A friend I lost during the second wave of COVID 19 once described himself as a diamond no one was choosing.
We met on Tinder, but what followed wasn’t a love story. We talked, laughed, and settled into a friendship that held space for honesty. At some point, he told me about a lady he’d met, someone who gave him butterflies. Every time he mentioned her, I sent him pictures of butterflies. It became a running joke between us, affectionate and mildly annoying in equal measure. We stayed friends even after that ended.
Later, there was someone else. That ended too.
On a drive back from a trip we once took together, he said the line that stayed with me. He wasn’t bitter or dramatic. He simply said he felt like a diamond, but no one was choosing him.
Eventually, he did get engaged. She proposed to him.
Not long after, during the second wave of COVID 19, we lost him.
Some memories lie dormant until they return with weight. Today, his words came back to me , not as grief, but as a question I hadn’t asked before.
Was he waiting for me to choose him?
I don’t know the answer. What I do know is this: I’ve often found myself waiting to be chosen too.
Waiting can look like patience. Like grace. Like not wanting to impose. But sometimes, it’s a quieter form of self-abandonment, a way of standing still while hoping someone else will decide your worth for you.
Lately, I’ve realised I no longer want to live that way.
If I am my first choice, I stop waiting. And whether someone chooses me or not stops being a wound. Desire becomes an invitation, not a verdict.
Thinking about my friend also made me wonder about the expectations we place on men. We often assume they will take the lead , to pursue, to declare, to choose. We rarely ask what that expectation costs them. How often hesitation is mistaken for indifference, or care for uncertainty.
It made me wonder whether we truly allow our boys and men to be vulnerable at all. And how differently we might live , and love , if we did.
I don’t know if he was waiting for me. I only know that I no longer wait for anyone to choose me , not out of fear, not out of habit, not out of politeness.
Perhaps fewer diamonds would remain unchosen if vulnerability didn’t have to hide.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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