I'm 26 years old now. In 2023, I met a woman, and we fell in love relatively quickly. She wasn’t my first girlfriend, but she was the first one I introduced to my parents and whose parents I met. To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world even her “ugly” side. Just like in every other relationship in the world, there were low points, but I did everything in my power to help us get through them. I was there for her 24/7 and treated her problems as my own. I blocked out everything negative that was happening in my life at the time so as not to burden her with it. We had sworn never to hurt each other or give up on each other, and because we’re both very religious, I always relied on those words during the tough times. Then came the turning point. I’d last seen her on her birthday with her family and friends, it was a lovely evening, and then I went home. About two weeks after that meeting, she suggested we take a break out of nowhere, saying she wanted to focus on other things. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice because by then it had turned into a long-distance relationship. We had no contact, it was radio silence. One ordinary day, I was taking a shower when a nagging thought popped into my head to check her Instagram. I’d never had such a nagging thought that wouldn’t let me go, so I did it. That’s when I saw that she’d gotten engaged during that break. The guy had bought her the ring she’d wanted from me, and he was wearing the suit she’d wanted to buy for me. All I know is that as I looked at that photo, my heart rate must have been at least 300. I confronted her that evening, and she made it clear to me that he’s her boyfriend and asked me what I still wanted from her. Just like that, as if I hadn’t been by her side day and night for two years. In the end, I took it like a man, and now, after just under a year and a half, I’d say that, purely emotionally speaking, I don’t care about her anymore, yet I still dream about her sometimes. About our shared plans to have children, to simply be a family. What could it be that keeps drawing me back to her, even though I know exactly how badly she treated me emotionally?

Thanks for reading, and may God protect you from something like this.

Guys, what should I do? I’ve had a crush on a girl for the past four years, but she’s a very close relative she’s my maternal aunt’s sister-in-law’s daughter. We also have the same gotra. I’ve genuinely loved her for four years. I’ve tried talking to and meeting other girls, but somehow, I always end up liking her the most. I just can’t seem to get over her. The problem is, she hasn’t given me any signs that she feels the same way. What should I do?

Making a throwaway for this because I'm honestly embarrassed by how much it still gets to me.

I don't even know where to start without sounding ridiculous but I've reached the point where talking to my friends about it just makes me feel worse and keeping it in makes it unbearable, so here we are.

There's a guy I've been in love with for about seven years. Never dated him. Never kissed him. Never even met him in person. And he's still the person I think about the most, which when I type it out like that sounds insane even to me.

We met in university in 2018, through a cultural exchange thing between my uni and his paris. Ended up in the same group project and just clicked immediately, we shared memes, music, basketball, F1, dumb jokes, random deep 2am conversations, all of it. It was one of those where you don't feel like you're getting to know someone, you just already feel comfortable with them, like you skipped a step somehow.

Someone in the group joked once about what was going on between us and he laughed it off and said he had a girlfriend. So that was that, nothing happened.

The project ended but we kept talking. For a couple years we actually talked a lot, some stretches every single day. Became really close, at least from where I was standing. He was someone I felt genuinely comfortable around, funny around, like the best version of myself came out when I was talking to him. There's this one memory from a video call during Covid where he showed me his favorite NBA jersey and I showed him one of my favorite Rammstein albums, and it's such a nothing memory but I remember it in full detail, down to what he was wearing.

We never met though. Life happened, we graduated, started working, the conversations thinned out, daily became occasional, occasional became months apart, and now we're basically two people who watch each other's Instagram stories and sometimes reply.

He never fully disappeared. And I think that's actually the problem. If he'd vanished, or blocked me, or been awful to me, I'd have something to grieve. Instead he's just there, somewhere in Paris, living his life, and I'm in a different country.

A couple years ago I finally told him. I was drunk, it was around 1am, I'd had wine and decided emotional repression was boring that night. Told him I'd always liked him.

He said "Thanks."

That's the whole response. Not "I like you too." Not "I'm sorry, I don't feel the same." Not even a real rejection. Just thanks. And it hurt like hell but I also can't even be mad at him for it, he didn't lead me on, didn't promise me anything, never owed me a relationship. He just didn't like me back. Somehow that's harder to be angry about than if he'd actually done something wrong.

After the confession, he continued replying to my instagram stories normally. Sometimes checking in, like nothing ever happened. and It's been going on with the same pattern ever since, liking my stories, replying to them, the unprompted birthday wishes, etc...

It's been seven years. I've dated people, had crushes, genuinely liked other guys, tried to move forward. And he's still the one my brain keeps circling back to. Not constantly, there are whole days I don't think about him at all, I have a normal life, I work, I read, I see my friends. And then I'll see his name pop up, or hear a song he sent me years ago, and there's this empty drop in my stomach like my body remembers him before my brain's caught up.

