Image by deutscher13 via Flickr
All right, I’ll admit it… I’m into the bad boys. The kind who never lets you know where you stand, who turns his soulful eyes on you months after you’ve broken up, who runs things on his schedule and never yours.
I’ve played the games and alternately loved and hated them, sometimes playing better than the boys and sometimes playing worse. I’ll let them tug on my heartstrings, even if it hurts, just to know that someone sees me. So I don’t have to be alone.
But someone came along who convinced me to stop the games. And it’s a girl, not a boy. My little sister, in fact. I’ve watched her let the same boy walk over her, time and again. And each time, I get so very angry. How can someone treat her like that? Doesn’t he see how beautiful she is? He doesn’t deserve her, so why would she let him do that to her?
It was this line of thinking that led me to see that I can’t blame her for letting him, when I do the exact same thing. How can I expect my sister to respect herself when I won’t respect myself?
She went off to her first year of college last fall, and she’d sit around in the dorm, “just in case he called”… which he only did once a week. She couldn’t spend time with other boys, because that would be almost like cheating… when he could call up her best friend and ask her to come spend the night at his house.
She used to be vivacious and outgoing, with plans with friends almost every night. Now, she holes up in a little dark room watching movies on her computer because, if she can’t hang out with him, she can’t hang out with anyone, and most of the time, he doesn’t want to hang out with her. They dated for almost three years before he said I love you, and she had to push him to do it.
Her relationship is making her and everyone around her miserable, and she is too blind to see it. Her blindness has opened my eyes, and I can’t let someone treat me like crap when it infuriates me to see her being treated that way.
I’ve always hated the idea of having to be the older sibling, the mature one who sets the right example. As a firstborn child, I couldn’t understand who this little interloper was when she came, and then to be responsible for her on top of that was like rubbing salt in the wound. Why can’t I just live my life for me? But that’s not the way life works, and I’m responsible for her, whether or not either of us chooses to accept it. We’re family, and family takes care of each other. We’re part of each other, even if that sounds clichéd. If we’re a part of each other, and she’s worth treating well, then so am I.
So I have to give up the bad boys, even if it means I feel lonely sometimes. What I do has an effect on other people, especially the ones I love. It’s time to demand that I be treated right, so that I can expect the other people in my life to be treated the way they should be as well. It’s not fair for anyone for me to have higher expectations for them than for myself.
I love my little sister, and if I set a good example for her, maybe she’ll learn from it. I may have a weakness for bad boys, but my weakness shouldn’t cause pain for the people I love. So, I’ll learn to be stronger. I’ll demand that I be treated right if it means I can make my sister’s life a little better.
And maybe I’ll make my own life better, while I’m at it.