The almost relationship.

The casual consistent hookup that never turned into more.

The emotional connection where you each knew something was there but you left it ambiguous.

The what if.

The hardest relationships to get over will always be the ones that don’t meet the definition of what a real relationship actually was but everything felt the same.

To sit here and tell anyone what they felt wasn’t justified or acceptable just because it didn’t turn out how they hoped it would, would be like telling every person who has ever been dumped they aren’t allowed to be sad about it.

The only difference between these two types of relationships was some label.

But justifying how someone feels based on labels is complete and total bullshit when I love you means the exact same thing.

Sometimes we end up loving the people who weren’t entirely ours more than we did those who gave us that title. Pinning after the person we wanted even if they were the last one we needed.

The what if factor. The maybe. The one day.

They leave you with a hope you don’t ever truly let go of.

It’s people who haunt us years after the fact.

The moments we wonder could something still happen.

You hate yourself for admitting it but if they one day wanted you, you let them have you even with the pain they’ve caused.

When real relationships end there’s this odd comfort with a start and finish.

But with the other relationship, you don’t get closure. You’re left with all of these feelings that didn’t exactly go away, you were just left to let them linger within you.

Real relationships get a goodbye and you heal.

But the other relationship you just have to move forward and at any moment that person can come waltzing back into your life as they did often and those feelings resurface again.

You don’t get healing with the person you never dated.

You just learn to live with this pain that becomes comfortably numb.