Last week, a young lady posted a video on TikTok regarding not feeling desired by her male co-workers. She mentioned that they hit on her other female co-workers but pay her dust. She was upset about it because she felt extremely undesirable and didn’t understand why men weren’t interested in her.

Now, I’ve seen comments and a few videos from other creators regarding her video. Many people had some not so nice commentary about the situation. I’ve seen commentary regarding not dating a coworker; it’s a job, and you shouldn’t be looking for relationships at work. According to a recent Pew Research study, 10% of romantic relationships started at work. Therefore, in my humble opinion, this isn’t a valid argument, but I understood where they were coming from. Work relationships can be tricky for one reason or another.

Then you have those people who always comment, “Love yourself”. Sigh! Wanting to be desired doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself. People are always screaming about humans being social creatures until it comes to someone who isn’t desired voicing their experience. They get uncomfortable when someone else’s reality isn’t pleasant or even a little abnormal. And I’ll never understand why talking about it makes others uncomfortable. Maybe that is something that needs to be unpacked in those people. Then it’s all “decenter men”. Same rhetoric, different day. For a woman who has never been in a relationship, there is nothing to decenter because men haven’t been her center.

I agree, you should love yourself so that you make the best choices, period. However, in my opinion, wanting to feel desired is not a failure on someone’s part.

Are we as humans exempt from wanting to feel sought?

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the people making these arguments are usually the ones who haven’t had a problem in the dating or desirability arena. As someone who has never felt desired in all of her 39 years of life, especially in adulthood, I completely understand where she comes from. It’s more than just a job thing. It’s an everywhere you go thing. A being looked over for your friend thing. It’s feeling invisible because you aren’t considered the standard of beauty. It’s feeling like you did something wrong because your siblings and all the people around you have had no problems finding partners, but you haven’t been on a date since 2017 (true story). This has been my romantic life, which has never existed. I’ve found out this has been the case in many others’ romantic lives as well.

Sometimes you feel abnormal and feel like something is wrong with you. If a known abuser or cheater could have no problem getting into a relationship, why is it so difficult for those who don’t or wouldn’t do those things? It is a blow to your self-esteem, whether or not people want to acknowledge it. To dismiss someone’s experience simply because you have not lived it is dangerous.

I am someone who believes that finding the right one is luck. Unfortunately, not many of us are lucky when it comes to love. Someone who has never gone through this will never understand how it feels.

Some people really just want to be heard and not lectured.