree girl who goes through life completely unbothered by anything or anyone.

There are quite a few habits of mine that made me realize that I was “performing instead of living.” First of all, when someone hurts me, emotionally, I pretend they didn’t hurt me. I won’t tell them or talk to them about it, I just push it deep down and try to convince myself that I don’t care. Also, I often won’t tell someone what I want in fear that it’s not what they want (this can apply to deciding where to go to dinner with a friend or, more seriously, agreeing to go further with a guy, physically, than I really want to). Lastly, If I’m in a relationship (I’m using the word relationship broadly to mean any kind of somewhat ongoing interaction with a male whom I am romantically interested in) with someone, I need to be winning.

So, uh, what do I mean by “winning” in a relationship? I bet you know because you do it too, you just don’t think of it as trying to “win.”

I consider it as being the one that texts less, cares less, and has a roster full of boys, both cute and interested in me, that serve as options in case this one just doesn’t work out. Just like in Taylor Swift’s “The Story of Us” (if you don't know that song, go listen, seriously, like right now.), relationships often feel like “a contest of who can act like they care less.”

It sounds crazy, but this competitiveness is just like what I felt as an 11-year-old on the flag football field. It’s rooted in the same reasoning too; wanting to be the best so that people love me and think I’m awesome. It’s the same exact thing in relationships! I just want them to like me and think I’m the coolest of cool (okay, that phrase makes me sound like the complete opposite, but you get the point).

But seriously, I am not actually unbothered by other people. I feel all the feelings. All. The. Time. I’m not overly sensitive or anything, but I am a human person with emotions who cares about other people as well as what those other people think of me.

A boy I like has me on delivered for longer than usual? You know damn well I’m not “way too busy to even notice” and I don’t “get so many snaps I didn’t even see it” (both of which are things I have said before). I am checking my phone every five minutes. I am worried about whether he is ignoring me. Does he not like me? Does he think I’m weird? Ugly? Annoying? The list goes on and on.

That situation better not just happen to me, because if it does, that’s super embarrassing.

So, I guess the question is how do I not act “dead inside”? How do I get over myself, risking embarrassment and “losing” in relationships, in order to be alive?

I know I need to show people that I do care, but that seems difficult. Do I just say to my friends and family, “Hey! Just so you know, there’s a bunch of stuff that you’ve said and done that has really upset me and I didn’t tell you. So from now on, I’m going to tell you when you make me cry/worry/pissed! Just a heads up!”? I don’t know if that’s the right approach; I feel like I don’t need to give them a warning about me trying to be more honest about my feelings, I just need to start doing it.

This is one of those things that is so much easier said than done. The idea of telling a guy what I 100%, wholeheartedly want with them and not saying what I know they want to hear literally makes me want to die. But, see!?! I’m performing for them, not living for myself when I’m not honest.

And you know what? If they respond badly, fuck them. Honestly! Despite what the voice inside my head had been telling me for years, not everyone needs to love me and think I’m the greatest/smartest/baddest bitch on this whole entire planet. I don’t need to win relationships anymore because it doesn’t make me happy. It more often than not gets me in situations I don’t want to be in and leaves me feeling pretty empty inside. Besides, what’s really winning? Having the “power” in the relationship by never really being vulnerable? Or not having that “power” and being completely truthful with who you are and what you want?

The second one is much more difficult, but to form real connections with people, whether they be friends or more, I think it’s necessary.

So, I’m going to try to keep my competitiveness applicable only to sports, not my relationships with people. But don’t let this article fool you, I will still fucking dive for that football.