I’ve spent years being the strong one, but today I cried because no one noticed I was quiet.

There’s this thing I do. Every few weeks—sometimes days—I’ll open one of my social media apps with full intention. Not just to scroll, but to say something. Maybe something funny. Maybe something meaningful. Maybe something soft. But then I stop. I hesitate. And it hits me like a wave and a whisper at the same time: Why?

Why post into a void where folks barely acknowledge the echo? Why offer up some layered, honest truth to people who’ll skim it, maybe like it, maybe not—but rarely engage it with the kind of tenderness or thought I put into writing it?

And worse: Why bleed on the page for people who won’t even whisper that it reached them?

It’s not the applause I want—it’s the quiet nod from someone who felt it too. What’s the point of being bare if the room pretends not to see you? Why offer visibility to folks who only see you when you’re glowing, not when you’re grieving?

I’ve ask myself these questions enough times that it’s begun to reshape the way I view connection. Not just online—but everywhere.

Here’s the truth I don’t like admitting out loud:

I don’t reach out much either.

Hell, I ghost. I vanish. Though I think of people often, I go on long walks inside my own head and forget to send the “thinking of you” text. I take social media breaks like medicine—stepping away because the noise is too much and the silence is somehow worse. And then I have the nerve to feel hurt when people mirror that same energy back. When my absence isn’t noticed. When my return is met with digital shrugs or stale scrolling.

It’s a bitter loop.

And somewhere in that loop, the guilt shows up. The what if it’s me? spiral.

What if they’re not being distant—I’m just hard to love?

What if I’ve trained people not to expect much from me, and now they’re just playing their part in a pattern I wrote?

And then comes the worst part of all—the shame. The kind that curls around my ribs and whispers, Well, maybe you’re just not worth the effort.

But no.

That shame is lying. And I’m learning to talk back to it.

Because yes, I have distance in me. Yes, I have walls. Yes, I disappear sometimes. But so do most people with deep wounds and soft hearts. So do those of us who’ve been taught to love quietly so we don’t scare folks away. So do the ones who’ve been “the strong friend” for so long we don’t even know how to ask for softness without apologizing for it.

And here’s the hard-earned truth I keep circling back to:

Behavior is communication.

And the way people treat you is how they feel about you.

If they act like they don’t care, it’s because they don’t care—or they don’t know how. And while one of those is forgivable, neither one is nourishing.

Not for me. Not anymore.

I’m not interested in decoding people’s silence.

I’m not studying half-hearted energy like it’s gospel.

I’m not translating crumbs into feasts just to justify my presence in someone’s life.

Because I’ve done that already. For years. For decades. I’ve made people mean more to me than I’ve ever meant to them. I’ve leaned in when they leaned out. I’ve convinced myself that effort is too much to ask for—and that being understood is a luxury I can live without.

But I can’t.

Not anymore.

Not without breaking something sacred inside me.

So now, I’m listening. To behavior. To patterns. To energy. To silences that used to confuse me but now speak fluently. I don’t hate the people who drift—I just accept it as an answer. I don’t need closure from every friendship or situationship or almost-love that fizzled out. I just need truth. And behavior, whether we like it or not, is where truth lives.

But this isn’t just about other people. This is about me too.

About the ways I’ve pulled away before I could be pulled on.

About the way I’ve chosen invisibility to avoid rejection.

About how I’ve made social media a place of performance instead of connection—because the performance feels safer.

So here’s my reckoning:

Yes, people treat me how they feel. But I also teach them how to treat me.

And if I’ve been inconsistent, unreachable, or too guarded, that’s worth owning—not shaming myself over, but owning.

Because now, I want more. Not louder friends. Not performative engagement. But reciprocity. Emotional fluency. Safe spaces where I don’t have to wonder if I’m too much or too little—where being seen doesn’t require me to shrink or sparkle.

And maybe, just maybe, that means I have to show up differently too.

Not for everybody. But for the ones who matter. For the ones who try.

For the ones who, like me, are learning to be present on purpose.

So I’m not done posting. I’m not done reaching. But I’m done pandering.

Done hoping strangers will clap for my healing.

Done over-explaining to folks who only show up out of curiosity, not care.

I’m writing for the ones who get it.

For the ones who feel what I mean without needing it filtered.

And if that means fewer hearts and more wholeness?

So be it.