"i want you to stay"

i just had a really insightful conversation with one of my best friends who broke up with her boyfriend tonight.

she was finally invested in this relationship. she was skeptical at first, because this guy is one of her closest friends, but she knew it because she'd just come back from break and all she wanted to tell him was how almost everything she did over break she had a follow up thought about him. they met up for coffee this afternoon. and he told her straight up that he had feelings for another woman, one of his co workers. he told her that he couldn't decide.

i had an epiphany. i don't think it's that he couldn't decide. but rather that he wanted her to tell him to stay. a basic human instinct magnified into a trait. you desire to be told what to do. even if it's not what you want. reverse psychology, if you will. therefore leaving the other party involved as the initiator. because they either asked you to stay or told you to go. they are the cause of issues if you stay because they told you to stay when you told them, or rather implied that you wanted to leave. they are the inflictors of their own heartbreak if they tell you to go, because YOU didn't tell them you wanted to go, they TOLD you to go.

and the best of us often are left standing amongst the ashes.

it makes me tired. to consistently be placed in the position of the pessimist. its not that i don't believe it will work. it's that i know you aren't invested. and to spare myself the pain of constantly fighting to keep you here, i'd rather tell you to go then say "i want you to stay."