Don’t ask for more than what your love is worth.

Being loved is great, but you know what love also is? It’s very freaking expensive when it comes from a selfish person. “I love you; therefore, you owe me,” sort of way. So instead of feeling good, there is a point where these expressions of overwhelming adoration don’t raise gratitude anymore, but a question: “OK, so what is this love going to cost me this time? What’s the price tag?” And tell you what, it isn’t always great news.

When a person loves you for what you can do for them, not for who you are without doing anything in specific, their love feels like a shopping list they hand out to you because they know technically you can give them all of those things. They don’t love YOU; they love your “money”; your ability to get them what they want. It may be your wisdom, your fashion sense, your connections that they want, but they act like they love “you”. A lot of people cannot make a difference. Just like dog trainers say “Dogs don’t love you; they love the treats,” which I am not sure is true, this type of love is toward what you can do for them and give them, rather than who you are. The difference is; they’ll bleed you dry, and once you’re dry, they move on, leaving you to mend yourself by yourself.

If you’re lucky, at the stage when you’re broken and empty, the person who discovers you is a person who loves you for who you are, instead one who thinks they’ll buy you when your stocks are low and you’d be willing to take on anybody just so you don’t have to be alone.

Selfish love is not love. It’s just opportunism… And it doesn’t feel all that flash when you recognize it for what it is.

The question is this: Are you good for it? Can they get from you enough in compensation? Are you going to be able to fill them up with whatever awesome you are, to compensate for the awesome they are? If you can’t, you’re shopping while broke. You can’t afford a person like that.

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