There’s this tiny moment that sneaks up on you in every relationship, the moment where you pause, sit with yourself, and ask: Is this connection feeding me, or draining me out? It never comes with fireworks. It doesn’t announce itself. It creeps in quietly, usually at 11:48 p.m. when you’re lying in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying a conversation that didn’t sit right, or rereading a message that somehow felt like a shrug typed into a phone.
I reached that moment once with someone I cared about more than I ever admitted. It wasn’t heartbreak, not at first. I didn’t cry or slam doors. No, it was slower. A kind of emotional erosion. I kept showing up for someone who only showed up when the spotlight happened to be shining in their direction. I kept giving the benefit of the doubt to someone who barely remembered the benefit existed.
You know how it goes. You tell yourself they’re overwhelmed. They’re stressed. They have a lot going on. And sure, maybe they do. But it’s funny how people who have “a lot going on” suddenly become free, available, and shockingly energetic when they need something from you. It’s like emotional amnesia mixed with selective convenience.
I kept rationalising it. People get busy. People forget. Maybe I’m expecting too much. But here’s the secret: your body knows. It always knows before your brain catches up. That sinking feeling in your chest? The one where you hesitate before texting first because it feels like you’re always the one reaching out? That’s the truth trying to tap you on the shoulder.
Effort has weight. And when only one person is lifting, even love starts to feel like dragging a suitcase up a staircase alone.
That’s when I started thinking about what reciprocity really is. Not the polished, pretty version Instagram quotes like to sell you. Not the “50/50 partnership” people preach about. It’s something more intuitive, like breathing. You inhale, they exhale. You pour, they pour. You show up, they don’t vanish into thin air. It’s not an equal split of actions; it’s an equal split of intent. The feeling of, I’m not in this alone.
But with this person, I noticed a pattern. When they needed something, validation, attention, a listening ear- they had me on speed dial. When I needed anything more emotionally complex than a meme reply, suddenly their day was too full, too stressful, too complicated. If I had a problem, suddenly the planets were misaligned. It was always the wrong moment, the wrong hour, the wrong headspace.
And for a long time, I accepted it. I compensated for it. I covered the gaps with my own energy. I became both halves of the relationship because some naïve part of me believed that if I just loved harder, tried harder, stayed longer, they would eventually meet me halfway.
I should tell you the truth that took me too long to learn: when someone wants to meet you halfway, they don’t need a map.
I remember the exact moment things shifted. I was sitting in a restaurant alone, waiting for them again. They were “on the way,” which in their language meant “still at home, deciding if they feel like coming.” I watched couples walk in together, friends laughing and actually present for each other, and for the first time, I felt a hollow ache in my chest. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t devastated. I was just… done. Like something inside me finally whispered, You don’t have to live like this. You don’t have to beg to be considered.
That was my lesson in reciprocity. Not a loud confrontation. Not a breakup speech. Just a soft emotional exhale, the kind that comes when you finally return to yourself.
Without reciprocity, you become a watered-down version of yourself. You start tiptoeing around your own needs because you don’t want to seem “too much.” You shrink your joy so it won’t inconvenience someone else. You start treating bare minimum effort like rare diamonds. And the most dangerous part? You forget what it feels like to be poured into, because you’ve been busy carrying the whole relationship on your back.
But when reciprocity exists—even imperfect, human reciprocity—everything changes. The air feels lighter. Conversations don’t feel like an emotional tug-of-war. You don’t have to strategise your needs. You don’t have to ration your affection, wondering if you’ll get crumbs back. You just… breathe. You rest in the safety of someone matching your energy because they want to, not because you begged.
The truth is that reciprocity is not a performance. It’s not about keeping score or balancing a ledger. It’s simply two people choosing each other with equal sincerity. Two people deciding that the connection matters enough to water it, nurture it, and protect it from neglect.
These days, the rule I live by is brutally simple: match energy with energy; match effort with effort. Don’t pour oceans into people who won’t give you a glass of water. Don’t chase someone comfortable with you carrying the whole weight of the relationship. And for the love of your own emotional sanity, don’t keep watering a plant that refuses to grow.
Love that flows both ways doesn’t drain you. It builds you. It steadies you. It turns relationships from labour into something soft, sustainable, and deeply nourishing. When two people truly pour into each other, the connection doesn’t just survive—it expands, it strengthens, it glows from the inside.
And when you finally experience that kind of mutual care, you realise something surprising: you were never asking for too much. You were simply asking the wrong person.
Leave a Reply