It’s more like, “I won’t abandon myself for you, but I will still make a conscious choice to stand beside you.”

That, to me, is a much healthier form of loyalty.

And honestly, I think that’s where the line between loyalty and people-pleasing becomes really interesting. A people pleaser might keep choosing you because they feel they have to. A loyal person chooses you even though they know they have the freedom to choose themselves.

So for me, loyalty isn’t “I will always put you first.”

Because I don’t think loyalty should require someone to shrink themselves just to prove that they care about me.

There’s a difference between being selfless towards someone and losing yourself for someone.

The kind of loyalty I value is someone who knows who they are, has their own boundaries, values and priorities, but still deliberately creates room for me. Someone who can tell me “you’re wrong” instead of telling me what I want to hear. Someone who can disagree with me without abandoning me. Someone who can choose themselves without making me feel like I don’t matter.

maybe they need something from you, maybe they want your approval, or maybe they simply don’t know how to say no.

I think that’s why I believe intention matters.

To me, loyalty isn’t someone constantly putting me before themselves. In fact, I think a person can put themselves first and still be incredibly loyal to me.

I think the reason I said there’s a thin line between people-pleasing and loyalty is because, from the outside, they can look almost exactly the same.

Someone can constantly put you first, always be there for you, agree with you, defend you, tell you what you want to hear and never really challenge you, and we might call that loyalty. But sometimes it’s people-pleasing. And sometimes there are intentions behind that behaviour that we may not even know about. Maybe they’re afraid of losing you

How so? I'm interested in your point of view.