Your low self esteem is hurting others.

After a string of rejections spanning my entire middle and high school careers, I didn’t think any girl would be interested in dating me (I’ve written about this ad nauseam in other posts, and my dating book Bad Timing, if you want even more embarrassing stories from my past).

The first girl I dated out of high school, Olivia (who was also my first kiss…see Bad Timing), was, shockingly, interested in me. However, due to my thought pattern and narrative that no girl would ever like me, I didn’t realize it.

We went out for about a month, after which I abruptly called things off with her and went on my merry way.

After all, I thought, I’m not really that great…she will undoubtedly find men far better than me.

I didn’t find out until about 3 years later that I had, in fact, hurt her far more than I had thought. She was, indeed, interested in me and it was my own low view of myself that led to her pain in a roundabout way.

See how that works?

If you think you’re not really that great, then you also think people won’t really be into you, which leads you to think that they don’t really want to be with you, and they won’t really miss you if you call things off.

I’ve been on the other side of this as well, of course. Recently I was with a woman who ghosted on me after a month of talking (for this one, read my latest book, lol). I was terribly cut up by her abrupt leaving.

Of course, I can only speculate since she hasn’t replied to my requests for comment (or to get back together and fall madly in love), but I wonder if similar thoughts passed through her mind.

Maybe she just wanted to avoid the awkward ‘break up conversation,’ or perhaps she thought she wasn’t that special and I wouldn’t really miss her if she vanished into the ether. Or both?

If you think about it, in one scenario she undervalued me, by leaving me guessing with no closure or explanation. In the other, she undervalued herself.

The moral here is, don’t ghost on people after you’ve been going out for a while.

The other, deeper, moral is, having an improper view of yourself can not only hurt yourself, but others. We as humans are an interconnected species. In Romans 12, Paul writes that “we are members of one another.” He is using the metaphor of body parts working together to function as one cohesive body. If my nose suddenly decided that it wasn’t valuable and didn’t serve a function, the whole rest of the body would suffer!

But that same is true of us. The second we start believing that we aren’t useful, or that no one needs/wants us, we damage not only ourselves, but everyone else in our lives.

Is your low self esteem hurting those near to you?
Mine certainly has.

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