How do you get over someone you never dated?

33 comments

1. What have you tried doing, what do you think you should do?

2. Went through the exact same situation. What I tried to do was to focus on other things such as hanging out with friends more often, working on new projects, and finding new hobbies. It took a while but after a week I managed to forget about them and focus on other things.
   Hope my advice can help you out a bit.

3. By realizing that the *feelings* may have been one-sided. Maybe he just thought you were nice but didn’t think beyond that.

   A lot of us, male or female go through one-sided fantasizing about someone we know and wished we knew even better. This doesn’t mean it can never amount to anything either– I don’t want to take away your hope, but maybe if he is more interested in talking to others, you simply overestimated what the mutual connection was earlier.

   On a positive note there were people I *talked* *to* in high-school, that wasn’t really friends, that I matched with on Tinder a few years later lol. I get that maybe that’s just a social nicety of Tinder but I thought that was funny and I started fantasizing again even if I lived like 2 cities away.

4. I don’t get it he likes you now but you want to move on? Why?

5. I might seem too insensitive with this, but…

   Okay so, you need to understand you will go through many of these through life.
   Then, accept the fact that whether you are sad/mad/overthinking or anything else it’s not going back or changing.
   Find a hobby to make your self forget or just move on and stop caring about it.

6. You could look up the term “Limerence” and see if it resonates with you. I’d recommend the youtube channel “crappy childhood fairy” for this 🙂 best of luck to you

7. Easy, ask them out, if they say no, then congrats you’re over them!

8. Nearly all of the “relationships” I’ve had weren’t real relationships. Just one sided affections and feelings towards someone who never reciprocated. It hurts every time. But the best to do is move on. Focus on your job, school, hobby or friends. Allow yourself the opportunity to meet someone new & don’t focus on someone who maybe didn’t want you. I’m currently going through this. Got my heart broken again, so I’m trying to go out as much as possible, be as social as can be & hopefully just have fun & maybe meet someone new… not think about or focus on someone who never shared those feelings for me.

9. You never dated them. The idea in your mind is you deluding yourself.

10. I’ve been in this situation for 6 years now lol. I don’t think I’ll get over it. I just made it my reason to improve myself.

    I haven’t seen her in 3 years…

11. I’m sorry I don’t have any specific advice but i just wanted to say you aren’t alone. I found a girl who i ended up liking. She was a huge motivation for me to improve myself and get better. A few months ago, i found she found someone else. I was happy for her but still crushed. It’s still really stupid to talk to someone about it because i didn’t really know her and I felt dumb getting a serious crush when i’m 28. Being in the situation you’re in, i hope you find someone else 🙂

12. I had this exact situation and the only thing that worked was cutting them off. I told him exactly how I felt and what it was like being repeatedly led on and told him I couldn’t do it anymore. Went no contact for 3-4 months and then the feelings went away completely. We’re on good terms now but we’re more acquaintances than friends at this point.

13. Try to focus on his flaws in order to get over him.
    Assume the worst from him, for example thinking he liked you in the beginning doesn’t do you any good.

14. Analyze him through a more human perspective. We tend to look at crushes through these perfect lenses. Look for the stuff you don’t like about him and focus on that. Pretty soon you’ll be over him. Like I used to be all into this girl until someone pointed out that she had a big head and now I look at her as this big headed girl. Not even into her anymore.

15. Look up for the word “fatuation” i learn it after watching “the beach” if you can find the quote, so much better

16. Going through the same thing now with a friend I liked and we kissed once but she’s seeing someone else… it’s especially hard because we are good friends and talk all the time so I can’t really just cut clean and move on or anything.

17. Yeah I know how this feels. Developed a few crushes before and I was too emotionally involved not realizing how one-sided it was. It took me about months to a year to get over this person (or at least how I had him idealized in my head.). It screws up with your mind having second guesses or imagining what if scenarios with him/her. At some point it became an unhealthy obsession and a form escapism of mine just to ignore the fact I was trying to compensate being lonely. Distance made it possible in getting over it. In the end, I just felt sorry for myself for feeling hurt. I just woke up one day and just decided it wasn’t worth it and did everything I could to distance myself such as unfollowing his socials and just focused on other things. It sure was hard at first but I learned to be more forgiving of myself. Healing just takes time. Like everything else, all the hurt and all these emotions are all temporary. Life’s too short to worry about them anyway.

