Making a genuine connection with someone is not something that comes along every day. Anyone that has been in the dating game for more than a few months knows the difference between a genuine connection and a solid candidate for a one night stand. There is nothing more frustrating than wanting to like someone but when it comes down to it, there isn’t enough there to keep both parties interested.
Making a connection with someone is super rare and twice as exciting. The problem with really getting to know someone and finding out that you fit well with each other, makes things 10 times more difficult to break off the relationship, for whatever reason. When you have to part ways with someone you really like, it’s never easy for either party to accept that it’s over and to move on. We all go through our phases of mourning the relationship that was or what could have been, pick ourselves up and carry on… or we dwell.
Dwelling, happens to the best of us and it’s never easy for anyone, especially your friends that have to listen to it non stop until you finally get over it. But what are we really dwelling on? The two months you texted someone everyday? The two unofficial dates you went on? You could be reminiscing about the way he tousled his hair in the morning or the way she kissed your forehead every night before bed. But after being a couple months removed you are no longer thinking of the individual, you are musing on the idea of that person, and those are two very different things.
To be clear, if you like someone, you like just about everything there is about them. The way they chew, the way they laugh, the fact that they like pineapple on their pizza and control the aux cord at every party. And when you break up, you start to focus on the things you didn’t like (or the things you loved and continue to be sad about) The point is, every time you see them you still recognize all of the feelings you had for them and the qualities you could never get enough of.
Liking the idea of someone is a little different, when you think of them you think of all the things you like and all of the things that could potentially be. How they would probably rub your back before bed and would probably have the best time on double dates with your best friends. When things are cut short or you just aren’t ready to accept things for the way that they are, we tend to focus on the possibilities and not the realities. So much so, that when we actually encounter this person after in depth discussions about how things could be with your closest and least judgemental friends, you realize that you don’t even recognize the person to be the person you thought you were obsessing over.
It’s fine to see someone for their potential but if the relationship didn’t work out, it was probably for a reason and you most likely dodged a bullet. So appreciate that person you had a connection with and move along to a person that you will actually like more than an idea.