I’m in my late 20s now and I feel so much despair.
I think a huge factor that shaped my world is my breakup almost 3 years ago. I had dated several people, actually more than several, before then.
I feel like people think I am delusional when I say this, but he was genuinely the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t understand how it’s possible for someone to have actually cared about me to the extent he did. At times I felt like he actually cared about me more than my own mom did. It wasn’t just that, he was intelligent and hilarious too and we had a lot in common.
Unfortunately I wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to continue the relationship. This basically fundamentally broke me.
I had my share of heartbreaks before, but even when I met him, I was basically at my breaking point with love. I remember telling myself this was my last try (because I was so done). To this day I literally have no idea how I could have so much in common with someone. It’s like we completely agreed on almost every aspect in life. Did he just lie to me or agree with everything I said or something?
Apparently he has also had random acquaintances tell him he’s a breath of fresh air and so nice to be around compared to most people, so it’s not just me.
I really don’t know what to do other than cry about losing him. I’ve tried so hard to find happiness for myself but how could I let something like that go?
My life hasn’t gotten any better since then and I honestly think I am hopeless. Genuinely.
Literally everyone pales in comparison to what I had with him. Even though what I had clearly wasn’t real, because ultimately he clearly didn’t feel the same about me since he chose to leave. It felt real to me, talking to him is the most enjoyable thing I had experienced in my life.
This all sounds extremely sad and pathetic but really what am I supposed to do? I bet most people haven’t even come close to meeting someone like him so they can’t relate to this at all. I am going to sound insane again but I think he is some prodigy or something. Like one of those one in a million once in a lifetime people that most won’t even get the chance to meet.
I don’t know the person you are talking about, they might genuinely be amazing, they might just have excellent social skills, but the most important thing for you to do is move on.
This isn’t a riddle worth solving. Why did they mesh so well with you? Why didn’t they stick around? Let’s imagine a world where you have these answers with 100% certainty. Does it change anything? No.
I don’t say this to belittle you, but to encourage you. Your happiness, your worth, your life is not this other person.
You deserve happiness and love and all that life has to offer. There are billions of people on this planet and I guarantee you that if you move forward you will find many that will love you and care about you. And you will find many that don’t. And you will find everything in between.
Don’t fall for the trap of there being one true love out there. Take what good you can from that experience and also learn from it. It seems you placed a high degree of importance on sharing similar opinions and interests. That is important, but many people fall madly in love with people that are unlike themselves too. I love my wife with all my heart and we share the same core values but we differ in many ways. I’m loud, she prefers the quiet, I’m an engineer, she’s an artist, but we love those things about each other.
Take away from this that maybe you should bump up how important having a partner who is loyal and able to communicate well is, and notch down how important some of these other aspects.
It hurts going through heartbreak. It is natural and human to want to not feel that pain again. Sadly, love requires that we be vulnerable. Love is a stupid gamble that you can let someone know the real you and they will embrace that and stand by it. It is so special because it is so rare. But I learned something important in my time on earth, most everyone is capable of love, and everyone deserves to be loved.
At the very least, love yourself. We can not change what has passed, but we get to choose what happens next. You get to choose today to love you, and you get to choose it tomorrow and the next day and the next, and I hope you do. And when you love someone, even if that someone is yourself, you won’t be able to bear to see them persist in despair. Find your love of travel, or art, or science, or writing, or whatever brings you joy. Let that love fill your heart for a while.
I hope all the best for you, 20s is far too early to give up. When I feel despair in my own life I remember this quote by Mary Pickford and it’s always made me feel better
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.
That was beautiful. ♥️
Yikes that sounds familiar as fk. My 2 cents: you might be craving isolation (and maybe in part is okay) but actually going out and meet people is better for yourself, force it if necessary. Change habits, meet new people. Shit happens in life, it’s only sad and pathetic if you let it consume you.
My little sister recently went through a similar breakup. The wound is still very fresh in her case. I will tell her this information in time, but she is in the processing phase right now. So if you’ll indulge me, here is a little advice from a big sister on break-ups with ‘the perfect guy’.
Often, guys like this are chameleons. I have seen a few people like this in my life. Wonderful, charismatic people who make the person they are talking to at the time feel like they are standing in the glow of sunshine. They aren’t being manipulative or intentionally trying to love bomb the person. It is just in their nature to be agreeable and find meaningful connections with people.
You mentioned other acquaintances feeling like he was a wonderful guy. It is completely possible that he is a great, intelligent, funny guy with whom you had a great connection. And yet, he did not feel as deeply as you because he connects so easily with most people he interacts with.