18. I liked this girl a few years ago, but I finally realized she wasn’t interested in me, so I needed to move on. I removed her from my social media so I didn’t see her at all. That seemed to help. All the best. 🙂

19. Try to focus on anything about them that made you cringe even a little. That helps me a lot.

20. Johnny Depp said this the best: “You were a made up thing in my head, Amber”.

    You’re worthy of love, but this is not it. It’s a figment of your imagination. Your person is out there, waiting to meet you. Go find them!

    Hope that helps.

21. I’ve had 4 situations like this in my life where I found myself madly obsessed/infatuated with someone that did not reciprocate or was not available… and the solution for myself is usually to reframe it thusly:

    “I am not in love with this person… because they do not reciprocate my feelings. I am not missing out on being in love with them, because it was never going to happen without their consent. I, however; desire to show love toward this person. That means I affirm their healthy relationships/healthy singleness and behave appropriately towards them while rooting for their success. Under no circumstances is my disappointment their fault or their problem. I can find them attractive without needing that feeling to go somewhere.”

    Being able to be attracted to someone without doing anything about it is a sign of emotional maturity. People every day encounter others they find attractive that for one reason or another are not appropriate for them to pursue. The sooner you can build the skill of self-control and what the non-monogamous call “compersion” (meaning happiness for someone you care for because they are well-loved by someone else)… the closer you’ll be to having really fulfilling relationships with everyone… not just potential partners.

22. You’ve feelings for him but also assume that he has for you too. We do this assumption games to play safe and not risk opening up about it. If you like him then ask him to join you over a coffee. If he can’t come then ask if there’s a day where he’d like to reschedule it and if he tries to dodge the question in any way then he likes you as a friend and not more than that.

23. Cringe about it, helped a lot lol

24. As cliché as it sounds, I had experienced this… but I focused on myself and kept putting myself out there, now I’m with someone who is immeasurably better and also wants me as much as I want her.

    Keep going, it will take time but belief in yourself is where it starts!

25. Time and finding someone else

26. Take deep breaths and repeat until your heart calms down… “He is just a fictional character… He is perfect but he doesn’t exist ❗”

27. Found someone better.

28. Bro I was having delusions from medication. Because of quarantine, I had no idea that everything that was happening was just inside my head. Erotomanic delusions are so crazy to have because it feels so real.

    I will state that therapy helps and depression isn’t uncommon regardless of how someone else felt about you, because your emotions were real. Perhaps you can also consider a low dose of an antidepressant to help get your life back together and enjoy life again.

    Lastly, I would also recommend not even looking in that person’s direction. Don’t let them occupy any of your mind, don’t look them up on line, learn to move on. Even if you don’t want to, start going to the gym regularly, or find an activity that you can regularly do that requires you to focus on other things. For example, I started hitting the gym pretty hard when I started to come back to reality. (I’m skinny and 5’3″ and put on 20 lbs of muscle) I also signed up for an 8 week acting class that forced me to learn a new skill in a healthy new environment.

29. The brain loves to fantasize about scenarios that aren’t likely to ever happen. Like winning the lottery or dating your celebrity crush or living in your dream home. It’s just brain chemistry creating wants. You’ll find someone else some day and you’ll be glad nothing ever came of this if you can even remember it by then.

30. Bruh this is literally me with a girl from like 6 months ago, I literally cannot get over her 🫠

31. Listen to your gut!! You said in another comment that as soon as he senses you losing interest, he comes back? That’s a red flag. It means that he is good with you — as long as you keep him at arm’s distance. As soon as you open up to him and try to have an emotionally nourishing, nurturing relation with him (as I’m sure you’ve been hoping and wanting for) he will burn you and he will run again. He is what they call, someone who is “emotionally unavailable”. That is, they don’t want intimacy (especially an emotional way). So you now have a duty to yourself.

