I think it’s fair to say that it’s easy to fall into “the One” trap whenever you first start dating someone. The beloved “honeymoon stage” sends crazy amounts of endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin to your brain and makes you feel like the happiest you’ve ever been. You could never imagine yourself loving someone else because this happiness and excitement is so surreal that you believe that no one else could ever make you feel the same way.
Our first loves come in all different shapes, sizes, and times in our lives. Sometimes you could be lucky enough to be a success story where your first love is also your last love. However, 9 times out of 10 that isn’t the case. I think everyone hopes that the person they are currently dating is going to be the one they spend forever with, and I thought my last boyfriend was going to be the one without a doubt.
We started dating in high school and were together for the better part of five years. The first three years were pretty blissful. We had the same friend group, could always find a way to make the other one laugh, and we never got sick of each other. I thought I was set for the rest of my life, but then college came around and everything changed.
Life got busier, we were finding different interests, and the phone calls became shorter and the texting got briefer. All of the sudden my “perfect guy” wasn’t seeming so perfect. We communicated the way we were feeling pretty well, and we worked to better our relationship all the time. Then I realized that love was something that couldn’t be forced, and after months of trying to fix something that had evolved too greatly, we finally called it quits in September of 2018.
I’ve had some time to reflect on why I was trying to force something that I knew wasn’t the right thing for either of us. I was unhappy, but I thought I could fix it and shape it back into what it was when we were 17. However, people grow and have the ability to grow apart, but I was obsessed with the idea of him being the one and I was ready to fight to keep that idea alive. In the long run I realized that all of that fighting probably hurt us more, and that it’s okay to be wrong when it comes to that kind of thing.
There is no way to predict where relationships will go or what they will turn into. It’s just important to do what makes you happy, and if you think that you can rekindle the spark then I highly encourage it. Fight for what you believe in and what you want, but don’t make it ultimately self-sacrificing, and please don’t become fixated on someone being the one. It’s okay for these life plans to fall apart because that means that there is so much more to come.
I am currently in a relationship that fully allows me to be myself, and not have to worry about those plans. He encourages me to live for today, and has informed me that planning too far in advance is a good way to take away from the now. Just remember: when everything seems like it’s falling apart, it’s probably just everything else falling into place.