How to Get Over Someone You Never Dated

It’s a unique kind of pain that feels almost shameful to admit: You’re struggling to get over someone you never dated. Whether you were in a situationship that dragged on for months without commitment or you fell in love with someone after a casual fling, you now feel the very real sting of heartbreak while mourning a relationship that never actually took off. 

Perhaps you still think about them daily while they have moved on. Maybe every person you meet fails to measure up to the intense chemistry you felt with them. And it’s driving you crazy. Here are a few steps to take to mend your heart and turn your pain into a positive transformation for your love life. 

Validate and feel your feelings 

Your friends try to be helpful and lift your spirits by saying things like, “Screw him, he didn’t deserve you anyway.” But if you try to convince yourself of those statements, your pain will only get bigger because you are trying to bypass it and force yourself to move on without grieving.  

That’s right: Even if you didn’t actually date – or get to know each other all that well – you are still experiencing a grief process. And when it comes to grieving, there is no formula for finally reaching a place of acceptance, but there is one guiding principle: You must honor your feelings as they come up so that you can move through them. 

“Your pain is unique to you, your relationship to the person you lost is unique, and the emotional processing can feel different to each person. Take the time you need and remove any expectations of how you should be performing as you work through the grieving process,” wrote Jodi Clarke, MA, LPC/MHSP in a VeryWell article on the five stages of grief. 

Your well-meaning friends may not understand that when you crossed paths with the person who broke your heart, you had pinned certain hopes for the future onto them and your relationship. Now those hopes are gone. They may not get that you felt something intense and wonderful, and that the longing to feel it again has left a huge void. They may not realize that the idea of what ifs is making it even harder to let it go. They may just want to see you happy, but, in doing so, they may be encouraging you to invalidate yourself and minimize your actual emotions. 

So, honor all those feelings. Cry it out. Journal it out. Recognize that you are disappointed and you get to be disappointed – even if you only knew that person for a short amount of time. The more you hold space for yourself and what you are experiencing without judging it as “right” or “wrong” based on the fact that you are devastated over someone you never dated, the sooner you’ll be able to emotionally process what happened. 

Turn your attention back towards yourself 

You can’t stop replaying the best moments you shared together in your mind. You keep discussing what went wrong and analyzing the reasons behind your romantic interest’s actions – maybe they had trust issues, perhaps they weren’t over their ex. 

This kind of rumination is not helpful, but it can be hard to actually make yourself stop without replacing those thoughts with something else. Every time you catch yourself obsessing over the person who broke your heart, acknowledge that you’re still hurting and that you still miss them – and whatever other feelings are coming up, as discussed above – and then turn your attention back to yourself. 

Use it as an opportunity to identify your needs and get them met constructively. For example, you may realize that you’re sad and need to be around people who love you unconditionally. As a result, you call a trusted family member to make plans. Or you may realize that you need support because your mental health is suffering. You find a therapist. The idea is to use those moments when you are obsessing over what you can’t control (the actions and feelings of someone else) as opportunities to nurture yourself, which is something that you do have control over. 

It's better to go no contact, but if you can't control yourself and end up reaching out, again, turn your attention to yourself. Give yourself the love you are craving. 

Analyze your relationship patterns 

Speaking of therapy, it’s helpful to unpack what happened and why you are so heartbroken over someone you never dated. Did you project a fantasy onto a romantic prospect? Did you put them on a pedestal without truly getting to know them as a whole, flawed human being? 

Do you have abandonment issues that are making you particularly sensitive to things not working out? Are you constantly attracted to emotionally unavailable people? Do you get attached extremely quickly and become fixated with the object of your attention to the point where you lose yourself? 

It’s important to introspect and look back on the situation with both curiosity and self-compassion. Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t excuse bad behavior. But do reflect on what the relationship has taught you about your relating tendencies. A therapist can help you dive deeper and understand yourself to avoid repeating the same patterns in the future. The amazing thing is, the more you heal and learn how to relate to others in healthier ways, the healthier the relationships and people you attract. 

Figure out what it is that you value and want 

People and relationships aren’t black and white. As you process your past experience and get ready to move on, you can keep some learnings with you – including some of the positive traits you liked about the person you never actually ended up dating. Whether you appreciated their sense of humor or really liked how easy it was to connect and talk for hours, you get to take stock of those positives and look for them in future relationships. On the other hand, you also get to assess the negatives and turn them into insights that reveal your relationship values. For instance, if your former romantic interest was flaky with plans, it may mean that you value reliability – you can therefore keep an eye out for that trait while you’re dating and meeting new people. 

Heartbreak is no walk in the park, whether you were in a serious relationship with someone or not. Your experience is valid. Your healing process may not be shorter just because you never dated. The steps above will help you move forward with more wisdom until you’re ready to open your heart again.