Wake Up Call: Stop Dating People Who Don’t Care

On November 9, 2016, my boyfriend and I celebrated our third anniversary together (yes, the election results did put a damper on the occasion).

We’ve come a long way since we began dating our sophomore year of college-two degrees, three apartments, and many adventures later, our relationship has grown and changed in ways we never could have anticipated.

I know that three years isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things-all of our grandparents have made it to their 50th wedding anniversaries. We’re definitely not relationship experts, but since we’ve been together longer than any other couple we hang out with, female friends will often open up to me when they’re having relationship issues. And some of the things they’ve told me throughout the past few years have left me shaking my head.

At this point, I’ve heard complaints about every issue under the sun, from “committed” boyfriends going back on Tinder to cheaters who lie until they finally get caught.

I’ve also heard some more benign conflicts-you know, “he was the right person, but it was the wrong time,” and “we really liked each other, but the distance was too hard.”

After patiently listening to countless stories like this over the years, I’ve realized a simple harsh truth about most relationships.

Most people who are together don’t actually like each other.

Let me humble brag for a second here.

Honestly, my boyfriend and I seem to have bypassed many of these common problems.

We rarely fight. We’re pretty damn great at communicating. We have no qualms with giving each other some space and alone time.

We’ve been long distance for up to eight months at a time, and while it was tough, we both know it was worth it.

We don’t go behind each others’ backs to text other guys or girls.

Talking about finances was a bit awkward when we took our first leap into “the real world,” but we’re getting used to it. And we constantly talk about our goals for the future and how we can create a life that makes both of us happy.

There is no secret. There’s no magic formula. No special trick to guaranteeing a happy relationship. We like each other. We care about each other. It’s really that simple.

Maybe saying that the majority of couples around our age don’t give a shit about each other sounds like a sweeping generalization, but I say this because I remember what it was like to invest my time and energy into people who also didn’t give a shit. And it sounds a lot like the dynamic between many young couples I’ve met.

Before I met my boyfriend, I spent plenty of time moping around about guys who didn’t actually like me. Who would only text me if they needed something. Who would pretend to care about my feelings until they were the ones hurting me. Who would rather lie than engage in a difficult yet honest conversation.

They were immature, and so was I, because I was more than willing to put up with it. It had to be better than being alone, right?

Wrong, obviously.

Here’s the thing: sometimes, things don’t work out, even if you genuinely care about each other. But if you don’t genuinely care about each other, things will never work out.

As woman, we’re socialized to be patient, kind, and accepting. We’re taught to be polite and forgiving, nurturing and maternal. We’re even taught that if a guy is mean to you, it just might mean he likes you!

Essentially, we’re primed from day one for accepting all kinds of bullshit.

Look, everyone has their flaws, and even in the happiest, healthiest relationships, both partners have to learn to accept some baggage from each other. You can have some serious disagreements at times-that doesn’t negate your love for each other.

But there are some things that you should never, ever feel that you have to accept in a relationship.

A person who cheats on you does not care about you.

A person who lies to you about shit that really matters does not care about you.

A person who excuses their bad behavior with “I was drunk/high/whatever” does not care about you.

A person who resorts to yelling and name-calling during a disagreement does not care about you.

And if you’re doing any of this to your partner? Well, you definitely don’t care about them, either.

Time and time again, I see people, especially young women, accepting these behaviors from their partner. They’ll stay in these dead-end relationships for years on end, trying to convince themselves that there’s a way to fix it, constantly making excuses for their partner’s behavior. Both partners might stay out of desperation, loneliness, or just sheer boredom. But no amount of excuses will change the fact that the person in question couldn’t care less. And you can’t force them to.

Your time, your energy, your effort-all of it is precious. Stop wasting it on people who don’t appreciate it.

There are millions of people out there who are giving everything they’ve got to mend a relationship that can never be successful, because it wasn’t built on a stable foundation in the first place.

It’s not complicated. It’s not mysterious. It’s not some sacred truth about relationships that only a lucky few are clued in on.

Stop dating people who don’t care about you.

Stop making excuses for them.

And stop dating people you don’t care about.

Maybe in a few years, I’ll proclaim there’s some other profound piece of advice that you need to understand in order to hold your relationship together, but I kind of doubt it.

And besides, if you’re treating each other like crap on the day to day, no amount of advice I could ever dish out would change the fact that you simply don’t care.

After three and a half happy years, I wouldn’t say that “all you need is love.”

But if you don’t even have the love, nothing else will matter.