    How do you get over it? By realizing that the fantasy/hopes you had, although well-intended, will not be done justice by somebody who’s as finicky, on-and-off, hot-and-cold as he is. It is an insult to and disrespecting of your hopes and aspirations with him. And it happened at a time that you didn’t know him (his character) too well outside of just him liking you.

    As you say, you may have liked him and he may have liked you. But if there is no consistency or deepening, or more importantly, a sense of pursuit by him that is considerate and respectful of you, then he is insulting you by showing up again and again. He is only showing up to take your attention, with no intent of giving. He is assuming you are ok with all this, in the same way he is ok with it. And that is not a good foundation to set intimacy on. So your jealousy or upset is not unfounded. It actually indicates your values and standards. As I said earlier, you !now have a duty to yourself.

    It seems you know you want to move on despite him now liking you. It’s a good thing to act on. Mourn and grieve what you couldn’t have, and unfortunately had high hopes for. Give yourself the time to mourn and the permission to mourn. The second thing I would suggest is be emotionally available to yourself. By mourning/grieving but also by respecting your standard, boundaries, and values — because he sure as hell isn’t. Whether he led you on or whether you may have unwittingly led yourself on, forgive yourself and slowly pick up the pieces of yourself. Give yourself the respectable time, space, and distance to do this. Don’t let him interfere in this healing process by taking up your energy, attention etc. Take it slow. Heal first and then moving on from him will come naturally.

    Edit: added things

32. In my experience, this tends to happen when both people like each other, but neither acts on it *(creating this perpetual pull for the both of you)*. It’s almost like an episodic TV series that you can’t help but tune into each week to see what happens. And so the both of you become permanently stuck on the other’s mind.

    I had this with a girl whom I suspected of liking me. She was, I kid you not, a literal supermodel. And so it was a massive stroke to my ego when I suspected she liked me…

    But instead of moving on I became engrossed in the development of what was happening. I wanted to see if she’d try anything each time I saw her. So I became unconsciously more conscientious of her. And thus I inadvertently began to think about her all the time…

    And the reason it becomes as addictive as crack is because developments do typically happen. In my case, her saying hi to me every time she saw me, or blushing, or looking away whenever I’d look up at her like a shy little girl. One time she began choking on her own food because she was eating when I appeared out of nowhere and she felt she needed to say hello and grab my attention.

    It was all so utterly adorable and addictive. But part of me was also expecting her to ask me out *(which didn’t happen)*. Before long, I eventually confided in people that I liked her. And I suspect they told her. Because she only became more obvious that was she was into me… And would go out of her way to talk to me.

    Every single one of our interactions was incredibly awkward. But we were both utterly obsessed with each other. And somehow waiting for the other to make their move…

    We ended up in this state of purgatory for three long years before she finally went to South America to study for 6 months. And it must have helped to clear me out of her system… Because a few short months after she returned she began dating some lawyer.

33. I am in a simmilar situation as you are. I have been crushing on this girl for years now, we have been friends throughout the wholle time we know each other, but i never said anything cause she had a boyfriend, and it wasn’t my place to say anything. This year, she finally broke up with that boyfriend, so one day, my balls finally grew(maybe cause i was a little intoxicated) and i told her how i feel. I told her that i liked her for a long time and thought we had a vibe between us and that i thought she liked me back. Sadly, she said she only sees me as a friend, and that she doesn’t have those same feelings towards me.

    ​

    Of course i was crushed at first, but it did get a little bit easier, to live with that. I still have feelings for her. We also still hang out, and ofcourse her hugs are top tier. I try to not have hope that anything will happen between us, since we talked about it, but i cant help it sometimes.

    ​

    But i really do wish her well. And if she doesn’t see herself with me, i hope that she finds someone who will make her insanly happy, which would alse make me happy.