Yesterday was a turning point for me. I asked out a girl that I have known for about a year. During the first 9 months or so of knowing her she was in a pretty serious relationship, the guy was a pretty cool guy and I'm not one to fuck with a happy relationship. We became decent friends because we're the same major have a lot of classes together (I'm a Junior in college), but I moved on and dated others. 3 months ago she broke up with her boyfriend. After months of being a little bitch about asking her out, I finally said fuck it and asked her out. The reply I got was "Aww thats so sweet. I just think of you as more of a friend..." blah blah blah.

At first I was crushed, I mean I honestly liked this girl for like a year. I couldn't figure out why she said no. I'm better looking than her ex-boyfriend, I have a good personality, we have a lot of shared opinions and interests, etc. Then I started thinking about what she said to me and what our "friendship" really was. There have been so many times that I have bailed her out in our classes by teaching her the material, times where she didn't finish the homework and I saved her ass, and times where she needed advice on a personal matter and I would help her through it. I realized that I have done so much for her and she has comparatively pretty little for me. Our "friendship" was just a one way street, why would she ever want to change that?

I felt this anger boil inside me, I don't tend to be an angry person but I was absolutely fuming. I realized that I have been a complete beta my entire life. Not anymore, this has been the kick in the balls that I needed to make some major life changes. I realized that there are multiple people in my life, men and women, that take more from me than they will ever give. My "friendship" with these people isn't going to change. I will never pull them up, they will only bring me down with them.

From this point on, I will not allow myself to be taken advantage of. This endless flow of help for people that add little value to my life is going to dry up. I am going to take the time that I wasted on them and reinvest it in making myself a better, happier, and more well rounded person.

tl;dr I asked out a girl yesterday that I have had feelings for for a while. She said no but how she likes me as a friend. I took a step back and realized that our "friendship", a long with a few others, was a one way street. I've decided to say fuck these people and instead invest the time that I waste on them in myself.

EDIT: I wanted to add this because I've seen my statement "I felt this anger boil inside me, I don't tend to be an angry person but I was absolutely fuming." To mean that I was angry with her. I'm not really, she didn't owe me a date, she doesn't owe me anything. Feelings are feelings, you can't control them like that. I was mad at myself. I am someone who has trouble telling people no and I let myself get in a situation where I was perpetually helping someone a lot more than they helped me. (It's not like she didn't do anything at all for me either, but I will definitely say that I did favors for her that she wouldn't have done for me.) My goal is to learn from this experience. It's like if you went out in the cold without a jacket and got sick. Cold weather will always exist, you can't just blame the weather and move on and expect things to change. You have to learn what you did wrong. That is what I did yesterday.

EDIT 2: I really did not expect this post to get this much attention. Thank all of you for the comments giving your thoughts or advice. I do not have time to reply to everyone but I have read all of your comments and do appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post.

EDIT 3: Thanks for the gold!