After about a year of writing for Odyssey, I've never written about romance and relationships. I guess that's because up until this year, I had never had a real experience with that world before.

However, I'm still a 21-year-old college girl who has encountered her fair share of men, both good and bad. I've met a ton of really great guys who I consider close friends, and this past year, I met my first ever boyfriend, who is the absolute best (sorry to all my middle school relationships). Again, though, I've met some absolute garbage men during my college career.

You know the kind of guys I'm talking about. The guys who leave you on read during the day but call you at 2 a.m., the guys that think feminism is pushing for women to be better than men, and the guys who pretend they're into you when they're actually not. Let's focus on those lovely humans for a minute.

During my sophomore year, I lived in my sorority house with 53 other fabulous women. I grew so much from this experience, and I met lifelong friends who I trust with my whole life. While living in this situation, guys took up probably 75% of our conversations. What else would you expect from so many women living together?

I learned that a lot of my friends and I had been going through the same things. Almost every single one of us has been in a situation where we had gotten texts from guys to come over after nights of partying, and we went. We all knew what it was like to feel like their "everything" in the moment, but feel forgotten about the next day.

We all knew we were in these bad situations, but for some reason, we all still held on to the hope that maybe if we went over one more time and did things on his terms one more time, that might be the time he realized we were meant to be.

Let me tell you a secret. We were so wrong.

I know you might be thinking, "Wow, you acknowledged you were in a tough spot at the time, so why didn't you just ditch the loser?" Well, it's way, way, WAY easier said than done. It's hard to fully step back from the situation when you're so deep in it. Your head might know you're doing something unhealthy, but your heart is too attached to realize this at the time. Your heart is the one looking for every glimmer of hope that there will be a promising change.

It wasn't until the forced separation that summer brought around for me to realize these issues. I was suddenly realizing I was happier without negative energy and self-doubt brought on by some guy. I finally realized that I was better than this situation and that I deserved someone who cares about me the way I know I can care about someone. Pulling myself out of this seemingly never-ending hole gave me the opportunity to meet that person, and let me tell you, I couldn't be happier.

I think the moral of the story here is this: if his actions aren't matching his words, if his texts aren't coming before the wee hours of the night, and if he doesn't actually care to get to know you as a person, then it's time to kick him to the curb. As the headline says, if he's not that into you, he's not that into you.

If you're reading this article right now and you're thinking that this situation seems familiar, I hope this acts as a wake-up call. Don't allow yourself to keep hurting because you're better than that. I know from personal experience that it's really hard to take this advice, but give it your best shot. Don't answer that late night text, and don't do what he wants you to do when he wants you to do it. Stick up for yourself because you deserve someone who treats you like an equal human being.