Can You Make Someone Love You?

When Chuks met Isio, he knew he wanted to marry her.

Both Christians in their 30s, they had been talking online for a while, and although they enjoyed the conversations, they both wondered what meeting face to face would be like, and they looked forward to his return to Nigeria so they could find out.

When the meeting day finally came, it confirmed what they had both been thinking. For Chuks, the woman he had enjoyed chatting with was even more delightful to look at and be with in person; for Isio, the man she had enjoyed chatting with did not delight her to look at and be with as much in person.

Chuks has no intention of giving her up. He still believes he can make Isio fall in love with him. He has taken to appealing to her close friends for her mumu button.

But can you make someone love you? If they’re not attracted to you emotionally and physically, does mumu button even apply?

Sometimes you meet the person you’ve dreamed of all your life and you just can’t make them see it. Sometimes you even manage to get them into a relationship with you, and because you’re actually a nice person they’re quite fond of you, so things keep moving along, yet deep inside you know they don’t love you.

So often we are tempted to settle, and be settled for. Sometimes it feels like anything is better than being alone. We tell ourselves that, given time, they will love us. Perhaps if we did this or that, they would come to feel about us the way we feel about them. And so we spend years waiting for them to love us back. Sadly, they rarely do. Even if they did, would love that you had to bend over backwards and even change who you are to get, be worth it?

Let’s face it, when you’re with someone who isn’t in love with who you are, there’s a tendency to start trying to become who they want, who you think they will love.

The pressure is not only on the one who isn’t loved, but the one who does not love as well. He’s a nice person. Isn’t it better than being alone? Who else is there anyway? Does what you’re looking for even exist? Isn’t this the pickiness your mum cautioned against?

This is how people enter relationships that are compromised from the start. They never even enjoy the goodness of a real, healthy relationship, so you wonder what the point of being in one is, anyway. How good can a relationship with someone who doesn’t love you back be?

It’s hard to accept, when you finally meet this wonderful person you’ve wanted all your life, and find that they don’t want you in the same way. I hope that Chuks finds the inner strength to let Isio go and that he finds someone who reciprocates his love.

I also hope that Isio, with her tender, caring heart, will not give in to temptation to just keep hanging out with Chuks and eventually slip into a compromised relationship. Someday a man she can look up to and give her heart to sincerely will come along, and she should be free and single then, not worrying about how to end her relationship with Chuks, who she has been “managing”.

He doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve that. There are some relationships that should not be entered into at all.

Or, can you make someone love you? What do you think?

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jehonwa

Joy Ehonwa is an editor and a writer who is passionate about relationships and personal development. She runs Pinpoint Creatives, a proofreading, editing, transcription and ghostwriting service. Email: pinpointcreatives [at] yahoo.com

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