In your own words, he “cared about me more than my own mom” and yet “wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to continue the relationship.” It seems there is a disconnect between how deeply you felt he loved you, and how much you loved him. This is where a lot of the pain and sadness comes from in the breakup. When that glow of sunshine you were basking in is gone, the shadow feels especially cold.
I do not know anything about your relationship aside from what you have described. However, I fear you have fallen into a mentality of thinking no one else could ever compare to him. I have seen people dating ‘the perfect guy’ (Top of his class Harvard, D1/pro athlete, sexy charismatic surgeon…prodigy in the eyes of many) and yet, he wasn’t the right person for their relationship. People who are accustomed to being the best at everything make really good chameleons. They want to be the best at friendships and relationships, too.
I do not want to tarnish your relationship, or discredit the pain that it brought you. I want to highlight the fact that there are other men out there that are absolutely a better, more unique fit for a loving relationship with you. A lot of the successful relationships I have seen are between people whose glow shines more exclusively on their romantic partner. Often times friends and acquaintances will say things like “I don’t get it.” Rather than him being so obviously great to everyone, he will be more specifically great for you.
All that being said, what to do next? Focus on you. Fall in love with yourself for the time being. Do what makes you happy, and the right person will be pulled into your orbit because you know yourself and what brings you joy. Your late 20’s are just the beginning of the adventure.
All of what you said is spot on about a particular type of person who isn’t malicious but does seem to forge a lot of shallow relationships and not really focusing on one, but I don’t get the chameleon thing. Is it because they easily adapt to whatever setting they are in by changing how they act?
Yes, they tend to adjust their personality to suit the person they are talking to. Adapting to match someone enthusiasm for a subject, and just generally blending really well with whoever they are coomunicating with.
I find these people are often very easy to like. However, they don’t know themselves well enough to be a great relationship partner because they spend too much time trying to be cohesive with the other person.
Sorry, I realize I got caught up in my own ramblings and didn’t define the term.
I’m just going to add my voice.
You likely have been very much programmed to think of this one true love bullshit. It’s romantic feel-good stuff that sells books and TV shows and other media, but it’s not the reality. It’s a fantasy.
You are this, and even more, compatible with a plethora of people. There are a lot of people you could love like you loved this person.
The only thing stopping you from feeling this again is yourself. If you want to believe that there is no one as amazing as your old flame out there, then that is how it is. Your belief in this makes it true. Because as long as you believe this, you will eternally focus on all the ways the new person is not the same as the guy you loved, instead of appreciating the new person for the different features they have.
As soon as you stop believing that guy is the best ever and no one can ever compare, that is when you will find someone new who you think is as amazing. Not a single moment before, you simply couldn’t even recognize it.
In the meantime… Another thing everyone has said is that it is actually possible to be completely content by yourself. You don’t actually need any romantic partner to be happy. It’s the same as above: as long as you believe that you’ll never be happy if you don’t find someone as amazing as that guy, then that’s how it will be, you will be unhappy. But as soon as you believe that you can be happy by yourself, that’s when you will actually be happy alone. It is actually that simple. I’m sure there are things you love to do that don’t involve a romantic partner. You can do these indefinitely and stay happy. As long as you believe that you can.
When my high-school girlfriend broke up with me in college (she was the first person I had ever dated) something broke in my brain. I mean that literally. It’s when my depression started and that depression hasn’t gone away for over 20 years. It probably never will. My feelings for her caused me a lot of suffering and ruined my subsequent relationships for about a decade, but gradually they became a dull ache rather than a sharp pain and by now they’re simply bittersweet nostalgia.
I really hope for your sake that your situation will work out better than mine has, but perhaps you can feel more optimistic about your future if you know that even I eventually got to the point where I was ready for something new. I don’t think about my ex even when I’m depressed and I even find it darkly funny that in retrospect she was less compatible with me than the women I broke up with because I couldn’t stop thinking about her were.
That’s the thing about relationships: they have to work for both people. The fact that it didn’t with him doesn’t mean you’re bad and he’s good, it just wasn’t what he needed. If you’ve dated other people, you’ve probably experienced the reverse.
Unless all your relationships have broken down for the same reasons, there’s no reason to think that the next one won’t be better, or the one after that.
One thing though - it’s clear from what you posted that your self-esteem is really low, and most of us do self-destructive things when our self-esteem is low. There’s a cliche about it being hard to love someone else it you don’t love yourself, but bring a cliche doesn’t mean it’s false. It’s also very taxing on someone to be in a relationship with someone that has very low self-esteem. Not everyone can handle that.
