Sometimes the Red Flag Was Your Need to Be Chosen
- Taylor Bennett
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Have you ever been in a dating phase where everyone else was the problem except you?
He’s an f-boy.
She’s no good.
There are no good people out here.
And the last person you think to examine is yourself.
Well, let me explain something.
We love talking about their red flags.
Their inconsistency.
Their mixed signals.
Their inability to communicate, commit, or show up right.
But sometimes, if we are honest, the red flag was not just them.
Sometimes the red flag was our need to be chosen.
The part of us that kept hoping, excusing, shrinking, waiting, over giving, and calling it love when it was really fear, lack, or old wounds begging to be picked.
So no, not every red flag was them.
Sometimes it was the part of you that kept ignoring yourself just to be chosen. And baby, that is a red flag too.
Someone once told me I was a manipulator.
Not me, right?
I loved hard.
I showed love to everyone.
I was charming, giving, and all heart.
But we do not always see ourselves clearly.
I did not see the part of me that was willing to do too much just to be chosen. Even if it meant performing. Even if it meant pretending I was okay. Even if it meant giving a little more than I truly wanted to, hoping it would earn me love.
That part.
And no, I do not mean low-vibrational games. I mean the subtle ways people bend themselves trying to be enough for somebody else.
We all want love. But wanting love is different from manipulating yourself just to receive it.
Am I the only one who has been there?
That does not make you weak. It makes you human.
But healing means telling the truth about what you were participating in too.
When Being Chosen Feels Like Validation
You ever see women posting big rocks on social media and everybody is gushing over it, while a part of you is quietly wondering, What about me? Why am I so hard to love?
That is how being chosen can start to feel like validation.
Some people give up their peace, their standards, even their dreams, just to feel wanted.
So how do we break that cycle?
We choose ourselves first.
How Self-Abandonment Hides Inside Love
A lot of people abandon themselves in the name of love.
Not real love. The performance of love. The version where you over give, over adjust, overexplain, and slowly become less and less of yourself.
Then one day you feel drained in the relationship and do not even understand why.
It is because self-abandonment is exhausting.
This year, we are no longer performing for love. We are attracting what is ours.
Why We Ignore What We Feel
Some of us feel the drop in our stomach and still keep going.
That hesitation. That discomfort. That quiet inner no.
And yet we ignore it.
We perform so much, excuse so much, and override ourselves so often that we start losing touch with who we are.
We are not doing that anymore, sis.
We are becoming. Becoming who God called us to be.
Healing the Need to Be Picked
So how do we heal the need to be picked?
It's understanding your need to be chosen vs actually being Loved.
Understanding self-worth.
I am still working on that too.
Right now, I am not desperate for a relationship. I do not sit around longing for one. But when I get around a man I truly desire, I can still feel that pick-me energy trying to rise up.
Yes, I still feel it sometimes.
But I do not abandon myself for it anymore.
That is the key.
It is kind of like addiction. An addict may still remember the rush, but they also remember the cost.
And baby, this will cost you too.
It will cost you your peace.
What Real Love Does Not Require
Real love does not require you to lose yourself. It does not require you to betray your own needs. It does not require you to perform, drain yourself, or become someone else just to keep it.
Real love is not exhausting.
It does not make you feel like you have to shrink, chase, prove, or constantly adjust yourself to be accepted.
It accepts your natural energy. It sees you. It desires you as you are.
God made you unique and beautiful.
Anything that requires you to abandon who He naturally made you to be is not love.
Yes, love requires compromise. But it should not always be you doing all the compromising.
You stop attracting confusion when being chosen is no longer more important than being at peace.
Related reads:
Comments