There’s a phrase that gets passed around in conversations between friends, whispered over wine glasses and typed frantically in group chats: “If he wanted to, he would.” It sounds simple, almost brutally so. But like most truths that sting a little, it carries weight because somewhere deep down, we already know it’s right.
We live in an age of unprecedented communication. We have phones that connect us to anyone, anywhere, at any time. We have a dozen different apps for messaging, calling, and video chatting. We can send thoughts, photos, and entire essays with a single tap. And yet, somehow, the person you’re interested in can go days without responding to a simple text. Funny how that works.
The truth is that people make time for what matters to them. Not what they say matters, but what actually matters. You can watch someone’s priorities play out in real time by looking at how they spend their hours, their attention, their energy. A person who wants to see you will find a way to see you. A person who wants to talk to you will pick up the phone. A person who wants to be with you will make that clear through consistent action, not occasional bursts of interest followed by long stretches of silence.
This doesn’t mean that people who are interested in you will never be busy or never have legitimate reasons for delayed responses or rescheduled plans. Life is complicated, and adults have jobs and responsibilities and occasionally very real crises that demand their attention. But there’s a difference between someone who is genuinely juggling a lot and someone who is simply not prioritizing you. You can usually feel that difference, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself.
The hard part is accepting what you already know. We’re remarkably good at making excuses for other people’s behavior, especially when we like them. We tell ourselves stories about how stressed they are at work, how they’re not good at texting, how they’re dealing with family issues or recovering from past relationships. We convince ourselves that their lack of effort is actually a sign of depth and complexity rather than simple disinterest. We interpret breadcrumbs as bread.
But here’s what “if he wanted to, he would” really means: it means trusting people’s actions over their words. It means believing someone when they show you, through their behavior, what kind of priority you are in their life. It means understanding that explanations and justifications don’t change the fundamental reality of how someone treats you.
When someone is genuinely interested in you, you won’t have to decode their behavior like you’re cracking the Enigma machine. You won’t spend hours analyzing what they meant by a text message or whether three days without contact is normal or a red flag. You won’t feel anxious and uncertain about where you stand. Not because everything will be perfect or because interested people never have doubts or moments of confusion, but because their baseline behavior will communicate care and consideration.
The really difficult thing about this principle is that it requires you to trust your own perceptions. We’ve been taught, especially as women, to be understanding and patient and to give people the benefit of the doubt. These are good qualities, but they can become tools of self-deception when we use them to explain away treatment that makes us feel bad. There’s a difference between being compassionate and being a volunteer doormat.
Sometimes we resist this truth because accepting it means accepting disappointment. If he wanted to, he would—and he isn’t, which means he doesn’t want to. That’s a painful conclusion to reach about someone you like or someone you’ve invested time and hope in. It’s much more comfortable to live in the ambiguous space where maybe he’s just scared or busy or bad at communication, where there’s still a possibility that things might change if you just wait a little longer or try a little harder.
But that ambiguous space comes with a cost. It costs you time you could spend with someone who actually wants to be with you. It costs you the energy you pour into overanalyzing and accommodating and trying to be whatever you think might make him more interested. It costs you the opportunity to honor your own worth by insisting on being with someone who sees it clearly.
The flip side of “if he wanted to, he would” is the recognition of your own agency. If you wanted someone who treated you better, you could choose that. If you wanted to stop waiting around for someone to decide you’re worth their effort, you could make that choice. If you wanted to believe that you deserve someone who is excited about you and shows it consistently, you could believe that. The same principle applies to you and your own life.
This isn’t about being harsh or unforgiving or writing people off at the first sign of imperfection. It’s about having enough respect for yourself to notice patterns and respond to them accordingly. One rescheduled date isn’t a referendum on someone’s interest level. But six rescheduled dates with no serious attempt to make concrete plans? That’s information. A busy week where someone doesn’t text much? Understandable. A month where you’re always the one reaching out? That’s a pattern.The people who want to be in your life will show up for your life. They won’t make you feel like you’re asking for too much when you want basic respect and consideration. They won’t leave you guessing about their intentions or their interest. They won’t make you work so hard for such meager returns on your investment.
And yes, relationships take work, and good relationships require effort from both people. But there’s a difference between the work of building something meaningful with someone who’s equally invested and the work of trying to convince someone to care about you enough to act like they care about you. One is collaboration. The other is a solo performance.”If he wanted to, he would” is really just another way of saying: pay attention to reality, not potential. Don’t date someone’s representative or their best self that appears once every three weeks or the person you think they could be if only circumstances were different. Date the person who is actually showing up in front of you, with the behavior they’re actually demonstrating, right now.
You deserve someone who makes you feel chosen, not someone who makes you feel like you’re still auditioning for a role you’re not sure exists. You deserve someone whose actions match their words, who follows through, who treats your time as valuable because they want to spend it with you. You deserve someone who, when they think about you, acts on that thought.If he wanted to, he would. And you deserve someone who wants to.
