It’s taken me 20 years to realize something very obvious. I’m never the one that gets the happy ending.

In fact, nothing ever really ends when you’re not the girl worth falling in love with. It just seamlessly blends away until you realize – you don’t have that person anymore. You’re a placeholder in the sheets or just another warm mouth. But never the proud Instagram post captioned “my girl”. It’s the little things like these that burn my eyes at night.

It wasn’t until a recent experience when I realized, I was nothing more than a substitute girlfriend for someone that couldn’t get their life even close to straightened out. I realized that he didn’t look at me with a glow in his eye or any affection other than physical. I went home the night that I found out I was the other girl, I cried until my eyelids were bruised from rubbing them. I thought how silly I was to have thought this was the one to work out. It was never going to be me, I wasn’t the one that was going to get the “I love” at the end of the night and the “you” at the break of dawn.

And I wondered what the other girls did to be worth all the love. I took a hard look at myself in the mirror and dissected everything that I thought could possibly be wrong with me. And then I realized I was being completely and utterly mad. I sat there with (too expensive for crying) mascara swimming down my cheeks and I just laughed. I had people all around me that thought I was funny, decent, and enough for them. But here I was, wallowing in the hurt of being some burnout’s side girl. I have a mother and father who have loved me with every ounce of their being since the first day I opened my eyes. I have a brother that has guided me in every way he ever could – just to show his love for me. Over 100 sorority sisters that are never more than a call away. And a group of friends that at the end of the day, love me more than I love myself. So why am I so caught up on the affection of a boy?

In this moment, I realized it was because I’d never truly had it. When you’re never the one they’re proud to be with, you never get the 2 PM bagel dates. You don’t get to go to their formals and you certainly don’t get any form of a good morning text. You get the lust that they can’t find elsewhere. And you’re there, so you’ll do for the night.This is something that has messed me up so deeply; I truly don’t understand why anyone would ever choose solely me when there are thousands of girls out there, also deserving of love with better cheekbones or a smaller waist.

I’m not the girl you’re going to want to show off to your “boys” and say look what I’ve got. I’m not the girl that the boys gaze at from across the room wondering what I’m all about. But I am the girl that would do absolutely anything for the people she cares about. I’m the girl that deserves all the love she gives. I’ll never be the one they make the mix tape for or lay up all night thinking about. I’ve been conditioned to believe that this type of thinking is normal, because in the movies it is always good to be angsty or bitter in one way or another. It’s always the girl that isn’t looking for it that gets the storybook ending. I’ve been trying not to look for it too hard for 20 years and that’s only just confused me in the process. I realized in order to be the girl the boys fall in love with, you have to fall in love with yourself first.

Get your own beer at the bar. Learn how to change your own tire. Do your makeup for yourself, because you want to see yourself look good that day. Make your own damn mixtapes (because your music is way better than their rapping nonsense anyway). Go to baseball games by yourself and don’t ever be afraid to watch your favorite hockey team alone either. You don’t need a boy to justify the things you love. Take the time to get to know yourself well enough that you can confidently accept the fact that someday someone really will love you. One day you’re going to wake up from the late morning sun spilling into your room and you’re going to feel the warmth of someone else’s arms around you. And this person has decided to be with you, out of the millions of people on the planet, you’re the one they want to see when their eyes open on that Sunday morning. I swear to you this day will come and you’ll look at the person that loves you above all else and realize that every tear you ever shed for every juvenile frat boy, high school junkie, or overly-cocky football player you ever gave your nights to, were all worth the wait for the person you’ll spend the rest of your mornings with.