How did people get over this? They obviously did. Every day someone fell in love with the wrong person and had to pack up all their fragile, misguided hopes and unwanted affection, and move on.

—Josh Lanyon Perfect Day

Well, no, healthy people get over this. There are a lot of people who are not healthy. While, sure, a lot of these people who fail to get over such common mishaps are raging misogynist douchebags who think women owe them sexual favors just because they exist, some of us are really just failed human beings who never grew up, whose souls are just atrophying, decaying. Waiting for extinction.

And so you remember feeling what you thought was love, only now you’re wise enough to recognize that it’s nothing like love, it’s just a twisted, narcissistic simulacrum of love, and even then, you can’t help but think “That’s the last time I’m ever going to feel like that.” The last time you’re ever going to think that everything was going to be all right. The last time you’re going to hope.

She doesn’t owe you anything. You know that. You’ve known that for a long, long time. And yet, that corrupted feeling, that deranged emotion, is the best you can do. After that, it’s all distrust and avoidance and realizing you’re never going to actually fall in love, and that no one is ever going to love you, at least not in that way (whatever delusional way you imagine “that way” actually is.) Because you’re a failed human being that never grew up, and all you’ve got to look forward to is that last day when it finally stops hurting forever.