#keep seeing tiktoks about people not wanting to start a relationship/friendship/whatever bc they don’t love themselves

[marbleheavy]

thinking about how the “you can’t love someone until you love yourself” thing is bullshit!! it ignores the fact that we are meant to connect to each other and to love and that sometimes you experience emotions so intense they must become externalized, like rage or fear, and that part of what makes you capable of bearing your own sorrows is letting someone else hold them too. and in a society that is dead set on convincing people that they are never enough, it’s just asking you to never love anyone, to never let yourself connect. it takes so much work to be alone or to pretend that you are, but people aren’t ever alone. that isn’t to say it doesn’t also take effort to care for people, but the reward is so much greater when you let yourself love people. by loving people around you in any way (romantic, platonic, familial, aesthetically, etc.) you are making yourself just as lovable