You know, people will say all kinds of things to you that you will believe when you trust them, and are meaningful to you, but are merely the product of their excitement for attention after some kind of dry spell. There's really no way to know what you're getting into when you develop feelings for someone.

I think most of us either know or have known what its like not to be able to get over someone. Whether we admit it or not.

I dealt with it the only sensible way and that is of course absolute refusal to trust another human being.

I wouldn't recommend that one...

Yeah, it took me 2 years to get over my ex...mostly because we were living together for 1 of those years. I am over her, but I still have not so much as had a date since then. I really gotta get out there...

Pretty much the same story with myself. It took me ages to get over one of my exes, we were together all throughout 2007 and the start of 2008 and although i've had girlfriends before her she was the first girl i felt i truly loved. I've gone out with 2 girls since and although i really liked both of them it just didn't feel the same.

I was almost married once. That was more than 6 years ago and I don't know that I'm "over it," in the sense that I still think about it pretty often and thinking about it can still hurt quite a bit.

But life just sort of goes on whether you want it to or not. And it inevitably changes.

^

Exactly. Accepting that change is inevitable is the key to getting through life. People get depressed because they can't get over the fact they can't control what happens in their lives. I found myself thinking far too much about the future when I was younger. When that future didn't pan out I would get really upset. The futures we plan never turn out that way...accepting that is the best thing I ever did.

You're a scientist FFS.

Whatever you planned isn't as good as that, unless you were planning to be a rock star.

^ Amen. Me too.

And the odd thing about it is that doing that actually gives you more control, or at least agency, in things that happen to you. It's easier to recognize a real opportunity when you let go of notions about what that opportunity is supposed to look like.

In terms of relationships, it gets easier. Heartache becomes manageable if you let it and--and this is a point my life across the past 15 years or so has beaten me over the head with repeatedly--you never know who's going to come along or what'll happen, you just have to be open to it.

Well, I'm awake after napping and sober again. Thanks to everybody who responded. I've been diagnosed with both depression and social anxiety disorder, and I'm not on meds for either because I want to find a way to deal with them myself without being reliant on drugs, so it's hard for me to connect to people or be very open. Sorry for being dramatic, I try not to be so emo usually.

It's good that you don't want to take pills for your depression, I know a few people who are on those and they say they either don't work or it makes them feel worse. Hope you get better.