How To Lose Someone You Never Even Had At All

Treat love like a waiting room where the doctor never shows. Sit patiently and tell yourself they’re bound to call your name momentarily. Convince yourself that their clock might be slow or that maybe your watch was fast or that perhaps you got your appointment date wrong. Forget the fact that timing isn’t as important as we make it out to be when it comes to matters of the heart.

Be his friend even though you spend the night. Ask him how his day was and carry the conversations on your back, filling in the empty spaces and drawing ellipses where there should have been periods. Be interested but not interesting enough for him to consider asking how your own day was or to introduce to his friends.

Settle for breadcrumbs even though you’re starving. Say it’s enough even though you know you’re lying. Pretend you don’t notice the aching, the emptiness, the false hope. Pretend you don’t feel a thing at all. Pretend you don’t give a shit that he’s breaking your heart.

Put off the inevitable. Meet him for happy hour drinks on Fridays. Drown the lump in your throat with whiskey gingers and act as though you’re the cool girl you always wished you were, even though deep down you know you are not her and never will be.

Work up the courage to ask him what you two are. Receive a wishy-washy response of, I like where we are now. Continue to wonder if his friends even know you exist. Continue to spend the night and not hear from him at all the next day. Continue to hope that this is something it just is not.

Become tired of your own bullshit. Become less enthralled by what ifs and become deeply aquatinted with what is. Become someone who is ready to accept the truth and break it off.

Text your goodbye. Receive no response.

And that is how you lose someone you never even had at all.