Instruction Manual for Loving Someone Who Cannot See You

Instruction Manual for Loving Someone Who Cannot See You

First warning: You cannot save someone who doesn’t know they are lost.

Second warning: Loving someone who cannot see you is like throwing stones into the sea hoping to build a bridge.

Instructions:

1. Do not try to enter their mind.
   There are no seats for guests there.

2. Do not demand reciprocity.
   It’s not a lack of love; it’s emotional blindness. They cannot see you, they cannot hear what you say, they cannot feel the weight of your embrace.

3. Play along only as long as your heart can bear.
   It’s not about lying to them, but about accompanying them from your own truth.

4. Recognize the invisible lines.
   You are not a retaining wall. You are a human being who also bleeds.

5. Accept that their war is not your war.
   You can stand beside the battlefield, but you cannot fight in their place.

6. Save your oxygen.
   Don’t lose your breath trying to breathe for two.

7. Do not carry ruins that do not belong to you.
   You won’t be a better friend, child, sibling, or lover by breaking yourself into a thousand pieces.

8. Acknowledge your own exhaustion.
   Loving them does not mean abandoning yourself. Giving yourself up will not rescue them. There will only be two missing people instead of one.

9. Allow yourself to mourn them while they are still alive.
   Mourn what will not be. Mourn what you cannot change. Mourn the image of the person you thought you could reach.

10. When the time comes, walk away.
    Not as someone who flees, but as someone who honors their right to exist.

Final notes:

Loving someone who cannot see you is an act of courage, but staying there forever is an act of self-betrayal.

Those who choose to own their pain may one day build bridges.
Those who stay forever holding up a ghost only learn to disappear along with themselves.

This manual is not a death sentence.
It is a reminder: to love is also to know when to let go.