You won’t love me

[sockdere]

UNLOVEABLE

rules

01. Comment with your character. NO BLANK COMMENTS. Your top-level should include your character's IC reason that they think they're...well, unlovable!

02. See if they're an impartial judge.

Comments

Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter | MCU

[ricochetingbullets]

Because it's impossible for me to love or care about anyone the way they deserve. Also there's the fact that everyone who has ever loved me back is dead.

[immaterialgirl]

How do people deserve to be loved?

[ricochetingbullets]

By someone who can do it properly, not someone who physically can't feel emotions correctly.

[immaterialgirl]

You know, in my experience people can say all sorts of things. About how they supposedly feel, or don't. They can say it's nothing personal, when they leave you to die. Or convince themselves they're not the bad guy as they experiment upon a child, because they feel bad about it.

But there's only really one thing that matters in the end, and that's actions.

[ricochetingbullets]

Then.....I guess maybe I'm not doing so bad.

[Because Dex believed the same thing and had done his best to make sure he'd be there for Ava in whatever way she needed most. Sometimes that meant helping her get in the shower when the pain was too much plus washing her hair or fixing her some soup to bring to her when getting out of bed became impossible. Sometimes it just meant wrapping his arms around her while she slept, to let her know there was someone solid and real there who was never going to leave.]

[immaterialgirl]

No, Dex. You're not doing so bad at all. What you choose to do is purely by your own choice, not because of some fleeting rush you derive from it.

Sometimes I think that's what people mistake for love, feeling giddy. And when that newness and excitement fades and they don't receive that anymore... they seek it elsewhere.

[ricochetingbullets]

You know, my therapist used to tell me that sometimes, making a choice to choose things like kindness and love make a bigger impact than if they just come to a person naturally. Because that's a choice you have to keep making over and over again every single day. And I guess that's what I keep on doing.

[white_widow]

I have never heard you say anything so wrong.

[ricochetingbullets]

Which part?

[white_widow]

The first part. I do not understand how it is meant to be somehow worth less if it is an active choice to care about someone. Why would the fact that you are putting deliberate, intentional effort into it make it rank lower?

[ricochetingbullets]

It seems like people always just assume it should come natural to a person. And if it doesn't, that means something is wrong with you.

[white_widow]

Most people are very frequently wrong about things. If someone learns to be very good at the piano, you would not say it does not count because it took them intent and practice, you would give them credit for putting in all that hard work. I think it makes it even better, if it is a deliberate choice. If you decide 'this person, I am intentionally going to decide I want to keep them in my life and I want to care about their feelings and them as a person, and I am going to put in hard work to do so even though it does not come naturally or easily' how could they not feel even more special and loved? How many people ever get to be chosen like that?

[ricochetingbullets]

I guess.....when you put it like that, it makes it sound like a good thing. To keep choosing to care about someone like that over and over again every single day.

[white_widow]

I think it is a good thing.

And consider how many people continue to claim to love someone when their literal actions do not match that, or the people who claim it right up until the moment they leave. They supposedly feel it "right," and what good does that ultimately do for the people they supposedly loved?

[ricochetingbullets]

That's why I've never put much stock in words. People can say whatever they want but it means nothing. It's what people do that matters a lot more to me.

[Which was why even when Dex said the worst sort of things imaginable to those he loved, he'd still go through hell and back again to keep them safe physically.]

[white_widow]

Exactly. And intentionally deciding to care and put the effort in is a very, very big thing to DO for someone else. So really, you should be setting the curve.

[ricochetingbullets]

You give me a lot of credit.

[Maybe too much. But right now at this low moment Dex needed a little bit of credit and comfort.]

But I like hearing that. It makes me feel like maybe I can do better than before.

[white_widow]

[Maybe too much, yes, but that type of choice has always been up on the highest pedestal for her.

And her desire to be of comfort has always had a bit of desperation to it.] Well. I have to acknowledge that it would have been very reasonable for you to decide to try and kill me when we first met, and you didn't. Quite the opposite. That is worth a lot of credit.

[ricochetingbullets]

......You might onto something there.

[Especially given that Dex's instinctual reaction when it came to a lot of people was to want to kill them. But he'd never really felt that when it came to Yelena.]