Pay Attention to the Pattern

Kimani Haley

Let me be clear about something: I am not writing from a place of resolution. This thing gets under my skin and stays there, and I have not yet figured out how to make it not bother me. This is me, right now, in the thick of it — watching people I care about pour themselves out for people who don’t even bother to hold the cup steady.

Before you assume this is about romantic relationships, it's not (not exclusively). This is about the friend who keeps showing up for people who would not cross the street for him, the employee who gives everything to an organization that does not even know her name, and the member who has poured years into a church, a club, or a cause and would not be missed until something needed to get done. This is about all of it.

There is a specific kind of feeling that lives in your chest when someone in your circle is being taken for granted. It is not a clean feeling. It does not have one easy target, and that is the most maddening part. You are agitated at the person doing it — obviously: their audacity, their entitlement, and their comfort with turning a gift into an expectation. It’s their apparent or supposed oblivion. You are also quietly and uncomfortably bothered by the one being taken for granted for letting it happen.

I am not proud of that second part. I sit with it anyway when it comes to my people, which makes me reflect on what my care looks like in those moments: frustration, distance, or me pulling back because I don’t trust myself to say the right thing … or to stop at the right thing. If it were me, I would want someone to bring it to my attention; I would want the truth, even if it stung, but everybody ain’t me. The last thing I want is to say too much and damage something I have no business touching, so I sit with it, watch, and love from a distance that probably looks like indifference but is really me trying not to make it worse.

What I have come to understand (slowly, and with a lot of frustration) is that being taken for granted does not always look the same. The people doing it do not all operate the same way, and if you love someone in this situation, or if you are the one in it and you haven’t named it yet, it helps to know what you’re actually looking at.

TYPE ONE: THE OBLIVIOUS ONE

This person is not malicious; they are not scheming. They have simply gotten so comfortable with someone’s giving that they stopped noticing it. They receive care, consistency, and effort as if it were air. The person giving has become so reliable that the receiver never had to develop the muscle of reciprocity. They don’t even know they’re doing it. They just know that things get handled.

This one is somehow the hardest to be agitated at (and also somehow the most exhausting to watch) because there is no villain. There is just a dynamic that calcified over time, and a person you love who keeps showing up for someone who has never once had to ask themselves what they bring to the table.

TYPE TWO: THE ONE WHO KNOWS YOUR WORTH AND STILL WON’T HONOR IT

This one is different. This person sees exactly what you bring. They will call on you, lean on you, and even put you in front of a room when they need something done right. They know you are talented and capable, so they will use every bit of it — and still not give you your flowers even when everyone else does.

I have watched someone close to me pour “theirself” into a situation like this: showing up, delivering, and exceeding every expectation, while hoping that the performance will eventually be recognized and respected, and that the other person will finally see what has always been right there. I keep wanting to shake “them” and say: “They already see it! That’s why they keep calling! Stop answering!” Seeing your worth and honoring it are two completely different things, and they have decided to do only one.

You cannot audition your way into respect from people who have already decided not to give it to you. I wish that were easier to accept, but it’s not.

TYPE THREE: THE CONVENIENT ONE — THIS IS THE ONE I NEED YOU TO WATCH FOR

This is the one that requires the most discernment because it can look like grace or growth. It can look like people “coming around.”

When they don’t need you, the convenient one is cold, distant, and unbothered by your existence. Then something shifts: They want or need something; they need to be somewhere you are or have something you have, so suddenly they’re warm and friendly, almost like nothing ever happened. Unfortunately, because being chosen sometimes feels better than being chosen never, you soften and take it. You think: Maybe things are different now. They're not; you’re just useful again.

This is for everyone reading — young and grown alike — because some of us think age brings automatic wisdom about this. It does not. Don't let someone’s sudden warmth rewrite the history of how they treated you when they had nothing to gain. Reconciliation is real, and people do grow; howevah, growth shows up in behavior over time, not in niceness when it’s convenient. Pay attention to the pattern, not the moment.

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The through line in all three is this: Somewhere along the way, the person giving became so constant, so reliable, so just-there that the person receiving forgot to see them. Some never noticed; some noticed and didn’t care, and some only figured it out when the giving stopped.

A WORD TO THE ONE DOING IT

Speaking directly to the one doing it (because you are reading this too):

If you genuinely do not know, consider this your moment. Look at the people around you who consistently show up, give, cover, and carry. Ask yourself honestly when you last did the same for them — not because you needed something, not because someone was sick — just because. If you cannot answer that quickly, you already have your answer.

If you do know, if somewhere in the back of your mind you are aware that someone in your life has made themselves endlessly available to you, and you have gotten comfortable with that, their generosity is not a personality trait you get to benefit from indefinitely without accountability. It is a choice they make, and choices can change.

You do not have to be a bad person to take someone for granted, but you do have to be an intentional one to stop.

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I have not figured this out myself; I’m just talking. I’m not offering you a tidy little lesson about boundaries and self-worth because, honestly, the people I am watching live this are grown, capable, clear-eyed human beings who do not need me to fix anything. They need to get there themselves. (I may even be talking to myself! LOL!)

What I can offer is this: if you are watching someone you love be taken for granted and the feeling has nowhere to land, you are not wrong for feeling it. That irritation is information, telling you how much you value someone who may not be fully valuing themselves right now.

If you are the one being taken for granted (whichever version applies to you), I hope something in here makes you pause because you deserve people who show up for you the same way you show up for them every single time, not just when it works for them or when there’s no other option.

One more thing — to the ones who are staying. Do not let the title be the reason: Employee of the Month, friend, girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband, colleague, or even the “loyal one”. Those are beautiful things to be, but only when the person or people on the other side of that title are honoring what it means. A title without treatment is just a word. You deserve both.

Some of us have been holding on so long — to a friendship, a relationship, a title, a job, a church, etc. — that staying has become its own identity, and leaving (or even just demanding more) feels like losing something. Ask yourself honestly: What exactly am I keeping? The relationship, the friendship, the job, the organization — or just the idea of what it could be? The person, the leader, the institution — or the version of them you’re still waiting on?

Don't let someone’s comfort with taking become your standard for giving. The fact that they keep coming back is not proof that they value you; it is proof that you have made yourself too easy to take for granted, and let me tell you, my sisters and brothers, that can change. It starts with you deciding it does. The same things you would tell your friend, your daughter/son, your sister/brother, and even your mother/father, you're allowed to apply to yourself.

I'm going to go ahead and stop here, but know that I'm still working on my own stuff and still figuring it out.