I (24M) can’t seem to move on from my first love (22F) due to religious differences (I’m agnostic, she’s a Christian)

Hey everyone,

Throwaway for obvious reasons… I’m gonna be somewhat vague throughout so I don’t identify myself but let’s just say I’m a guy somewhere early-mid 20s in med school. I just need to vent and hopefully you guys can talk some sense into me, and of course there’s no better way to do this than to write an incoherent message to a choir of reddit users. I’m done scouring the forums for similar situations, and thought I’d provide my unique tragedy in a hope to somehow get through what has been an extremely emotionally tormenting few months. Can I just say I am fully aware this whole situation is stupid – we were “dating” for less than 48 hours, but please understand I am being sincere when I say I feel completely emotionally traumatised by it. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am, for whatever weird reason. Here we go.

Essentially there is this person in my medical rotation at the hospital who is genuinely wonderful; the perfect, sweetest affable gal you’ll ever meet (yes, I know you’re rolling your eyes but I’ve never felt this way before, which maybe is part of the problem here). Since the start of the year, pretty much the whole rotation (about 30 of us) began to ship us together – it made sense; we had similar interests. I’m a bit of a “nerd” type you could say and she clearly was attracted to that; I would often speak abouts my interests in philosophy and the arts and other quirky hobbies and she would listen eagerly. We’re both extremely driven academically and obviously I was attracted to her intelligence and funnily enough we have similar interests. Anyway, you know the story – essentially I’ve never really met someone who made me feel happy in this way, and appreciate me for who I am. But at this stage I really enjoyed her company as a friend, and didn’t really have any thoughts about a relationship.

Anyway, one night the rotation went out for dinner and basically all of her friends in a not-so-subtle way hinted to me that she was crushing on me big time. I sort of knew this; she had said some things prior to the event that made me think she was into me (like not even subtle in some instances…). I made it clear to the others that I was very unsure about it all as I knew she was quite religious (I didn’t know to what extent though). I don’t often talk about my religious beliefs because I know how personal and important religion is to many people, but I definitely didn’t make it a secret that I wasn’t exactly the religious type if that makes sense, and so she definitely would have known this. So I guess I thought maybe it wasn’t going to be an issue for us. Her friends certainly would have told her that I never gave off the “religious church-going vibes”. I certainly don’t care what people believe – to me, someone is attractive because of who they are and their actions, not what ideological viewpoint or spiritual connection they have with a higher power. The others all said “no it’s fine, she’s not that religious”. Anyway that night I broke the ice, took her aside and I asked her out, starting the whole conversation off with something to the effect of “Hey I really like you – I know you’re religious though so I want to be upfront with you and say I’m not”. And despite this, she was totally keen on us getting together and going out and had been waiting for me to ask her out. And I immediately became infatuated with her like nothing else. Before that night I reckon we would have stayed as friends and none of this would have ever happened. We sat and spoke for hours, had a whole dinner date planned and we spoke about all sorts of topics, our shared interests in movies, TV, etc. I was truly happy for 48 hours of my life. I felt like I finally met someone who understood me, who could laugh with me. And actually listen to what I had to say. I don’t think I’ve ever been truly in love until that night.

And then 48 hours later I get a phone call from her. She’s in tears but essentially said that it’s best we break things off because both of us are going to get hurt. Because I wasn’t a Christian. And it broke me – I have too much respect for her so of course I said “I respect your decision and while I’m upset this is the way things have gone, it’s probably better now than later”. But immediately following that call I was broken.

Yes, I know what you’re going to say- that I dodged a bullet or “better now than later”. Yes, yes, I know. It’s what I’ve been telling myself. But this has completely shattered me. Especially because she has made it clear she wants to maintain a close friendship with me despite all of this. Like still wants to go out and do things together like go to the movies together etc. but just as “friends”. What’s even worse is every day I go to university, lectures or hospital I see her beautiful smiling face and I just feel a sense of complete injustice. Why should it matter what I believe or don’t believe? I’m in love with her, not her religion. She has no intention of converting me, nor do I have intention of converting her – hell, my parents are athiest/christian lovers. I know Freud’s probably looking down and thinking “god you’re just growing up and marrying your mother”. And yes, maybe I’m actually attracted to her faith to an extent – I wish I could believe in a higher power; that someone’s watching over us all in times of great stress. I don’t find that a compatibility flaw, on the contrary it’s something I genuinely admire. I just personally cannot get myself to believe that. I think it forces me to reflect on my viewpoints and empathise those of others – life’s boring if you only hang around people with the same views as yourself. Maybe it’s why I happen to end up making friends with a lot of the Christians at uni aha even though I’m not at all religious – because I find religion and spirituality (at least from a philosophical/psychological point of view), quite fascinating. From an academic, studies of religion POV.

