Just to be chosen

I wrote a post detailing the need to ask from where? When people say they love us. I guess this is a sort of sequel…

This post was inspired by a reality TV show I was watching over the weekend when one of the actors said “I am glad he chose me” and of course, that triggered me in some ways. I suppose I understand where she was coming from and maybe that was why it resonated.

As a woman, it is sort of beaten into your subconscious that you will be ultimately selected by a man as worthy of marriage. Somehow, your desirability and worth is directly proportional to how much of a marriage material you are considered to be, regardless of whether or not being chosen is within your control, not being chosen eventually feels like some failure of sort both to yourself  and of course, in the eye of the society. I am glad that this narrative is evolving though.

Women are taught to achieve marriage, as though this is a phenomenon a person achieves singularly. It takes two to tango in fields as this considering that it is a collective goal.

As a woman, this thinking does something to your psyche, it makes you wait on the sideline in comportment, anticipating selection, in a way that feels like you are waiting for your life to start at the instigation of another.

For this reason, a lot of women will desire marriage but will choose to wait for their partners to propose because saying this is just so taboo that it even could reduce a man’s ability to remain masculine and can turn him off you completely since you have decided to be “a man.”

I know you can hear the sarcasm dripping in the last line but if you didn’t, well, what can I say,🤷🏾‍♀️ that is not the point of this post.

What happens to you over time when you keep internalising that you have to be chosen, you forget that you are also doing the choosing. I know lot of men reading this post may find this incomprehensible and that’s okay. How can you relate with something you cannot fathom?

It is true that a woman also has to say yes, that there is power in also positioning yourself for selection, that even though men make the first move, women have a say on how far that move goes. Yeah, I am not denying all these and I am not saying that there is just one part to this narrative. I am just here to expound on all the other overlooked layers.

Much more than all these angles to the narrative is how we often beat ourselves into shape to conform because deep down, our insecurities whisper that we have to be perfect to be chosen. We think that we are supposed to compete for attention and to entertain that attention so that it can stay. As though love is something to strive for.

Yes, thoughts such as this can only prosper when we  internalise that we are waiting to be chosen instead of owning our part in the process.

It is a unique way of acknowledging your feelings too. Of taking ownership of your life and the love you want in it, how you want that love expressed and the extent you chose to explore it. I use marriage as the example here because it is viewed with more gravity but it also applies to everyday relationship.

I guess it is a privilege in some ways too, because as a person who is selected, you have no doubt about your desirability and purpose and in some ways too, after being chosen, you get to choose too. But the point of this post is what we do just to be chosen.

The ways we alter ourselves to be deemed worthy enough. I remember feeling this way with someone. The best description I can come up with is being displayed at a supermarket waiting to go home with a shopper that needs or appreciates your worth. While this will happen eventually, there is the many phases of pick and drop. Urrrrrrghhh. The horror.

I don’t know if  there’s a relatability to this post but I definitely want to set it as a reminder of worth. Sometimes, people cannot see your value simply because they lack the capacity. It may not even have anything to do  with you.

Instead of trying your best to convince them, spend that time starting your search for your tribe. Your kind of person is out there, they may seem so far away but hopefully, it will align in the end.

May love find you and may you be love.

Hugs and kisses,

Dcconnoisseur.