Attention equals love, right?

Reading time: 6 minutes

Lately I have been reading a lot of blogs written by my new life saver Natalie Lue who has a blogging page called baggagereclaim.co.uk (you must check it out as it has so many great blogs about relationships with others and yourself). These blogs are teaching me how to be in a better relationship with myself, how to learn to love myself, and helping me understand why I keep gravitating towards relationships that are not healthy for me. Reading them has really made me put things into perspective in regards to my own relationship choices.

One of the blogs that captured my attention was about the concept of attention and love; some of us often confuse the two and think that attention is the same thing as love. Well, I know I have made that mistake whenever I have chosen to pursue a casual relationship. When I look back on all the casual relationships I have had with men, in particular my most recent one, I have realised that I really did think attention was the same thing as love, which is completely absurd. All this time I have asked myself why is it these guys end up fobbing me off and treating me with disrespect because I thought they loved me, right? WRONG. It is because they were just seeking attention, and I realise now that attention is purely for entertainment so is very much short lived. All of a sudden these guys got sick of giving me attention because they thought I was "too much" or got bored and moved onto someone else. That isn't love. Love is long lasting, genuine and not based on superficial thoughts and behaviours.

In one of Natalie's podcasts she asks the question: "Is there something in your past that explains why you mistake attention for love?" I paused and had a really hard think about this one... and what I discovered was really confronting.

Back home in Australia I saw a counsellor for two and a half years for relationship issues and we tried to unpack why I keep going for the wrong men; the ones who do not treat me well. It wasn't until my counsellor suggested that the loss of my dad was probably the root issue - that losing him left me feeling abandoned and so I had been trying to fill this void by pursuing men who made me feel wanted and "loved" at the time, but ended up abandoning me anyway. I remember this session so well and how much I cried because it was such a hard realisation to confront. If it wasn't for my counsellor suggesting this then I don't think I would have worked it out for myself. I didn't want to have the label of "abandonment issues". Who wants that label? It was such a difficult thing to face, I guess because it made me realise I had not really grieved the loss of my dad properly. If I had then I wouldn't be having these abandonment issues in my relationships with men. In saying that, my dad's death was out of my control, so having abandonment issues come of it was no fault of my own, it was just another challenge I had to face, the universe was giving me the opportunity to accept this challenge and face it head on so I could be a stronger person.

When I think of my dad, my whole world feels brighter and my face lights up. He was my best friend, my hero and my mentor. Nearly 11 years he has been gone and it still feels like yesterday that I lost him. I remember I had cried so much in the lead up to his death that I had no tears left at his funeral because I was in shock, I couldn't believe my parent had died. It didn't make sense to me because as children we always assume our parents live forever (even though we know they don't). But no one ever expects to lose a parent, it is the worst possible pain you can go through. So how does my dad's death link to attention and love? My dad lavished me with so much positive attention (another point I will get to later) and love. He idealised me as his number one daughter because I was the first born, I was his whole world. He taught me how to read at the age of 3, he gave me a kiss every morning and night, he took me out with him to buy the local paper and always bought me an ice cream with it, he took me out to help him buy tools and equipment for DIY jobs at home because he knew how much I loved helping him with it and most of all, he always had time for me to sit on his lap whenever I was feeling sad or even happy, and we would watch the sunset from his chair or just have the television on and be comfortable in complete silence together.

Once he died I no longer had his attention anymore and I guess I have never worked out how to fill that void and give the attention back to myself. I missed receiving my dad's attention so whenever men have come into my life and charmed me I was thriving off it, my crave for attention was amplified because I was now receiving it from someone else. In my head I thought wow! They're giving me all this attention so it must mean they love me, or will eventually love me. I know now that there is a huge difference between attention and love.

There are two types of attention that I learned from Natalie's blogs - 'positive attention' and 'negative attention'. Even though I was receiving positive attention from these men when they were charming me, giving me compliments and sleeping with me, in the end this always turned to negative attention because as soon as I wasn't on their terms, they treated me like s**t. They were rude to me, ghosted me, said I was too much for them and even penalised me for succumbing to their behaviour. What was even more messed up was that I was still gravitating towards this negative attention because even though they were rude to me, in my mind this was them still giving me attention so it felt good enough to me, they were still acknowledging me in some way. Looking back on this I realise how unhealthy and toxic that was, getting used to enjoying negative attention because it still meant having them around and them still noticing me.

I know now that I can never receive the same attention from these men that my dad gave me, men cannot love me and give me the attention in the way my dad did. So I need to stop thinking that they can give this to me in the same way. The attention that my dad gave me was positive and he genuinely loved me unconditionally. These men only wanted my attention temporarily and never had the intention of creating a loving relationship with me. EVER.

Whilst this is a really hard lesson to realise, I am so thankful for Natalie helping me figure out why I have made the mistake of confusing attention for love. Knowing this can now help me make the right choices in relationships with men and be able to figure out early on whether they are just wanting my attention, or whether they are wanting my love. And instead of ignoring the warning signs, be able to walk away before I even let them in.

It isn't going to be an easy road because I have been so used to this pattern of relationships. I feel I am still vulnerable to them and will give in to these guys again, even this guy I recently walked away from. I know that if he messaged me right this second I would be so tempted to give in right there and then because he's giving me that attention. And especially if it is sexually related, it amplifies the attention even more. But attention isn't love, this guy was never going to give me love, only more disappointment, hurt and pain. And that is not a cycle I deserve to subject myself to when I have come this far in my progress.

Each day does get easier and I try and challenge myself to think about him less and less whenever I feel I miss the idea of him. Instead, I try and put the focus on me and aim to give attention to MYSELF each day. It won't be an overnight change of course, but I am at least taking the right steps to get me there.

So in saying that, here are some photos of me at the gym tonight after not having trained for a month. This was how I gave myself positive attention and love to myself. Gym is the one thing in my life that is good for me, healthy for me and will never disappointment me. And from today, I promise myself to claim back all the power and attention that I lost when I was in relationships with these 'asswipes' and the 'barely there' guys. I can never get those opportunities back to have changed giving the attention and love to me, but I can change that now because that is what I deserve. And for all you lovely people out there, you deserve more than just attention too, you deserve love.

Do you confuse attention for love?

Share your story with me.

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#relationships #attention #love #men #saynotoasswipes #claimbackthepowerforyou