The One Person You Never Really Get Over

Dec. 7, 2011

By Ryan O'Connell info

Ryan O’Connell is a 25 year-old writer based in the East Village, New York.

Read more »

There will always be that one person you’ll never really get over. I know, I know, Connie Chung delivering groundbreaking news over here, but it’s true. Sure, you can go days, weeks, months, years without thinking of them but the second you see their face or their name gets mentioned in passing, your stomach drops and you feel like you could puke. You’ve lost control and all of these feelings suddenly rise to the surface to say, “Sup? Have you missed us?’ You’ll hate yourself for this, for all of it. You won’t be able to recognize why this one person can still garner this type of reaction. Why is your mind punking you? It almost feels like a betrayal. You want to give your emotions a stern talking to and say, “Um, hi. I thought we were over this? So why am I getting super nervous and spazzy at the mere mention of their name? You promised me that we were over this, brain. THANKS A LOT.”

You’re not over this person because you still want to see them naked. If they wanted you at this moment, you would leave everything and come to them. It almost feels good knowing that you want someone so bad. You spend so much of your time feeling indecisive about things but this is the one thing that remains the same. It drives you insane but it also brings a certain level of comfort, doesn’t? “No matter what happens, I will always want to lie my naked body next to yours.”

You’re not over this person because they still have the ability to piss you off. A simple insensitive comment made in passing can affect you worse than an insult from your best friend. Why? Why? WHY? That’s all you ask yourself as you sit, licking your wounds. It’s important to not question this too much. It’s fruitless. It just is. Maybe one day they won’t piss you off. Maybe one day you’ll feel nothing. Hope for nothing, accept everything.

You’re not over this person because you can still remember the little details, like the way their sweat smelled (ew, make that memory go away), their favorite song at seventeen, or a day you held hands in the backseat of a car.  These memories still reduce you to mush all of these years later. Can you believe it? How can some lovers evaporate the day they leave you and others stay way past their welcome? Who gets to choose who gets left behind and who gets to stick? Not you.

You’re not over this person probably because they could never love you back the way you wanted them to, the way you needed them to. They were a defective toy that couldn’t be fixed at the shop. This made you so angry and so sad and you tried just so damn hard and everyone knew it but it didn’t work. Not one bit. Because of this, your business with them will always seem unfinished. You couldn’t conquer them and seal the deal, which made getting any kind of closure difficult. Your closure needs to be done on your own. You have to accept that this person will never give you the answers you want them to.

It sucks to have this one person in your life that can derail you at a moment’s notice. But in a way, it feels good knowing that you could ever love someone so much. Or that’s what you tell yourself anyway. It doesn’t matter if something is true or not. The things we tell ourselves can become our truth. TC mark

You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here.

image – Fantasy CLay

Tagged , , , , ,

Bookmark and Share

66 Comments

Add Yours »

Cataloged in

Text Size:

A | A | A

  • Smile

    Thank you.

  • http://twitter.com/laundryandri Andri Alexandrou

    And no matter what we tell ourselves it won’t stop us from trying to get them back, even if only for a moment.

  • manicm

    perfect picture. thanks for that, i know exactly what you mean…

  • inês

    perfect. :)

  • Ray

    That 2nd to last paragraph. Yup.

    So good Ryan, so good!

  • http://www.facebook.com/maia.nazareno Maia Peralta Nazareno

    Finally. I’ve been waiting to read something like this.

  • macgyver51

    Her name was Hannah, and it went on for a long time. It does go away, although getting married to a smoking hot wife helped.

  • http://twitter.com/whyhelloclarice Marjorie Baxter

    It’s the  worst when you pass up other opportunities for this person. 

  • Brenna

    Glad to hear this feeling is pretty prevalent. I higher I was just me and a few other of my insane friends

  • rmcqs

    Thank you, thank you. Beautifully captured.

  • Anonymous

    Yet no matter what we fail to talk ourselves out of doing, they’ll still never come back.

  • http://twitter.com/butchproblems Jess

    Ditto. That paragraph…hell, his writing…speaks volume.

  • guest

    yup yup yup

  • http://typewriterpoetry.wordpress.com b r

    This article helped me realize I am over the one person I *thought* I’d never get over when I realized I definitely, under no circumstances, want to see them naked. Nice.

