What It’s Like To Have Your Heart Broken In 2018

In 2018, we don’t get our hearts broken all of a sudden, find closure, and then move on from the person we were seeing.

We get our hearts broken slowly. It happens in pieces. We text someone for weeks, maybe make plans to see them in person, maybe even climb into bed with them, and then find out they aren’t looking for a relationship and a single piece of our heart falls.

But their reluctance to date us doesn’t stop us from pursuing them. We don’t give up after being told they are looking for something casual, because we convince ourselves there is a spark between us. We convince ourselves they are worth fighting for.

Even though we are dying inside, we continue seeing them, hoping they will eventually change their mind and decide to date us. But every time they ignore one of our texts, every time they cancel plans, every time we catch them flirting with someone else, another piece of our heart breaks.

In 2018, it’s easy to keep letting the same person hurt us over and over again. Even though we’re skeptical about love as a whole, for some reason, we keep giving this certain person the benefit of the doubt. We believe they have the potential to change. We think, if we try hard enough and stick around for long enough, then the situation will be different.

Instead of looking for someone new, someone who actually returns our feelings for them, we focus on the same person. We don’t give up hope. We become stubborn, assuming they are the only one for us and will eventually realize that.

In 2018, we don’t say screw you to the person who breaks our heart. We take the hatred we should be feeling for them and direct it toward ourselves. We wonder what the hell is wrong with us. Are we not enough? Why won’t they commit when we get along so well, when we make each other so happy?

Even though there is an insecure voice in our head that says we will die alone, that we will never find love, we still have trouble accepting defeat. We have trouble letting go of someone who meant the world to us, because we pictured a serious relationship in our head. We imagined it so clearly.

In 2018, we don’t know when to give up and walk away. There are so many couples we know who started out as just friends or friends with benefits. We can list a million on-and-off again couples. We never know when we should hold onto or when we should give up. We never know when to put in more effort or stop trying completely.

In 2018, even when we are officially single again, we hesitate to jump into new relationships, because we are holding onto the hope that the person we really want will walk back into our world and ask to try again. We don’t want to be taken when the timing is finally right. We want to wait for them. Only them. We don’t want anyone else.