Unsent Messages

I didn’t realize I was a simp at first. I just thought I was loyal. Thought I was patient. Thought I was “different from other guys.” That’s what I told myself every time I stayed up past midnight waiting for a reply that never came.

Her name was Mara.

We met through mutual friends online, the kind of connection that starts light—memes, inside jokes, casual flirting that felt harmless. She laughed at my messages, reacted with hearts, told me I was “sweet.” That word became my drug. Sweet meant safe. Sweet meant I’d stay.

I was always available. If she needed to vent, I was there. If she was bored, I’d drop whatever I was doing. I learned her moods, her habits, the times she’d post stories meant for someone else. I noticed things she never noticed about me.

I paid in small ways at first—food deliveries when she was “too tired,” rides when she didn’t feel like commuting, subscriptions she mentioned once and forgot. I told myself it wasn’t about money. It was about care.

The truth was simpler: I was afraid that if I stopped giving, I’d disappear.

The wake‑up call didn’t come in a dramatic fight. It came quietly.

One night she told me about a guy she liked. She said it casually, the way you talk to someone who exists outside the story. She asked me for advice. I remember staring at my screen, my chest tight, typing encouragement I didn’t feel.

That was the moment something cracked.

I realized I had been auditioning for a role she never planned to cast me in. I wasn’t a partner. I wasn’t even a backup. I was emotional furniture—comfortable, useful, invisible.

I didn’t confront her. I didn’t ghost her either. I just stopped overextending.

I replied slower. I stopped sending money. I stopped reshaping my day around her moods. The silence was terrifying at first. My brain screamed that I was losing her.

But something else happened.

She noticed.

“Are you okay?” she asked one day.
I almost laughed.

I told her the truth, calmly. That I cared about her, but I’d been neglecting myself. That I needed space to figure out who I was without constantly trying to be enough for someone else.

She said she understood. She said she’d miss me.

And that was it.

No grand confession. No sudden realization on her part. Just an ending that felt… honest.

The hardest part wasn’t losing her attention. It was sitting with myself afterward. Realizing how much of my identity had been wrapped around being wanted. I started going to the gym—not to impress anyone, just to burn off the restlessness. I picked up old hobbies. I learned how to say “no” without explaining myself.

Weeks later, I found a draft message in my phone. One I never sent. It was long, emotional, full of things I wished she’d seen.

I deleted it.

Not out of bitterness, but because I didn’t need her to validate my growth anymore.

I didn’t stop being kind. I stopped being desperate.

And that difference changed everything.