Who’s More Important?

Question:

hey phylis i was reading your fan mail page and i wanted to say to the girl that had the guy play games with her heart. I wanted to say that i have been in the receiving end of it and also the giving end of it. I’m not proud of what i did and i bet the boy wasnt either. i felt like crap for it i mean i even kissed the poor dude which was soooooo wrong of me. BUT what i wanted to say was that a boy like that  isn’t worth your time and isn’t worth affecting you like that. I let it affect me pretty roughly and with my personality disorder i became extreamly upset and did some bad stuff but once i felt better im like whose more important in this situation me or him. and i decided it was me just like you should.

Phyllis replied:

If you’re speaking of the guy who kissed, said all the right things, then broke it off the minute he got back home, yes, I agree; she should consider herself and her feelings of primary importance here and not waste her time on him.  But when you treat someone else that way and play around with HIS heart, he’s the one I’d side with, and the least you could do would be to apologize.  Most of us are going to be in both those situations to some degree in our lives.  We will discover we are using certain people to our advantage–we act friendly because they provide a ride/a date/a movie ticket, etc.–and we get them thinking we like them more than we do.  And there will be people who treat us the same way.  We’re often told we should care for the environment and leave as little of a carbon footprint as possible, but we should also do the same with feelings, and leave few footprints on people’s hearts.  (My sermon for the day).