A pensive thought over the nights and so I write.
You Cannot Earn Affection
You can do everything for someone, and they still might not like you. Someone else can do almost nothing, and somehow, you like them anyway.
Reading Mel Robbins’ Let Them Theory got me thinking about myself. More specifically, it made me think about a part of myself that I have grown to rather dislike: the innate people-pleaser.
I am still reading and digesting the book, so I will save the proper review for another post. But one idea in particular stayed with me: we cannot control what other people think, feel, or do.
And that includes whether they like us.
I am talking about affection here in the broadest sense. This is not solely about romantic love. It applies to friendships, family, colleagues, and all the other relationships we form throughout our lives.
Affection is Not a Transaction
Once upon a time, I tried my hardest to impress someone. I did everything and anything I could think of, but that person still refused to give me the time of day.
Then my friend told me, “It’s not like you like everybody too, do you?”
“But I put in such a big effort.”
“So?”
That conversation has stayed with me. It taught me that the assumptions and expectations I had placed on affection were flawed. We often believe that being good to someone should make them like us. We assume that if we are kind enough, helpful enough, thoughtful enough, or generous enough, the other person will eventually reciprocate.
But liking does not work like a merit system.
Action does not always result in affection. Effort does not guarantee appreciation. And expecting something in return, whether tangible or intangible, is almost always a recipe for disappointment.
You can give someone your time, attention, patience, and kindness, and they can still not like you.
It is not fair. But it is human.
Goodness Does Not Purchase Recognition
This does not only apply to personal relationships.
There are plenty of times in life when we strive to earn recognition by going above and beyond. At home, at work, and even among our friends.
I have done this at work, embarrassingly to say, too many times to count.
There were times when I took on responsibilities beyond my rank because I wanted to prove myself to my managers. I wanted them to notice that I was capable. That I could perform. That I could be trusted with more.
And they did notice.
The problem was, perhaps, that it backfired.
Instead of simply being recognised as capable, I became someone they could rely on for more and more work. Eventually, I found myself taking on responsibilities beyond what I should have been doing, becoming the convenient person to hand work to when nobody else wanted it.
I had been trying to prove my worth, and somewhere along the way, I forgot to ask whether the effort was actually worth it.
These days, I still volunteer to help. But I do it because I want to help, and I know the effort entailed is within my means. I am no longer setting myself on fire just to prove that I can keep someone else warm.
Sometimes, Emotions Are Just That Irrational
There are plenty of studies exploring why we like the people we like. Similarity, familiarity, shared experiences, and many other factors can influence attraction and interpersonal liking.
But sometimes, human emotions are simply irrational.
Sometimes it is: “I like you because you are similar to me.” Other times, it is: “I don’t like you because you are too similar to me.”
There does not always have to be a logical explanation.
When I was younger, I remember going above and beyond for a friend. Beyond the usual celebrations, thoughtful messages, and consistent effort, I put a lot of myself into the friendship.
Only recently did I realise something that should have been obvious much earlier: Affection is not distributed according to effort.
We had a planned shopping trip where I was waiting for her at the train station. Minutes turned into an hour, and then more. Eventually, she arrived and told me that she had been late because she was accompanying another classmate who was all alone.
It stung because I was alone too.
Back then, I foolishly accepted the explanation without questioning it. But looking back, I wonder, what made her being alone more important than me being alone? It was the same precious hour of my life I spent waiting, in the end all by myself, without even receiving a shred of decency to inform me about the wait.
It felt unfair. And because I was young, I blamed myself. I wondered if I had simply made poor choices in friendship.
I still have not developed the world’s most discerning eye for people. But I also don’t want to regret doing what I believe is right because someone else did not appreciate me.
But now, I understand something I did not understand then: I cannot earn my way into someone’s heart.
There is always that little voice that says: “If I just become more useful, more interesting, more attractive, more understanding, more patient… eventually they will see my worth.”
And sometimes they don’t. Not because I am worthless but simply because they do not like me enough.
That is a painful realisation because it removes the possibility of fixing the problem through effort. But it is also liberating.
The Danger of Trying to Be Liked
Once upon a time, I was the giver in my relationships.
I believed that effort earned affection. So I did more. I accommodated more. I forgave more. I tried to become more useful.
And when my actions were not reciprocated, I did not immediately question whether the relationship itself was balanced. I questioned myself, I must not have done enough.
That mindset slowly turned me into a version of myself I didn’t like: a people-pleaser who was losing herself while trying to keep everyone else happy.
And now I know that there is a point when kindness stops being kindness and becomes a bid for validation.
Now, I am not saying that we should stop making an effort in our relationships. Relationships require effort. Friendship requires consideration. Love requires showing up.
But there is a difference between nurturing a relationship and trying to earn your place in one. It takes two hands to clap.
At some point, we have to develop the judgment to ask whether a relationship is worth continuing to pour ourselves into. We have to discern whether the other person is meeting us somewhere in the middle, and, perhaps most importantly, whether enough is enough.
Not every relationship needs to be perfectly equal.
But a relationship that consistently requires one person to give while the other only receives is not sustainable.
Relinquishing Control
In the end, we can only control ourselves. We can control whether we’re kind, generous, honest, and dependable.
We cannot control whether someone likes us, whether they return our affection. We cannot expect that they treat us the way we treat them. We cannot control whether they recognise our worth.
This is a tough pill to swallow, particularly for someone who has spent years believing that enough effort can fix almost anything.
But perhaps the answer is not to try harder. Perhaps the answer is to turn that effort inward.
To become someone I respect, not because I want someone else to approve of me, but because I want to be proud of the person I am.
And then, to accept that not everyone will like me.
I am still working on this. But I am slowly learning that being disliked by one does not make me unlikable to all. Being unappreciated by one does not make me unworthy of appreciation at all.
On the Bright Sunny Side
Think about the people you like. The friendships where affection felt effortless. The people you never had to audition for, impress, or constantly prove yourself to. You did not have to wonder whether you had done enough to deserve their attention. You just do.
While that does not mean every relationship will be perfectly equal, but there is a difference between making an effort to nurture a relationship and constantly trying to convince someone that you are worth having in theirs.
You can give the whole world to one person, and still not be enough for them. You can also simply exist, and somehow mean everything to someone else.
Neither makes you more or less worthy.
Perhaps this is what I am slowly learning to accept. I don’t need to become so good that nobody can dislike me and I don’t need to keep giving until someone finally decides that I am worth choosing.
I can be kind without expecting affection in return. I can make an effort without abandoning myself. And, perhaps most importantly, I can let people choose whether they want me in their lives.
Because there will be people who like us without needing convincing. People who appreciate our presence without requiring us to perform for it. People for whom our friendship, our love, or our existence is not something we have to earn.
We just have to stop spending all our energy trying to convince the people who don’t. Their dislike isn’t evidence that we aren’t good enough.
We just have to be ourselves and do what is right for ourselves.
As Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.”
Perhaps that is what life should be like: doing the good thing because it is who you are, not because you are waiting to be rewarded for it.
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