It was eleven months. Three hundred and thirty five days. Thirty days until one solid full year. That’s how long my last relationship lasted. It just happened to be one of my longest relationships, and the most detrimental.

I don’t talk much about the relationship - well that’s a lie. I talk about it constantly. But I don’t really give my true true thoughts on the matter.

Fact: I ended the relationship.
Lie: I was over it first.

It wasn’t a healthy relationship, but that has no indication on how much I miss it, not the person. The person just happened to come with the relationship. Let’s call this person Max.

I met Max my first year at college. We lived in the same hall. We started dating three days after officially meeting. I broke up with Max a month before our one year.

Max has erased me from existence.

I don’t mean this hypothetically. We both eat in the same dining hall. I see Max, but Max continues to walk and never glances twice at me. The day of my 20th birthday, Max stopped acknowledging my existence. I see Max in the halls, between the tables, moving on with life. Max got new glasses, thick rimmed like my own. The eyes behind those thick rims skim right over my existence. I have become a ghost in my own home.

I tried to convince myself I was over Max. I signed up for Tinder and OkCupid. I went on dates. I hooked up with strangers, developing feelings as they were already onto the next match. It wasn’t until those I met started to stand me up before we met (two years into using these apps), that I realized that I was better than this. I was better than all of these horny adults who were just looking for someone to stem their own loneliness for a couple of hours. I AM better than someone who will date someone out of desperation.

This is something newly discovered and you need to come to this understanding on your own. I wouldn’t listen to others until I pried the cloth from my own eyes.

I deleted the apps from my phone. Now my phone was happy because it has more room, but my Netflix isn’t as I have started to binge more TV shows.

Am I still bothered by the fact that Max’s eyes glaze over me? Completely. I see him and I freeze. No matter how the relationship ends and if we remain together at the end, we need to not be afraid of starting afresh. We have an opportunity to find new relationships. We can stretch our legs in public. And we need to remember, people will lead you on. But there are others who will help that emptiness. We need to not give up.