I hate the term “hanging out”—you’re either together or you’re not, for goodness’ sake! I hate it even more thanks to a loser I dated who broke up with me after six months saying that we’d just been “hanging out” and we were never serious. Really? Could’ve fooled me, dude!
1. I FEEL LIKE I WASTED MONTHS OF MY LIFE THAT I’LL NEVER GET BACK.
I mean, come on, how do you date someone for six months and then tell them that you actually weren’t anything serious? I felt so used and manipulated. The worst thing is, I’ll never be able to get that time I wasted “hanging out” with him back.
2. IF HE LIKED IT, HE SHOULD’VE DEFINED IT.
I now see how important it is to verbally define the relationship—I need to know that the guy’s on the same page as me. I can’t make assumptions because clearly, guys can be totally crazy. This guy and I never actually had The Talk or anything but maybe if we had, I could’ve bolted when I realized we wanted different things.
3. HE ACTED LIKE HE WAS MY BOYFRIEND.
I can’t blame myself for everything here. It’s not like I was delusional—he really acted like he was crazy about me so I just thought we had to be a couple. I mean, why else would he be so keen to be with me? Ugh, I was so naive!
4. I EXPECTED CLASS FROM A CLOWN.
I really thought that the guy would’ve been decent enough to tell me that he wanted to break up. Why did he have to pretend that this wasn’t even a breakup because we’d just been “hanging out”? Talk about adding salt to my wounds! I started to doubt everything about our relationship because he was acting like we hadn’t even had one.
5. MY DOUBTS ABOUT HIM SNOWBALLED AND IT ALMOST DROVE ME CRAZY.
I started to fear other things. Had we been exclusive? I’d only been dating him, but what if he was dating lots of other women at the same time? I was too afraid to ever ask him and was just glad that we’d always used protection.
6. WE’D BEEN INTIMATE IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.
Our intimacy hadn’t just been about sex—it was also about emotional intimacy. I’d opened myself up to trust guys again and then he played this game on me. Ugh. It really made me feel like crap to know that we’d been so close to each other and it had probably all been fake on his side.
7. I WISH I’D REALIZED EARLIER WHAT A LOSER HE WAS.
There’s no doubt about it: this guy was a total loser. He was obviously also a commitment-phobe who hoped to keep things casual and chilled because he was too much of a man-child to have anything real. I felt like a loser to be told I’d been nothing to him, but he was the biggest loser of them all.
8. HE WAS TOO MUCH OF A COWARD TO BE HONEST WITH ME.
You know, maybe he never told me he wanted to keep things chilled because he knew I wouldn’t have been into having that kind of relationship. From the beginning, I told him that I wanted to have something real and serious and he just went along with it instead of saying he wasn’t feeling it. There’s nothing worse than a guy who says he loves you and then acts like he didn’t mean it or the love wasn’t real. It’s so immature and pathetic. This guy needed to man up!
9. HE WAS TOXIC AF AND I DODGED A BULLET.
If my ex went around saying we’d just been “hanging out,” it would’ve given the impression that we’d been moving towards a relationship but never actually had one. Great. Thinking about this made me feel like I’d been a horrible GF or something, but I know that’s BS. He was the toxic one—he made me believe he was an amazing boyfriend for as long as it was convenient for him to do so.
10. HE TOOK THE EASY WAY OUT.
I guess claiming that everything was casual between us made it so much easier for him to cut his losses and GTFO. He might even have thought it was a way to put me down gently, without realizing that it hurt so much worse than if we’d had a real breakup. At least then I could’ve dealt with giving myself closure instead of having a ton of questions and no straight answers!
11. I HAVE SOME PRETTY MAJOR TRUST ISSUES WITH GUYS NOW.
I thought I could trust his actions but they were probably all lies. What the hell was I supposed to believe about this guy and what can I believe about guys in future? It seems that watching what guys do isn’t guaranteed to reveal their characters—some guys are such fakers.
12. I HAD TO TAKE MY BAGGAGE AND GO.
The worst thing was that I was left with all the pain of our breakup. Meanwhile, he was able to move on so quickly without it—how great for him. The breakup was so tough on me and it took me months to get over it. The one thing that pulled me through it was the relief that he’d left. It would’ve been so much worse if he’d continued his facade for longer.
By Giulia Simolo for Bolde