  • http://twitter.com/tannnyaya Tanya Salyers

    Why do you do this to me Ryan? 

    This article pops up hours after I find out my “one that got away” of five years just dumped his girlfriend…and I had to fight EVERY bone in my body not to contact him somehow.  

    I’m just going to cry and eat ice cream now, thanks. 

  • Rachel

    The feeling when that person gets married? Almost enough to make you quit entirely.
    …Almost.

  • http://twitter.com/Berrybrooke Beresford Brooke

    Oh, trust me, you’re far from alone.

  • Anh Nguyen

    This seems to highlight exactly what I felt this week when I saw his first name pop up.

  • nicole

    almost in tears. loved this. so true and there is a comfort in knowing other people feel this way too…

  • 2rcaitlin

    SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good.

  • Stephanie

    My first reaction to this was: there’s NO WAY this guy is over 30.

    (Though, my second reaction was that it’s beautifully written. Nice work.)

    You get over them. I promise. It may take years and you may be a completely different person by then, but you do.

  • Jdbirdsall

    Get out of my head!

  • Sophia

    “You’re not over this person probably because they could never love you back the way you wanted them to, the way you needed them to. They were a defective toy that couldn’t be fixed at the shop. This made you so angry and so sad and you tried just so damn hard and everyone knew it but it didn’t work. Not one bit.” Ryan, how do you know everything? 

  • jonathan

    whoa, i thought this was written by a girl.  Seems kinda faggy that homeboy is catching feeling so hard. 

    Just find some replacement pussy, bro.  Before you know it you’ll be hitting it and your brain will secrete oxycontin and you’ll be in “love” again.don’t put the pussy on a pedestal.

  • you’re a sexist ass hole

    i feel sorry for all the “pussy” you’ve ever encountered. i bet your mother does too.

  • Meow

    Penis* on a pedestal.

  • Tim Jones

    Great article Ryan. That second to last paragraph rings so true – the harder you try to fix that toy, the more broken it becomes.

    Eventually you do get over it though, and it’ll take you by surprise. I logged into facebook a few months back and saw that my ex of 5 years had got engaged – didn’t feel a thing. That was the first point that I could honestly say that I was over her.

    Anyway man, keep up the good work,

  • Asavva

    Nice to know I’m not alone, thanks. It’s so bad for me because mine dumped me when I got an extremely debilitating, chronic disease. HE LIVES ON MY STREET, so whilst I am house-bound and alone, I have to watch him ride by my house every second day with a chick on the back of his motorbike, happily living his life while mine was over at age 28. ;-(

  • linsr

    oh, so a guy having feelings makes him gay?  and sexual orientation is relevant how?  i don’t think any girl who heard those words escape your mouth would touch you with a ten foot pole. hope you enjoy your emotionally unattached pussy chase, bro.

  • linsr

    “You’re not over this person probably because they could never love you back the way you wanted them to, the way you needed them to.”  This explains everything…. 

  • Jennifer

    I’d be better off if I could get over this person. I really would.

  • Jessica

    Your brain will never secrete OxyContin. Oxytocin is the word you’re looking for here.

  • Maadfunnychick

    After 15 years, an amazing husband, a child and then the response of so many to this article, I beg to differ.  My mother cried when she found out her first love died…50 years after she met him.  

  • Naomi

    You never forget your first love be it requited or unrequited.

  • Anonymous

    50.gd/2g

  • Sammy G

    When he was more interested in his waffle from Waffle House than he was catching up over the last few months… blech, reality hurts.

  • reinhold

    the boy i lost my virginity to is engaged to a girl. It wouldn’t kill me so much, except that I’m gay. And so is he. 

  • melissa

    don’t worry, he will. fucking scumbag.

  • melissa

    wow. that is really amazing. i was just going to thank the woman named Stephanie for helping put things into perspective with her comment. but then i read yours. it never goes away, does it?

  • asfd

    Fernanda.

  • Gem

    This is me and my gay boyfriend. He’s also my best friend so it’s hard to forget. 

  • Anonymous

    50.gd/2g

  • Laura

    saudade. always and forever.

