How To Get Over Someone You Didn't Even Date

A couple kisses on a subway train while the man reaches his hand out to a stranger nearby

breaking upward with someone you didn't date Credit: mashable/vicky leta

In our Love App-tually series, Mashable shines a calorie-free into the foggy earth of online dating.

You know yous've got it bad when you start crying in public.

It happened on the District Line every bit I made my manner home, weary and emotionally hobbling. Many moons ago, in pre-pandemic times, I boarded the railroad train and sabbatum in the end carriage on purpose, then I could have my emotional breakup effectually fewer people. I tried to hide the tears as soon as they coursed down my cheeks, only I couldn't conceal the abrupt intakes of jiff that come when you're trying and then hard not to cry audibly. My chin was doing that ugly uncontrollable wobble that happens when you're having a massive sobbing session.

Women sitting in the same wagon equally me shot furtive, concerned glances my way. I wanted to tell them, "Don't worry, nothing terrible has happened, non really. I'chiliad just crying over a human I never even dated." That last item — the fact I couldn't even telephone call this human being my ex-boyfriend — made me experience I didn't have the right to feel heartbreak.

It was a lonely fourth dimension. A fourth dimension where I felt I couldn't really talk about what had happened, a time where I felt I needed to apologise every example I brought up my pain and the thoughts that paced back and forth through my listen. "Pitiful to keep going on about this," was the caveat that preceded all statements concerning the heartbreak I deemed invalid.

During a habitual pre-bedtime whorl through TikTok, I stumbled across a glut of videos that put into words the lonely country of getting over someone you never dated. I hit the eye so fast. Finally! A TikTok trend that speaks to my soul! Only watching these videos made me wonder why we don't talk almost this type of heartache more than.

As an anxiously attached, highly sensitive person with a tendency to autumn too hard, also presently, I've gone down the heartbreak-over-someone-I-never-dated road more than times than I can remember. Whether it's a situationship, an intense fling, a friends with benefitship, or an unrequited crush, each occasion is accompanied past a low-level feeling of stupidity, a kind of "I can't believe I'k back here over again" as if I should have learned my lesson by now. Mayhap I should have. But as I'thousand learning through therapy, there are some aspects of this situation that are due to my typology every bit a highly sensitive person, and INFJ-T personality blazon, that are beyond my control.

In the run up to my 30th altogether, I establish myself embroiled in a very confusing talking phase with a guy. We'd been emailing back and forth (very You've Got Mail service of us, tbh) and eventually we started messaging over Instagram. While chatting to this person, and spending fourth dimension with them IRL, I started to similar the guy and wonder where things were headed. Information technology eventually became clear that this talking stage would exist where things were going to stay. Or rather, that's where things ended.

I felt rejected, and began questioning my self-worth, and wondering what I needed to change virtually myself in order to be deemed lovable. Not only that, I felt naive and angry at myself for allowing myself to experience something without withal much every bit kissing the guy. I wondered how I could have possibly misread this situation so desperately – had I read too much into the emails and messages? A few years later, and with a much better relationship with my self-worth, I know my feelings were existent and valid. I'm not a mindreader and I can't speak to the other person's motivations for behaving in that way, but I know it has nothing to do with me.

Every bit someone who's not had a long-term relationship for over a decade, my status every bit a perennial singleton who's actively dating doesn't hateful I've been spared heartbreak during that time. Far from it. I know from my experience, and from that of my friends, that y'all can feel tremendous heartbreak, pain, and grief from whatever kind of relationship — be information technology in the very early on stages of dating someone, the talking stage, or afterwards sleeping with someone a couple of times. Just because you lot can't call them your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, whatever, doesn't mean you don't have the right to feel sorrow and heartache over something ending. Your feelings are valid no matter the duration of that connexion.

Lucifer's dating expert, Hayley Quinn, says brusque romances and flings are like shooting fish in a barrel to invalidate, simply grieving over situationships is becoming increasingly common. "Modern dating often means that commitment takes time to form, and it'due south often plant that by the fourth dimension you have 'the conversation' well-nigh what you are, y'all're already attached — even if someone doesn't want the same level of human relationship as you do," says Quinn. If you're in a situationship that suddenly ends, simply remember that time will heal. "Even if you don't understand their reasons, and never get closure, the fact that they're no longer present in your life is telling enough about what they tin can offer you," she says. "Remember, you volition grow out of believing this person is the simply one for you, and there volition be many other people who tin can give you the same level of connection as they did, whilst bringing more to the human relationship, matching your wants and needs too."

Rachael Lloyd, relationship adept at eharmony, says the amount of time spent together and the blazon of relationship are immaterial if you lot've caught feelings for someone that aren't reciprocated. "All too often we are presented with the narrative that 'breakup blues' are only valid if you've been with a partner for years, experienced pregnant milestones or if the relationship concluded badly," says Lloyd.

"In my view, that's nonsense. What almost the guy you never heard from after two astonishing dates? The girl who ghosted yous despite the great sexual practice, the funny back and forth online that suddenly becomes one sided. All still sting." Lloyd says it's important to admit and sit down with those emotions in order to get over such knock-backs. "It's not giddy to exist lamentable nigh something that hurt you lot and dismissing these experiences could lead to you becoming more emotionally unavailable later downward the line," says Lloyd. "As with whatever breakup — focus on self-care, look to your friends for support and get easy on yourself."

Recently I found myself saying the words "I hate myself for feeling this mode" to my therapist. She stopped me in my tracks and told me, "What nosotros resist persists." How can you movement on from a feeling if you're fighting its very beingness? With time, you lot'll feel differently. But just know, your feelings are valid and you accept every right to feel deplorable.

Read more from Love App-tually:

Just a Jim looking for his Pam: Fictional couples boss dating apps
Ghost Exorcism Mean solar day: How to motion on after you lot've been ghosted
Fine break up with me, only let me keep Instagramming your canis familiaris

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