I Gave Everything to Be Chosen—and Still Wasn’t

My name is Jim.
I’m from the Philippines.
And this is the first time I’ve ever written this down without lying to myself.

I didn’t plan to become a simp. No one ever does. It doesn’t start with obsession. It starts with hope. With thinking, maybe if I’m just a little better, a little kinder, a little more patient, things will change.

They didn’t.

For years, I made myself available in ways I wouldn’t even admit out loud. I stayed up late waiting for replies. I memorized moods. I learned how to comfort without being asked. I knew when to disappear and when to show up. I became reliable. Predictable. Safe.

I thought that mattered.

In the Philippines, people like to say that love is about sacrifice. I believed that too deeply. I sacrificed my time, my pride, my self-respect, and told myself it was romantic. I told myself I was being mature. What I was really doing was slowly teaching people that my needs came last.

I was always “there.”
And because of that, I was never chosen.

I watched her fall in love with someone else in real time—through stories, through subtle changes in the way she talked to me, through the silence that grew longer every week. I congratulated her. I meant it. Then I sat alone in my room and felt something inside me collapse quietly, like a building being demolished piece by piece.

The worst part wasn’t losing her.
It was realizing how small I had made myself just to stay close.

I replayed every conversation, every joke I softened, every truth I swallowed. I wondered if I had said one wrong thing, or not enough right ones. I wondered if being less available would’ve made me more attractive. I wondered why being genuine never seemed to be enough.

At some point, I stopped asking what I wanted. Everything became about how not to lose people. I said yes when I wanted to say no. I helped when I was exhausted. I stayed when it hurt. I confused loyalty with self-destruction.

There’s a specific pain in knowing you were never misunderstood—you were just convenient.

I remember one night clearly. Power out. Phone screen lighting up my face. I sent a long message explaining how I felt, then deleted it. Rewrote it shorter. Deleted it again. In the end, I sent nothing. I told myself silence was strength.

It wasn’t. It was fear.

I’ve spent so much time being the “good guy” that I forgot I was allowed to want something back. I thought asking for reciprocity made me needy. I thought setting boundaries would make me selfish. So I kept bleeding quietly and calling it love.

I don’t hate anyone in this story. That’s important. No one forced me to stay. No one promised me anything. This is what makes it harder to accept—it was my choice every single time.

But tonight, I’m tired.

Tired of proving my worth.
Tired of waiting.
Tired of hoping people will finally see what I offer if I just give a little more.

I don’t want to be admired for my patience anymore. I want to be chosen without begging, without shrinking, without performing emotional labor for scraps of attention.

I don’t know how to stop being a simp overnight. I don’t have a transformation montage. What I have is this truth: I can’t keep living like love is something I have to earn by disappearing.

My name is Jim.
I’m from the Philippines.
And this is me admitting that loving this way nearly erased me.

If this story hurts to read, it’s because it hurt to live.