Everyone experiences, at least once in their life (if you’re lucky!), an unshakeable attachment to a specific person they never actually dated. The confused, tangled month-long situationship. The one-date delirium. Or perhaps the most excruciating of all: the “friend” who existed in the hazy line between platonic and something more. No exclusivity, certainly no labels, and technically, no real breakup.
So why can the feeling of such a disconnected reality be more stubborn than that of a real relationship?
WHAT THE REAL THING LOOKS LIKE
As someone currently in a long-term relationship, it’s easy for me to report on what the real thing looks like: the presence of love in reality, the freedom in imperfection, and the irritations that come with partnership. Even the pernickety habits and the teacup stains on every surface, which you learn to love as the person you imagined at the beginning slowly reveals themselves to be a human being, with their own very human flaws and endearing quirks. This exposure to the highs and lows of another person is really what differentiates an almost-relationship to a real one.
When I reflect on past experiences, I struggle to recall dates (both dinner and calendar), feelings, and conversations with old love interests. But one feeling will forever remain visceral: the crushing infatuation that follows the unfinished, imperfect end of a “fling.” I’m sure it has made its way into all of our hearts at least once.
THERE’S A NAME FOR IT
As it turns out, psychology has a name for this intense, involuntary, and slightly pathetic emotional state: limerence. So next time you find yourself replaying micro-moments with that person, obsessively stalking their social media, or fixating on an idea of them you can’t evict from your mind, take comfort. You have an excuse.
Unfortunately, the almost-relationship feeds limerence its favourite thing: uncertainty.
the blank space
Untitled situations leave a lot of blank space for your imagination to take over. A friend of mine suggested that we become “stuck thinking about a fleeting experience due to the idea of what we might have had… should the stars have aligned.” That explains why, when confusion and uncertainty infiltrate a romantic scenario, even the smallest happenings seem monumental, and suddenly you’re hung up on what could have been.
Perhaps this is where the idea of someone begins to overpower their reality. Romanticised daydreaming can lead to a mental pit of over-fantasised half-truths, while the real person and their flaws become a distant concept.
Unlike a real partner, the person you almost dated never had enough time to establish themselves in your life in a truly human and honest way. Their irritating habits, incompatibilities, and disappointing behaviours never had the chance to unveil themselves, and so they stay conveniently concealed. Instead, we’re left to dream about the could-haves and would-haves, and naturally, we tend to be rather sympathetic and generous authors.
the unfinished story
The ending of an almost-relationship gives us the chance to replay a thousand idealised scenarios in our heads, imagining the so-called “perfect person” as a committed and loving partner.
Psychologists offer an interesting parallel in the Zeigarnik effect, a famous idea in psychology that unfinished tasks stick in your mind more than finished ones. Unfinished romances may work the same way. That would offer a possible explanation for why our minds choose to grieve those undefined feelings and memories: the pull of possibility, and the absence of exposure to flaws.
Whilst psychology gives us reasoning, maybe the truth is simpler. The people we never dated are the hardest to forget because we never got close enough to discover whether we wanted them to stay. So they stay anyway, filed away in the archive, written by the most generous authors they’ll ever have.