Don’t be someone’s favorite way to escape starvation

Being Needed Isn’t Noble When They’re Just Using You to Avoid Themselves

I had a weird yet very on brand interaction with a woman whose ego was extremely inflated. As I was in a clubhouse room, which are great for studying sociology, titled Are Men The Prize 🏆‼️Or The Problem? to get unfiltered thoughts, a woman made a comment.

She said and I MUST quote, “A man I was dating, disrespected my sister, now even though I don’t like her cause she is rude and a bitch, I would never let a man disrespect her.”

I commented in the chat basically saying to wait because I was confused… you won’t let a man disrespect her but you just called her a bitch to a group of strangers. She reply saying yeah I was proving a point that I wouldn’t let a man disrespect her even if I don’t like my sister. So I asked, a man not liking a woman doesn’t justify disrespect, but a woman not liking another woman can disrespect her, while still defending her from his disrespect?

Long story short I was questioning the unspoken rules around who gets to disrespect whom and why men are seen as inherently out of line for it, even when women actively participate in the same behavior. I was promptly blocked despite multiple men being misogynistic toward the women in the room, my observation was the breaking point.

I digress, I just wanted to share that interaction before discussing the topic.

so anyways

Don’t be someone’s favorite way to escape starvation. We all learned about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs at some point. That little triangle chart that starts with food, water, and safety, then climbs its way up to love, belonging, self-esteem, and eventually, self-actualization. Most people get stuck somewhere between craving love and trying not to crumble. People love to talk about love yet they don’t like talking about need and how much relief to meet their need they’re truly looking for. So instead of assuming full responsibility for their life, they’ll hope someone or something in life will carry them to the top.

And that’s where you come in.

Not because you were chosen. Not because the connection was undeniable. But because you were available. Because your stability made their chaos feel less obvious. Because you smelled like something they hadn’t earned yet.

People don’t always want love. Sometimes, they want sedation. And if you happen to be soft enough, or insightful enough, or just happen to be in the right place when their self-awareness is running low, you’ll get mistaken for a destination. See, starvation doesn’t always look like someone asking for help. Sometimes, it looks like flattery. It looks like bonding over brokenness. It looks like someone seeing your value only because they’ve lost sight of their own. Basically projecting, however projections only last as long as you don’t ask for anything back.

Maslow’s hierarchy doesn’t lie. Most people never climb past the craving. They confuse proximity to love with capacity for it. So they linger in your space like squatters in a home they’re too afraid to build themselves. They need your structure because they don’t trust their own. And it feels like love until you pull back. It feels like care until you stop translating their silence. Being someone’s relief doesn’t mean you’ll be their choice. It just means you’ll be remembered for what you replaced: pain, loneliness, the pressure of self-development.

Going back to the observation made earlier in the paragraph to parallel with the title, when a woman claims she’s “defending” her sister from male disrespect while simultaneously disrespecting her herself, she’s not actually protecting anyone. She’s performing principle to distract from the emotional malnourishment she hasn’t admitted to. She needs a role to play—protector, moral compass, self-sacrificing sister—to avoid confronting the reality of that relationship.

She’s starving too. Not for food or shelter, but for validation, control, identity, or even the illusion of being “better woman.” And instead of addressing that need directly, she tries to feed it by curating how she’s perceived, calling it sisterhood while subtly treating her sister as competition or collateral.

In that context, you might become the same kind of coping mechanism in someone else’s story—just in a different flavor. Whether romantically, platonically, or socially, people will use you as a shield, a stepping stool, or a placeholder, as long as it helps them escape the discomfort of their own emotional hunger.

And if you call it out? If you dare name what’s happening? You’re cold. You’re selfish. You switched up.

The moment I pointed out the contradiction in her statement, I was suddenly the one missing the point. I was “being obtuse.” Meanwhile, the same misogynistic men in the room could say whatever disrespectful shit they wanted without a peep. Funny how that works. Something about a young, attractive woman calling out another woman’s beliefs feels more disrespectful than a man actually being disrespectful.

Because when a woman calls out the performance, the projection, the passive aggression others participate in, she threatens the whole illusion. She’s not just disagreeing, she’s exposing. And exposure feels violent when your self-worth is stitched together by perception.

Remember this as your building community, relationships, and friends, you are not a food group for the emotionally malnourished. Build your discernment by actively listening to what people are telling you, pay attention to patterns of behaviors, and most importantly trust yourself.