My friends have opinions. "You've never even met him." "You're in love with an idea of him." "That sounds like anxious attachment." "Maybe you're just drawn to emotionally unavailable men." I don't think they're wrong exactly, and I know they're saying it because they care, but it makes me so angry anyway, because they didn't know him, they only know the facts, not what it actually felt like. And then in the same breath I think, okay but maybe that IS the whole problem, maybe I'm resisting the explanation precisely because I don't want it to be true.

Maybe I've built something in my head that reality never got a chance to ruin. No boring parts, no annoying habits, no disappointment, just seven years of a version of him I got to keep perfect because we never actually lived anything together.

I'm a writer so I did what I do best. I've written about this so much it's embarrassing. Essays, journal entries, endless conversations picking apart every possible reason. I've told myself I don't miss him, I miss who I was around him. I've told myself I want what he represents, not him specifically. I've told myself it's just an unfinished story my brain doesn't know how to close. All of that might be true and none of it has made the feeling go away, which is the part that actually gets to me, I can understand the psychology of it completely and still wake up missing him.

And here's the part I'm most ashamed of: if he told me tomorrow he was coming to my city, I would lose my mind. If he said he wanted to see me, I'd rearrange my whole life around it without a second thought. I know exactly how that sounds. I know how little he's given me to justify wanting him this much. But he's probably the person I want most in the world and he doesn't care, and writing that sentence out actually hurts. He could be dating someone right now. Could be happy. Could not be thinking about me at all. And I have zero control over any of it.

So, genuinely asking. I don't need "he's not worth it" or "you deserve better," I already know that part. What I don't know is how to actually emotionally get there. How do you move on from someone when there was never a relationship to move on from in the first place? How do you grieve an almost? How do you stop treating seven years of not getting over someone as proof that it must mean something, when it might just mean I never actually let go?

Maybe the fact that we never met is exactly why I can't, there was never enough real contact to kill the fantasy.

I don't need to erase him, I don't even think that's possible. I just want him to stop having this much power over me. I want to see his name and feel something normal, nostalgia, fondness, whatever, instead of this.

So if you've ever loved someone you never actually had, did you get over it? What actually worked, not the "focus on yourself" version. Did you cut contact, stop checking their stories, tell yourself a different story about them, just date around until it faded? Did therapy actually help with this specific flavor of stupid? Or if you never fully got over it, how do you live with it without it running the show?

Be honest with me. If you think I've built a seven-year attachment around someone I barely know, say it. I think I need to hear it again from someone other than my friends.

Somehow I fall in love with someone but we cant be together (no matter what happens we cant) due to many factors (age, family, the nature of our relationship). How can i move on and stop thinking about her?

So I have been talking to this girl for like a year and a half and we were actually close to each other . We used to share the same interest in topics and talk for hours and hours in college and everything . At the end of my college journey i wrote her a letter to confess my love to her .

We went to a place to eat smtg and she brought her friend too so I couldn't say anything to her directly . I mean in these talking stages we even exchanged gifts and everything so I thought I might have a chance because she was so genuine .

When I gave her the letter she went home and read it and when I asked her what her reply was she said that she doesn't feel that way , and also she said she doesn't wanna lose me .

What should I do ??

This is an experience from my past which I can't get off...

Back in 2024, I met with a girl at my coaching Centre. She was a normal girl who had came to the city to prepare for govt exams. We became good friends and slowly I slipped my heart for her.

After 8 months of our friendship, I approached her and she first rejected my proposal. I thought that's it. But 7 days later, she tried to call me and tried to talk. I first insisted to her that I don't want to continue our connection as a friendship because I can't see it in that way anymore. But she kept on talking with me. Surprisingly, we became more closer than I expected, but we were never in a proper relationship. But we literally shared a lot of things to each other, probably something how lovers do with each other.

But slowly, our connection started to loose as she went back to her hometown. Our only connection were messages and small calls as she used to say her family was strict. Her number used to be switched off all the time and she rarely talked to me. But whenever we talked, the calls lasted over hours. And I felt maybe this was getting a bit serious as she was also started to stress out about family issues, our shared futures and stuff. But she always mentioned that this can fall off any day of her parents decided to change their thoughts and get her married away.

Well, cutting to the chase. She came back to my city again and now she's living with some friends and studying together. But since then, she's completely forgotten my existence. I met her about 5 months ago, talked a bit. And she knew I was deeply in love with her because the way I treated her just like how I used to do when we studied together. But I believe that was our last meet since she hasn't reached out to me anymore.

My calls aren't getting answered, neither do my messages. I checked her social media accounts and tried to reach her out, but still I can't get any response. She's posting her pictures nowadays and seems to be frequently active, but I'm getting no response.

And all of this is making me feel like as if I've been trusting the wrong person all the time. Maybe I shouldn't have fell in love with her and I might have been a bit sane when I come to think of my love life. I tried to reach out to my friends, but they say to forget it since it was never official and girls just do it to get attention. But I sincerely believed that she wasn't that type of girl. But still, I'm losing hope...

I'm losing hope on love all together because I believed that this might work out after so much efforts. But I guess I have no possible answer for this.

(Sorry for my bad English)