How does someone else look at me and tell me what I deserve? and

Then proceed to demand what they think I deserve, on my behalf.

Don't get me wrong... I love my close knit, overprotective, sometimes bitchy but usually harmless circle of chicas. But there are certain things that I genuinely don't know how to tolerate, and one of them is when you tell me what I deserve and what I should demand.

I hate to sound like a secretive bitch, but I like to keep stuff to myself. I don't really know how to talk to people about how I feel about the serious stuff, and I like to steal away for time by myself. The introvert in me still struggles to appreciate the tight circle I have.

I don't think there's a single one of my friends who can genuinely say they know everything about me. So when you proceed to exclaim that you "know exactly how I feel", I get frustrated.

But to take it a step further, you want to tell me that this boy most certainly isn't worth my time and doesn't deserve me. I deserve better.

You don't know what I deserve at all. Neither do I. And you can't tell me what is or isn't worth my time - the fact that I'm willing to give this thing, whatever it is, a try means that I do indeed find it valuable enough to be worth my time.

Support me, as my friends. Or know that your opinion has been filed away into "thanks, but no thanks" piles to be disregarded at a later date. I love you, but you can't tell me who to invest my time and energy into.

You can't complain about what doesn't even bother you. How does that make sense? If it's affecting me, and I don't complain then how do you look on from the outside and complain? It just doesn't seem right.

I appreciate that you think that you should let this bother you, because it should and even might be bothering me... but you don't have to attack anybody. You calmly state your side and then sit your ass down and be a friend. Whatever that means. I'm sorry you're hurting because you think I'm hurting, but I haven't asked you to take up my cross and carry. I haven't asked you to absorb my hurts, my feelings. That's ridiculous.

So don't complain about what I accept.

Yours in solitude in suffering,
me.