This Is How You Win Him Back

Work out, eat healthier. Take up that Capoiera class you’ve been meaning to look into but have been too body conscious to try. Write love-post its to yourself and leave them up on your mirror, especially where other people can read them. Write some of them for others.

Take an hour everyday where you unplug, disengage and look at the physical world around you. Talk to strangers on the metro, provided you feel you’re in a safe space to do so. Go through your memory box and remember things that might make you feel more than you’re ready to. Put some more memories in there, pictures of your love, the ticket stub from your first movie or a funny drawing he made for you.

Allow yourself to mourn the loss of love, and heal from those wounds. Don’t run into the arms of another lover, you will not find peace there: you will only accumulate more to heal from.

When the man I love and I parted I immediately jumped back onto OKCupid in an attempt to find someone else to run to. I even fleetingly considered calling my ex-lover to just feel the presence of someone in bed with me. I realized that there was only one body I longed to share a bed with, and that I would rather enjoy the company of my own labored breathing as I struggle to sleep each night without them than sleep with anyone else. I deleted my account and invested in a gym membership instead.

Look at yourself a little closer in the mirror as the months go by. Acknowledge the laugh-lines love left behind. Be okay with crying by yourself, or calling a friend to come over. You’re allowed to mourn as long as you like, but grow from each hurt, each unwanted memory.

Don’t delete them from your life in an effort to make them panic-jealous-think about what you’re doing. Whether you’re ready to acknowledge it sometime they may reach out to process this loss with you. Prepare yourself to deny them or go along with it. Have only the expectation of healing.

In other words: you don’t try to. Wasting your time trying to win someone back who isn’t in the space to be with you will only destroy you, and leave you reeling and hating the idea of being in love again.

I believe I will love again. Just not anytime soon.

I don’t believe in just one singular soul-mate. My best friend is my soulmate, and so is her fiancé, whom I have referred to as my brother for as long as they have been together. My mother is my soulmate. The person I just parted with is my soulmate, and I knew it the moment he sidled up to me in line at a wedding, just as he did. Being soulmates doesn’t mean we have to be together forever or be together at all, and I think this something as a collective our romantic society needs to understand. Don’t try to win someone back. Try to become someone you’d want to fight for, someone ready and willing to accept and give the love you know you deserve.

Trust, it’s true what they say about needing to love yourself before loving someone else. Be honest with yourself about what you’re ready give and receive from someone. Do that before you fall in love with them, or they fall in love with you.

This is how you win him back: become the person you’ve always wanted to be.