You need everyone to like you

You need everyone to like you. You rewrite "sure, sounds good" four times before you send it. You agree the coffee machine is terrible even though you love it. You stay until 8:20 finishing someone else's report and lend money you'll never get back. You answer your boss's Saturday emails from the supermarket checkout line. You host your own birthday so well that nobody asks how you are, and you make sure they won't have to. It started at a school lunch table, where a backpack sat on the chair that used to be yours. You learned something that day: if you're easy enough, nobody leaves you out. It worked for years. Then the girl you liked asked a simple question, "What do you actually want?", and you didn't have an answer. This is the quiet story of saying no for the first time, watching someone stop liking you, and finding out the floor stays a floor. You don't need everyone to like you. You need a few people to actually know you. #PeoplePleasing #SocialAnxiety #SelfWorth #PersonalGrowth #Boundaries