Hold the Door

You can’t spend your whole life holding the door open for people and then being angry they didn’t thank you. Nobody asked you to hold the fucking door.

I was in 11th grade or something, watching Orange is the New Black. Immediately I had a visceral reaction. Fuck. They were talking to me. I internalized that line and vowed I would stop helping people at my own expense. I needed to be more discerning with my time and effort.

Haha

Every few years that quote re-emerges in my mind. Every time I think “damn it, I didn’t learn my lesson.” And every time, I still don’t learn my lesson. 

My best friend lived at home until she was nearly 26. Lived at home all throughout her college experience. When I graduated and moved back to the metro I was from I was excited to live with her. We had been talking about it. Dakota was still in school and I didn’t want to live all alone, plus she was my best friend. Except when I started looking at places and sending them to her she said she wasn’t sure she wanted to move out since she could save money at home. I offered to have her only pay the difference between a one and two bed unit, about $200/mo, rather than half of rent. Seemed like a reasonable deal for her to have more independence and freedom. It cost me no extra money compared to living alone. Win-win, right? Well, she didn’t take my offer and I was extremely lonely for the eight months between mine and Dakota’s graduations.

Then a couple years later when Dakota and I were house shopping we offered to have her move in with us. At this point she was definitely wanting to not live with her parents and complained how it affected her dating life. Her “rent” was very negotiable because any amount towards a mortgage was advantageous to us and we wanted to hang out with her. Again, a couple hundred dollars for a full ass house with your best friend? Bring a guy home without judgment because yo, I’m way more of a slut, get some girl! But alas, she still wasn’t interested.

I have a friend, Lindsey, who was in an openish(?) relationship. When we met she was 21 and her boyfriend was like 31 or something. A bit of a red flag… but not the end of the world. Except the more we learned the more we worried he was abusive. She didn’t make a lot of money so she didn’t necessarily have the means to leave. A couple years ago they were going to move halfway across the country for his job. Dakota and I stressed that if she needed to come back for any reason we had space for her. She left with him but eventually ended up coming back to our city because he was a piece of shit like we thought. She didn’t even tell us she came back though.

And then there’s Ryan. Unless you’re very new here you’re well acquainted with his story. We also offered for him to move in with us to escape an abusive relationship. Rent free. Literally just live here while he gets his shit together to leave her and my repayment would be seeing him all the time and him getting disentangled with someone that has a genuine personality disorder of some sort. But no. He had to make sure to do everything the hard way. 

All of these examples are where people didn’t take my help and then made things harder for themselves later. And each time I get so mad. Just listen to me. Just let me fix everything. But… no one asked me to fix everything. I have a savior complex. I need to save everyone. I don’t know why, and I don’t know why it bothers me so much when people don’t let me. But it makes friendships and dating very hard. It’s so difficult to not be overbearing.

I was just reminded of the OITNB quote today when Dakota’s fwb(?) was having issues with her baby daddy again. I don’t know much about their situation because Dakota hasn’t told me much, I’m not sure he knows very much himself, but the guy doesn’t sound like a great person to be in a relationship with. Just like Lindsey and Ryan it seems like money is perhaps a limiting factor in her leaving the situation. Dakota said he considered but hadn’t ended up offering her to stay with us because her plus a baby (in addition to our baby almost the exact same age) would be a lot in our not-so-big house. I was going to object and say that we can make room when I remembered how many people I’ve tried to house before. Why? Why do I try to bring everyone into my home? Why do I try to take everyone under my wing and protect them? Would I just get mad if we offered and the offer was inevitably rejected?

She reads my blog sometimes, so please know that if you need somewhere to go, we have room for you. I don’t want to make this sound like it’s off the table. This is more about my own inner monologue and why I feel the need to offer help that no one wants nor asks for. The door I’m holding open is often literally the door to my own home.

But nobody asked me to hold the fucking door.