When I was in college, there was this guy. Okay, there were a lot of guys. Guys that could’ve become more than just guys if I’d let them. And I think that’s how I have to think about it sometimes—that I didn’t let them. That I was the problem. Maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it was them. But most of them found other women and managed to get married, so it was probably me.

So there was this guy who seemed to gain an interest in me pretty quickly. I wrote him off for various, unimportant reasons that, in hindsight, are laughable. He got the message clearly enough that he moved on without so much as a comment. Fair. Respectful. Normal and reasonable.

And as soon as he’d moved on—as soon as he’d stopped giving me the attention I’d come to expect from him—I felt it. The sting of what I’d done. The regret of giving up something that could’ve been something. And I questioned myself. Why did I push him away? What was wrong with him?

There wasn’t a good answer, at least not really. Just vague ramblings in my mind about how he was too young for me (it was two years, which felt insurmountable at the time, but my gosh, what I’d give for a two-year age gap now), about how he was too sweet and I was too messy and there’s no way it would work.

But the fact of the matter is that I’ll never know. I’ll never know if any of that was true because I didn’t give either of us the chance to find out. I pushed him away and he ended up choosing a girl he’d first met while sitting on my blanket at a movie night. The moral of the story is not, “Never let another girl sit on your blanket when you invite a boy on your blanket,” but it could be. It’s one moral, at least.

Fast forward several years and there’s a different guy. This one isn’t like the college guy. At no point does he express interest in me. But I’m interested in him.

There is a point at which I realize this one won’t work either. We don’t have the right things in common. While I realize people say that opposites attract, it’s been my experience that that is the exception and not the rule. Outside of magnets, it’s more generally true that like attracts like. People want people to which they can relate. And I get it. I feel it, too, sometimes. But I’m a big sucker for the guys who don’t want me, and those guys generally have, like, zero things in common with me.

Things proceed with this second guy the exact way I figured they would: not at all. I say nothing. He feels nothing. He dates my friend. They get engaged. I have the fun memory of realizing that I was technically the first person to introduce them.

Well, dear couples, you’re so welcome. So glad you could find your life partners while I bumble through my own idiocy for the foreseeable future. Super happy to have played a part in your forever love story that none of you will remember but that will haunt me until the day I finally feel nothing. Or the day I die, which, if we’re honest, will probably come first.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that love is complicated. Feelings are complicated. Understanding your own self worth and accepting that maybe a guy who’s two years younger than you sees value in you and maybe that’s okay and maybe you should try sweet for a change because maybe you’ll like it better than the inevitable sour you keep going back for is really, really complicated.

And that, friends, is the truest moral of the story. It’s not about thoughtlessly introducing people with your blanket at a movie night or inviting someone to share a table with you and your prettier, younger friend. It’s understanding that you have worth and you can accept love when someone wants to give it to you, and that you can’t force it when someone doesn’t. That maybe accepting the love someone wants to give to you is actually going to be really good for you, even if it’s terrifying in the short term. But I was 21 and stupid, and at 31 I’m still stupid and maybe at 41 I’ll stop being so stupid, but we shouldn’t hold our breath because my track record is not great.

Of all the loves I’ve never had, I’ve almost had, I’ve walked away from, I’ve laughed at and disbelieved, none have hurt so much as the love I cannot hold for myself. None have damaged me so deeply, wounded me so profoundly, left my eyes tired from tears or my skin dry from the salt of it.

I think Stephen Chbosky said it best when he wrote, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” And one day, someday, hopefully, maybe I’ll accept someone’s love without getting lost in the tangled belief that I have to earn it first.