'Why Are You So Heartless?'

When I read this quote about an hour away from it being 12 and 2017 turning into 2018, it made me think. Should I start the year with this mentality or carry on with the way I have become? I went through a few things a few months ago with fake friends and stupid people and it really changed me. I’ve become cold. I stopped caring about a lot of things and I’ve just withdrawn from everyone, really. I don’t talk about how I’m feeling or what's going on in my mind anymore—well, I’ve never been the one that talks about feelings, anyway. I don’t have many friends anymore. I’ve cut off a lot of people and I’m not open to new friendships any time soon either. Even though I say "I need new friends," I can’t trust anyone to be honest.

I have a best friend. I’m grateful for her. but she has her own problems that have changed her, as well. I was so busy watching her changes that I never noticed my own; it wasn't until one day I decided to clear off people from my Snapchat and I started going through my old convos. Only then did I realise I have gone back to how I was in 2015 after I had been through a few problems then. I have gone back to just being heartless and cold, and I don’t like it because I’m not a rude person. Anyone who ACTUALLY somewhat knows me knows that I’m a bit too nice; I give in to people and forgive people who don’t deserve it and even those who haven’t asked for forgiveness because I don’t have the energy to be even holding grudges. Everyone has reasons for things they do—REASONS, NOT EXCUSES—so it is just easier to forgive but never forget.

So to answer the ones that ask me, “Why are you so heartless?”

I’m really not. You just set your expectations too high for me. To my parents who think I’m heartless because I don’t message them when they are away: I don’t need to message you for you to know that I love you or miss you. You should just know that already. I do ask about you and I hear when my sisters talk about you and if anything happens, they tell me. Just because I’m not messaging you doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about you.

To the people who call me heartless because I don’t cry when something “worth crying for” happens like a death or someone getting hurt or anything like that: look, I don’t cry in front of people and just because you find crying as a way to deal with it, maybe I don’t. Or maybe I do cry, but by myself when no one is with me—just me and my thoughts. But people never think about what happens behind closed doors, they just judge by what they see with their own eyes.

This does happen to everyone, even as a Muslim girl, and I can't just ignore it because I don’t wanna sound “big-headed.” So to the guys who call me heartless because I disregard their feelings for me and I don’t reply: There is nothing I can do if you have caught feelings for me, the only advice I can give is to run. Don’t talk to me or my best friend about no feelings because it’s just not happening. I’m a young Muslim lady, only 18 years old, and I’m not looking for marriage any time soon. When I have matured and I am ready for marriage, then I will get married, inshallah. But right now, there is nothing I can do about your feelings.

If I have been heartless to you in any situation, you have most probably pissed me off or you’ve done me wrong somehow. That’s the only reason I could think that I would be cold to you, not even heartless. But anyways, back to that quote at the beginning. I still don’t know how to feel about it because I have already lost myself and I don’t know how to go back to how I was. Also, I don’t think it would be good for me to go back. I’m better off this way; it protects me and it's part of this wall I built around myself and I’m not letting anyone break that wall just yet. I need time to think. I need me time. Everyone needs time to themselves. If people have called you heartless, think about why they think that. What have you done for them to label you as that? Also, before you call someone heartless, think what might have made them like that. Maybe they’ve been through so much they’re just tired of everyone’s rubbish, or maybe it was you. Think why they might be being heartless or cold to you. What have you done or said to make them talk to you like that?