Breaking It Off | Reflection

Sometimes, like leaves in the autumn, people can fall and drift apart from one another.

Yesterday, I forced myself to do something I had never done before: break up with someone. It might sound dramatic, but I almost feel as if being the one to break off a relationship is more difficult than being the person who's getting their heart "broken." The pain is different but still very much present.

Even though you're the person who has made the decision, coming to said decision is not an easy task. I dated this individual for over two months, hoping that prolonging our time together would help me to develop deeper feelings. Why was I so pressed to develop feelings, you may ask? Because this person was everything I could've wanted, at least on paper. Kind, thoughtful, generous, respectful, intelligent, fun, determined... and yes, even attractive. We shared nearly all of the same interests: Middle Eastern cuisine, hiking, scary movies, Rick Ross, and countless others. I thought he was perfect.

However, there was something distinctly lacking in our relationship. Friends described our dynamic as "boring," like an "old married couple" just going through the motions of being in a relationship, but lacking the passion and verve that I so desired as a 23-year-old not nearly ready to settle and be comfortable. For a while, I brushed this feeling of blandness to the back of my mind, attributing it to my residual, immature viewpoints on relationships and dating leftover from college. In college, I thrived off the uncertainty of knowing whether or not someone liked me. I longed for the chase, and maybe I was even a little masochistic in that I would always pursue those who were least likely to want a relationship.  

Therefore, once I finally found someone whose interest mirrored my own, I attributed my discomfort to the divergence between this proper dating timeline and my past romantic flings. I thought that, with time, I would learn to appreciate the relaxed nature of this new relationship and that it would be healthy for me to stick with someone like him, who treated me properly.

Two months later, though, and not much had changed regarding my feelings for him; in fact, I still found myself not really feeling anything for him. Don't get me wrong- he was wonderful, and I enjoyed spending time with him, but I would go days without talking to him and wouldn't miss it a bit. When he would hold my hand, I would almost find myself recoiling out of a lack of interest.

Finally, two nights ago, something happened that made my mind up: he texted me in the early hours of the morning, saying, "I miss you." And then it dawned on me: I didn't miss him. It wasn't fair for me to continue stringing him along while I tried to understand my own feelings for him (which, at this point, I had pretty much realized just weren't ever going to happen). It wasn't fair for me to push off seeing him for weeks, only to finally make a plan and try to make it as short of an outing as possible.

A few weeks ago, I made the big-girl decision to end things before they got any more intense. I called him and explained that I was in a transitional time period in my life and that getting into a relationship when I could move to another city at any point was probably a bad idea (all true). What I didn't mention was our lack of chemistry, as I felt that was too much of a hit to his ego. I know that, if someone told me they just weren't attracted to me, my feelings would be hurt.

So, I told the truth, just omitting certain details that could be spared. I told him how wonderful he was (and even acknowledged how cliche that sounded) and demonstrated my interest in remaining friends, but that I respected if he didn't feel the same.

Just proving what a wonderful man he really is, he said he would love to remain friends. Victory!

It's funny, because I always thought the hardest part of dating would be nerves or trust issues. Turns out, for me personally at least, the hardest part was figuring out my intentions with the person I was seeing and knowing when enough time had elapsed that a decision needed to be made regarding the future of our relationship. I wasn't making him a priority, but he was making me a priority. It took a lot for me to realize that I had to be the one to break things off, but in the long-run, I know I made the right decision.

How's that for adulting?