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It’s Not Your Fault He Doesn’t Love You
There are worse things than heartbreak.
“You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”
— Cheryl Strayed
I keep wondering what I did wrong that the boy I’ve crushed on for a few years never viewed me as anything more than a friend. Even through a period of ghostings and maybe a few sentences at a time in messages, I thought we had so much in common that he was bound to experience deeper feelings for me at some point.
It never happened.
I could talk about his favorite TV shows, commiserate over his most-read books, and marvel at how alike we were — but none of that ever changed the friend-deep waters we traversed. Even in a pandemic, when people found their relationships strained or strengthened due to the odds, I saw that he pulled away more and more, to the point that he was dating without me even hearing a word about it.
(I guess we weren’t as close as I thought we were.)
But at the end of the day I know one thing: I might have been perfect for him on paper, but that assessment of mine didn’t mean a thing if he didn’t feel the…
