I came across a post on Instagram that says, “and maybe the reason you are so careful with other people's feelings is because you wish that people had once been more careful with yours.”
and I felt something cut straight through my heart. Maybe, in the past, I’ve been very considerate of people I cared deeply about, but when it was my turn, I felt like they weren’t able to do the same for me.
For a moment, that realization felt wrong because I’ve always believed that if you truly love and care for someone, you do those things simply because that’s who you are. But that realization made me wonder whether I had only been doing those kind things because I was expecting something in return. And I don’t want to come across as someone who gives only for the sake of receiving the same thing back.
But being true to who you are doesn’t mean you’re required to be endlessly available to people who don’t meet you halfway.
You can continue being kind without continuing to overinvest in relationships that leave you feeling unseen.
That is why I’ve also always hated the concept of “utang na loob.” Growing up, it often felt less like a genuine gesture of kindness and more like something used to control a person’s life.
But I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt.
It hurts when the people you believed would be there for you, the people you thought wouldn’t judge you, and the people you expected would care for you the way you cared for them, turn out unable or unwilling to do the same for you.
And it’s okay to feel hurt. And the hurt feeling does not mean selfishness because I’ve also learned that wanting reciprocity is not the same as keeping score. I do not secretly expect repayment for every kindness, but rather I just want to feel safe in the relationships I invest in. When I consistently show up for people—listen to them, understand them, protect their feelings—I naturally hope that if I ever find myself vulnerable, they would extend the same grace to me.
And when they don’t, it can feel less like disappointment and more like grief. I am not grieving the favor they failed to return; I am grieving the version of the relationship I thought existed.
I know that healthy relationships are not built on indebtedness. People shouldn’t feel trapped because someone helped them. But healthy relationships also aren’t one-sided. Genuine care doesn’t demand repayment, yet it does need mutuality to survive.
You can give freely and still be hurt when others don’t value you the way you valued them.
You can dislike transactional relationships and still wish people had treated your heart more gently.
You can be generous without expecting exact repayment and still feel disappointed when kindness isn’t reciprocated.
The post is not an admission of selfishness. It’s an acknowledgment of a wound. Sometimes the tenderness we offer others comes from knowing exactly what it feels like to go without it. That post gave words to something I’ve probably known for a long time but never quite articulated — I wasn’t asking people to owe me. I was wishing that someone, at least once, had been as careful with my heart as I were with his/hers.
And there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that hurt. It doesn’t erase the sincerity of the love and care I gave. It simply means that my feelings mattered too.