Anyway, she’s in the same rotation, and everyone in the entire rotation knows about the situation. Not that anyone has yet dared to bring it up, which is somehow worse. So you can imagine the awkwardness there for a while when everyone saw us both talk that night. She’s clearly torn between her true desires for a relationship and what her religious conviction has been. I respect her too much to want to get between that. But it just sucks. Every time I think I’ve moved on, I see her at the hospital and I feel like I’m a bad person – that I’m morally bankrupt because I don’t have a “deep connection with Jesus” that she clearly wants me to have. She’ll try and be nice and still invite me to do things because she knows I really like her – and she’s made it clear (and I think it’s genuine) that she’s really attracted to me. But I guess I’m so scared of losing her, so I am doing everything I can to be nice to her so I can maintain a friendship without saying anything stupid like “I love you”. Some days I am happy with us just being friends, and then she’ll do something so wonderfully cute and immediately the sense of injustice comes back at why we can’t be a thing. I sort of want her to hate me as it’d make things easier to move on from, but I know she doesn’t hate me. Clearly this is hurting her too, and she keeps mentioning to me in person that she values me as a very close friend.

We also sort of share friend-groups which makes things even more harder. Why do I feel like a bad person for not being a Christian? Why do I feel morally inferior? She keeps telling me that it’s not my fault, and that she doesn’t think I’m a bad person. It’s just that Jesus is important to her. Much to my own surprise and to the amusement of my largely secular group of friends, I’ve honestly had thoughts about converting to Christianity to be with her, but I know that’s silly. Not that I’ve really spoken to her about this (as I wanted to respect her decision at the start without being difficult), I honestly don’t see any issue with going to church with her, or even raising children who go to church as long as it’s not didactically thrusted onto them. Hell, I’m not at all religious but I do actually respect many of the cultural aspects of marriage and church life etc. (church organs are pretty cool let’s be real). But again, we never really got the chance to talk this through because like I said it was called off 48 hours after it all happened. I really do want to keep her as a friend, as she is honestly one of the few people in my life that makes me feel happy and listens to me. I’m scared to bring my true feelings up with her, because if she thinks I haven’t moved on (which may or may not be true) it may well end the friendship. Which is just a frightening prospect because she’s actually one of the nicest persons you’ll ever meet – and by no means would anyone ever render who as the “bible bashing Southern type”. She’s quiet about all of that. But she does go to Church every Sunday, so maybe I underestimated how religious she really is. At the bottom of my heart is a belief that we will get together at some point; I know from others she’s spoken to she’s really torn about it all, so it’s not like she’s completely rejected me. Which is why this is harder – there’s this tiny hope which I’m clinging to. But I don’t know whether this is going to just prolong the pain. I don’t know whether I should try and discuss religion with her, or whether this is a futile task and may send her the message that I haven’t moved on? And then things are gonna be ever-the-more-so painful as we see each other every single day for the rest of the year.

Like I said, it’s been a few months now. It all doesn’t make much sense – we’ve actually never been on a date. And yet I feel like we’ve been dating for months. Love is so damn confusing. It’s my first “relationship”, if you can even call it that, and I guess part of the pain is realising that I’m going to continue to be single for the inevitable future. I don’t really know what to do, and I seem to keep cycling through the different stages of grief. I’m sorry, I’m just still terribly upset by it all, particularly because I have never ever come this close to romance in my life before (I can assure you I will score above you in the Rice Purity test) despite really yearning for a loving relationship for many, many years. Rant over. Somehow this was therapeutic.

TDLR: We’re both medical students in the same hospital rotation. I’m agnostic, she’s a Christian. We both are attracted to each other very much, but she called things off because I don’t have a connection with Jesus. Despite it being many months since this all happened, I’m still emotionally shattered by it all and can’t seem to move on nor accept why we can’t be a thing. Especially because she has made it clear she wants to maintain a very close, “special” friendship with me – and I do too, because I’m so scared of losing her. But I don’t know if this is just going to continue to torment me.