What It Means When I Say ‘I’ve Stopped Dating After You’

One day I’m going to meet someone who makes me remember what it’s like to want to be serious with a person. Someone that makes all of the long nights alone or the week long relationships seem like a distant memory. If you’ve ever been hurt, dating someone with potential scares the shit out of you. It always comes back to your first real heartbreak.

I stopped dating seriously after you because no one is like you. I’ve been looking. A lot. And not one person has the same air about them. The one that literally knocked the wind out of my lungs and made me think that this was it. This is what I was waiting for.

I stopped dating seriously after you because you said you wouldn’t leave and you did. You left. And you left in a way I still can’t wrap my head around. It wasn’t a clean break. It was slow. I could see it that you weren’t you anymore. But I still didn’t expect you to go.

I stopped dating seriously after you because I felt worthless. I felt like no one would ever want me. That I was ruined. I wasn’t that emotionally unavailable girl you see in the romantic comedies who meets someone better and magically is able to open up again. No that hasn’t happened yet. But then that would mean giving someone a chance.

I stopped dating seriously after you because you took that part of me with you. When you left, you took all of the most beautiful parts of me. The parts that believed in love; unwaveringly and wholeheartedly. You took the person who wanted nothing more in life than to love you and you crushed her. Good work.

I stopped dating seriously after you because I don’t know how to do it. I don’t. I know how to go to a bar, strike up a conversation, charm the hell out of them and then take them home. That part is easy. What I don’t know how to do anymore is wake up in the morning without feeling regret. I don’t know how to go on dates and sit awkwardly across from someone and tell them about me. I’m scared you’re going to pop up in conversation and I have to tell the whole messy story again.

I stopped dating seriously after you because there isn’t a point. How can I believe in love when I had it and it left me? How can I look in the mirror and not feel like an idiot for not seeing the end coming? How can I tell my friends that I’ve met someone who’s better than you when they know that in the years since you I’ve been nothing but self-destructive?

I stopped dating seriously after you because I just don’t want to. That’s the simplest way to explain it. I just don’t want to. I just don’t want to get all dressed up for someone else when all I think about is laying on your couch and laughing at something that only we would. I don’t want to pretend with someone else that you’re not on my mind every second of every day. That you’re not the first person I want to call the minute I wake up. That you’re not the person I still see a future with.

I stopped dating seriously after you because I still love you.

Years have passed. Years. And I still think about every minute I spent with you. I still compare every person I’ve been with to you. And that’s not fair. It’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to drag someone through the trenches for my sad attempts to get over you.

So thanks. For leaving. For completely breaking my heart. For making me feel like there’s no one else out there. On the good days I truly convince myself that it’ll work out. That I’ll meet someone who completely erases you. And that day is going to be the greatest day of my life.