Edited by: Aanvi Chhiber
Step 1: Don’t date someone on campus.
Step 2: Too late? Okay, breathe. You’re not alone. Welcome. We have coffee, unhinged Spotify playlists, and A LOT OF TEA.
This is an emotionally unstable guide to surviving heartbreak in a campus smaller than your patience.
They don’t tell you this in orientation, but when you kinda-sorta-maybe-not-really date someone in a college the size of a shoebox, the real heartbreak begins after the heartbreak. Because you can’t just heal quietly. You have to heal performatively. Gracefully. Publicly. While being casually observed by his best friend’s lab partner’s cousin.
We didn’t even really date. Or maybe we did. Or maybe we were just emotionally entangled in a way that now feels embarrassing. Whatever it was, like any true “situationship” it crumbled in February.
Of course it ended in February. Because nothing screams “season of love” like a side character casually ripping out your heart and disappearing into the fog like some low-effort magician.
But it left behind something I couldn’t quite name:
Grief with no closure.
Heartbreak with no title.
And worst of all, no escape.
When we ended things in that poetic, character-defining month of February I thought I’d be sad, sure. But who was supposed to tell me that my gut saying it isn’t over it cannot be over was not leading up to a poetic reconciliation, I was about to enter an emotional escape room where the exits were invisible, and the walls all had his face.
Heartbreak then didn’t happen on that one random Sunday and it definitely didn’t happen in peace.
It happened On benches. Near the mess. Outside the library.
Everywhere he is.
Which is… everywhere.
The campus is approximately four steps wide so you don’t get a clean break or closure, you get casual sightings, weird eye contact, and a recurring urge to leap into shrubbery when you spot their backpack from 200 meters away.
I tried ignoring it at first. Walking with my head high and lips glossed,“I don’t even see you.”
But God and his mom knows I saw.
I saw him laughing too loudly, suddenly more social, surrounded by people who weren’t me.
Sometimes I catch myself holding my breath when I walk into a room, like I’m hoping the universe will have mercy this time and not throw him right in front of me.
Spoiler: the universe never has mercy.
Sometimes I’m fine.
Sometimes I genuinely don’t even notice him.
Sometimes I think I’ve spotted him when it’s just a guy with a similar walk and terrible taste in sneakers.
And other times, my heart does this annoying, traitorous thud that makes me feel seventeen and stupid again.
There are days I dress up more than I need to. Days I smile too wide. Days I talk louder than usual. Not because I care but because I don’t want him thinking I care.
Which, if you think about it, is basically the same thing. You’d think it’s a petty rom-com. But no, it’s just my Tuesday.
Sometimes I fantasize about disappearing. Or becoming hot enough that he spirals instead.
And sometimes, I do miss what almost was. I see him smiling and wonder how he’s not gutted like I am. It feels like he’s winning some invisible war with the charm intact, surrounded by people, while I’m in the corner pretending my third coffee of the day is enough to fill the gaping void (I HATE COFFEE BTW).
But closure isn’t a conversation. It’s a decision.
So I just cry and go on a hot girl walk like the healed woman I am trying so hard to be.
It’s weird.
How I’m healing, but also hyper-aware.
But mostly I’m tired.
Tired of plot twists I didn’t write, tired of bumping into a ghost that refuses to stay dead, tired of people thinking my heartbreak is their spectator sport. Even healing became performative. Like I had to prove I was “over it” so convincingly that maybe I’d actually believe it too.
Because as it turns out, healing doesn’t always look like a glow-up.
Sometimes it’s Silent. Stupid. Slow (by that I mean painfully slow).
Sometimes it’s just… surviving the week without crying in the laundry room.
But damn, I’m proud of myself (and you, don’t give up yet <3).
Because even on the days when I’m spiraling, I still show up with my emotional support lip balm (or orange), a banger playlist, and that one friend who says “you were too good for him anyway” before I even open my mouth.
Somewhere between dodging him and dodging my own feelings,
I am learning to laugh for myself again. I flirted back. Just once. He wasn’t even cute.
But the point is I remembered I can.
And for a second, I saw myself the way I wanted him to see me.
Untouchable. Interesting. A little dangerous.
I remembered I used to be fun.
Not soft-focus, candlelit, manic pixie fun.
Loud, Slightly chaotic, very alive, definitely too much fun.
Before I started shrinking myself into someone easier to like.
I still spiral. Still overshare. Still romanticize eye contact like I learned nothing.
And no, I’m not completely “over it.”
But I’m not under it, either.
I’m not checking and re-checking if he saw my story. I’m not replaying what-ifs like a side character in my own life.
Because maybe it isn’t about closure. Or revenge. Or running into him looking effortlessly perfect and saying something iconic.
Maybe it’s just… surviving.
Without looking back.
Without texting.
Without proving anything to anyone.
Except maybe to yourself.
And honestly? For now that’s enough.
And maybe he’ll never know that.
Maybe he’ll never see the nights I almost texted him, or the mornings I forced myself to forget.
Maybe he’ll never realise how loud silence can feel.
But that’s okay.
He doesn’t need to know.
Because I do.
And I’m finally learning that’s enough.Step 3: Romantic delusions aside, just remember he may haunt your campus, but you?
You haunt his ego.