  • Hot Like Blue Fire

    I love how a sensitive guy is automatically labeled as gay, when that’s all a real woman really wants.
    Having feelings and being unafraid to express them doesn’t make him gay, douchebag.
    It makes him a man.

  • yep

    u r an idiet

  • Sunset

    The last line <3

  • Siti

    It was so painful reading this because every bit is true. And especially because it doesn’t apply to me but instead to the guy I’ve been seeing for a little over a year now who cannot (and maybe does not want to) get over his ex. It kills me inside and I would love for him to read this to know he isn’t alone (because oh, “woe is him”) and also to bring him back down to earth and HFU. But what sickens me the most is that this article got me so worked up; I tried putting myself in his shoes and I realized I would never get over that damned ex if I was him, too.

  • Anonymous

    Which is more terrible? To never be the one that had his heart oscillate significantly or  to have had him but to lose him? 

  • Anonymous

    Oh and ryan, what is it with your clay photos????

  • Anonymous

    50.gd/2g

  • Iwouldknow

    lose him.

  • http://www.facebook.com/asmond Asmond Chew

    i think this is your best post ever. you summed up everything that bothered me unknowingly in simple words. 

  • Benjy

    Ugh.

  • Boop

    Jonathan – You are repulsive. 
    How would you like it if someone called your mom “replacement pussy?”
    Grow Up! =) 

  • ame-onna

    down to every detail.

    “When you held hands in the backseat of a car”
    please stop, please

  • Sarah

    this made my heart hurt.

  • Michael_bucciero

    stop writing my life story i don’t want the world knowing!

  • Maranda

    I lost it during the last two paragraphs. So painfully accurate. 

  • Alina D

    True. For the moment, there is one person that I think I will never get over.

  • anonymous

    good to know I’m not alone. out of sight, out of mind.

  • Sally Anne West

    Eh. Immature dribble from a first time heartbreak. YOU.WILL.GET.OVER.IT

  • Mamulaklak

    Thought of my own relationship that can never be.  That was brutal & broke me down for a while. Sighs.

  • Dane

    Not always. I’ve been in some relationships since I was 18.. that girl, she left me and I still haven’t gotten over her, even though I’ve had 1+ year relationships.. I’m 21 now though so we’ll seeewhat the future brings.

  • Vron

    second-to-last paragraph is GOLD.

  • Mona

    Ugh! I was hoping there would be some king of hope in the end. SMH.

  • Nate

    “Moving on” and “getting over” are two completely separate things. Doesn’t everyone have someone out there they’ll never get over?

Recently Cataloged

  • Confessions Of An International Traveler

    The first time I got drunk and threw up was the first time I was abroad: I was in Prague, and I was 17. I lied and told the people I was with that I had been drunk before, but I hadn’t and I overdid it. I very clearly remember puking, and thinking to myself, “Well, this is stupid.”

    By Nicole Trilivas info

    Nicole Trilivas is the author of the novel, PRETTY GIRLS MAKE GRAVES.

    Read more »

  • 26 Lesser-Known Reasons To Call Your Girlfriend

    It’s also time that you two “had the talk.” But in this case, “the talk” is about how you need more dish soap, and you’re really sorry that you forgot to put it on the list, but you didn’t think she was going to go to the store straight from work.

    By Laura Jayne Martin info

    Laura lives and writes in NYC.

    Read more »

  • 8 Ways Female Party Animals Behave Like Actual Animals

    Hell hath no fury like a hungry drunk girl. A drunk girl who wants (NEEDS) food is more dangerous then an angry dinosaur who wants her stolen egg back.

    By Donielle Muranksy info

    Donielle Muransky lives and writes in New York City. For now.

    Read more »

  • My Letter To Cosmopolitan Magazine

    The tip I found most upsetting was “Try placing a donut on your man’s shaft. Then go down on him while slowly devouring the tasty treat.” You see, Cosmo, I have Celiac’s Disease, which means I can’t eat wheat flour, the #1 ingredient in donuts. It’s tragic to think of all the ways this negatively impacts my sex life.

    By Alison Griffin Vingiano info

    Alison Griffin Vingiano is a Brooklyn based writer & comedian.

    Read more »