You spend weeks thinking about them, admiring them, flirting with them, talking for hours on end, sharing memes, tagging each other on random Facebook posts.
You go on dates, pouring your heart out to them, sharing your hopes and aspirations. You start to fall for this person, who you’re only “talking to” and you’re left with the fantasy of what it will be like once you end up officially together.
Except, that never happens.
All of a sudden, messages dwindle down, they’re suddenly busy, they stop paying attention, ignoring your approaches. They might even ghost you. All of a sudden, the potential of being anything more than two people in the “talking stage” gets thrown away, discarded like the butt of a cigarette.
How do you get over this type of rejection? How do you get over someone you never dated?
Dating culture has become increasingly hard to navigate. More than being together or not, there is an entire spectrum of labels in between: the talking stage, seeing each other, friends with benefits, fuck buddies, dating. All these labels make it more difficult to know which one applies to you because lines, boundaries and what you think you mean to someone versus what you actually mean to them all become blurred.
So how do you get over someone you never dated? Someone you spent hours a day talking to, weeks opening up to, months falling for. It’s easier said than done to simply get over it, move on; there’s no sense in saying it’s your fault for getting attached too easily, for fantasizing about wanting something serious with someone.
It feels like every aspect of dating culture in this society isn’t taken seriously. Why is it so strange that someone wants something serious? Why is it odd to want to plan a future with someone? Why can our emotions constantly get pushed to the side once someone new comes along? How can we move on after we put our all into someone who didn’t end up feeling the same for us because of a stupid label that allowed them to think they could walk over us any way they liked?So the question remains: how do you get over someone you never dated? While it may be easier said than done to just get over it and move on, there’s not much else you can do. I’m a firm believer that people will make an effort to keep you in their life if they truly want you in it, so there’s no point fighting to stay when they made it clear they don’t want you.
Graphic by Loreanna Lastoria
