Someone disappears completely. Radio silence for weeks, sometimes months. No explanation, no goodbye, nothing. 📵 And then one day they message like nothing happened, and suddenly everyone's acting like they're heroes for "coming back."

I'm talking about friends, people we were close to, people we made time for even when life was busy. 💔 And they just... left. Without a word. Without respect. Without the basic courtesy of explaining why.

And you know what's really frustrating? When they return, everyone acts grateful. "Oh my God, I missed you so much!" people say. Like the other person did us a favor by finally acknowledging our existence again. 😤 We throw ourselves at them, we rearrange our schedules, we make it clear that we're happy they're back. We reward their behavior.

This is not maturity. This is not how mature, self-respecting women should operate. 💪

A mature woman knows her value. She knows that she deserves consistency, honesty, and respect—not as a luxury, but as a baseline. 👩‍🦰 She knows that someone who can disappear without explanation is showing her exactly who they are. And a mature woman takes that information and acts accordingly.

What bothers me is that we're teaching young women that they should be grateful to be treated poorly. That if someone bothers to come back, it means the friendship is important. But that's backwards. 😞 If someone really valued the friendship, they wouldn't have left in the first place. Or if they did leave, they would have the courtesy to explain why.

I'm not saying we should be cold to people. I'm saying we should have standards. When someone ghosts you, you get to decide whether you want them back in your life. 🚪 You get to say, "I appreciate you, but I'm not interested in friendship with someone who treats me this way." That's not harsh—that's self-respect.

I've made this choice. I've let people go. And sure, when they come back with their apologies and their explanations, it would be easy to pretend everything's fine. But I can't do that. Because I have standards for myself. I deserve people in my life who are consistent, who show up, who stay. 💌

If we don't teach women to value themselves in this way, how can we expect them to have healthy relationships at all?