In Exchange for Attention

I’ve always believed in an invisible system behind things. Not fate, not karma: something subtler. A kind of emotional economy. You give something honest, something soft, and in return you’re held. You speak, and someone stays. You show yourself, carefully, clumsily, sincerely, and you’re met with warmth. That was the deal I thought I understood. But that logic failed me more times than I can count. And still, I kept going back to it, the way people return to locked doors just to rattle the handle, just to be sure.

Most of my life I’ve mistaken attentiveness for affection. If someone looked at me while I spoke, I thought it meant I mattered. If they remembered a small detail I’d shared, I felt safe. I let these moments stitch themselves into something resembling intimacy. But over time I saw how thin that safety really was. How easily it tore. How a distracted nod or a half-second pause could unravel the entire structure. And when that happened, I blamed myself. I must’ve spoken too quietly. I must’ve asked for too much.

I don’t think the fear was ever just about being ignored. I guess it was the fear of being slowly shut out, like a room where the light dims until you’re no longer visible. Not an argument, not a rupture. just very slow fading. A conversation that gradually loses texture. A voice that softens when it says your name, like it’s already forgetting how it used to sound. It’s a specific kind of pain, one that doesn’t come with answers, only atmosphere. Like fog.

What scared me most wasn’t rejection: it was erasure. The idea that someone could walk away from me without looking back, not out of anger but indifference. Not because they couldn’t stay, but because they simply didn’t need to.

I used to preempt it. I would pull away first. Emotionally, then physically. Withhold affection, pretend I was fine. I left while pretending to stay. That was my strategy. Convince people I needed nothing, that their absence would go unnoticed. But the truth was, I noticed everything. I still do.

Lately, I’ve stopped running. I let the silence hang in the air. I stay in the room, even when I feel like an echo. I try not to shrink myself in anticipation of being left. I try not to rewrite my presence just to become easier to carry.

It’s strange, how much space opens up when you stop performing for affection. When you stop editing yourself into someone else’s favorite version of you. It’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s quiet to the point of disorientation. But it’s also honest. It’s the first time I’ve heard my own voice without waiting for applause.

There are still nights when I spiral. When I reread messages and dissect silences. When I wish I’d spoken less, or differently, or not at all. I still catch myself trying to earn space I already occupy. But those nights pass. And what’s left is this: I’m still here. I didn’t vanish. I haven’t dissolved.

I’m learning to sit with the discomfort of not being fully understood. Of not being the version someone else needs. That’s not failure. That’s part of being real. If they drift, they drift. If they forget, they forget. But I no longer owe anyone the softest version of me just to be kept around.

I’ll stay, but not to prove anything. I’ll stay because I’m allowed to. Because I’ve stopped asking for permission to take up space I already fill.