Let me start with me saying hello to all of the wonderful people on this site, I’m 21 years old and have had a history of being a “romantic.” Recently (Early August 2018) I had just gotten out of a 3 year relationship with someone I was planning on marrying. The rest of August was pretty difficult, I focused on the positives, I surrounded myself with my friends (grew up as an anti-social person but craved interaction and someone to talk to) and went to the gym at least 3 times a week. September is where things got difficult, I started binge drinking and noticed that for the last week (and some change) I was drunk every night, I took it upon myself to be sober for the entire month of October, I did it successfully and I can comfortably say that as I’m typing this I haven’t had any inclination to repeat this. However, October is where it all began. This girl was in one of my classes, she is kind, compassionate, really cares about others and had an enchanting smile. We had developed a friendship by just being classmates, but I felt myself becoming attracted to her. She invited me and our other friend to her Halloween party, that’s where I met her boyfriend. We became close after another party (we shared one of those deep talks that go into the night) and that’s where my feelings rooted. We were going to go barhopping one night with some of her friends and when we arrived all of her friends had left because they got too drunk too quick. So it was just us that night, we came home and were both pretty drunk and so we curled up on her couch and started watching Netflix. We both were pretty tired so I lied down and she lay next to me while I held her. Then we kissed. She told me that earlier in that day she broke up with her boyfriend, and I should have stopped. She needed space and time to go through the stages of breakup. I needed that too. She knew that, but neither of us listened. As time progressed we became more intimate and we shared things about ourselves that are usually things that you would tell someone when you have developed a deeper relationship, be it romantic or platonic. We never made our relationship official, we were pretty clear with each other that we weren’t exclusive. That didn’t bug me because I knew deep down we should be taking time and being slow. Fast forward to now, we have officially ended our intimate relationship and are focusing on ourselves (something we should have done from the beginning) and being friends. I cried harder at this then I did when me and my 3 year broke up. This new girl knows so much about me, and I just hurt whenever I think about her. I can’t help but feel as though I have lost a friend, even though I know I haven’t, and it hurts to think she will see other men.

TLDR; I never took an appropriate amount of time to recover from my 3 year, and I became attached way too quickly to someone that I feel as though we will never be together after today, and it hurts.