Any suggestions for moving on?

You need to cut contact with him for now. It bothers you to talk to him because you still have feelings for him and he doesn’t have feelings for you, yet he wants to string you along by talking to you everyday. Yes, he knows exactly what he is doing. So delete him from your phone, your facebook, your emails and move on with other friends. You can’t move on if you are talking to him everyday. Go out with your friends, do as many things as you can that keeps you busy and not thinking of him. If another guy asks you out, go out with him. You don’t have to have a romance with the guy, just make new friends that will treat you better than this guy did.

The best way to get over a guy (or girl) is to get under another one.

It’s sad, and it sounds horrible, but it’s true. Just be careful of rebound situations.

The sooner you realize this great life truth, the easier moving on becomes.

NO-THING is forever!

In-joy the moments, hold on loosely, know there are reasons and seasons for everything, and, most importantly, never, never, EVER abandon YOURSELF in favor of another!

Life is a grand adventure, who knows, maybe your true love won’t show up in your life until you are 73!

Water seeks it’s own level and whenever we outgrow a relationship, friendship, job, living situation, geographical situation, it is because, you are growing and it is time to move on.

You don’t HAVE a life, you ARE life!

Embrace this, and do not waste your precious energy on those that do not cherish your true value!

Wanting someone that doesn’t want YOU is masochistic!

Be strong in your convictions and don’t grovel over those that do not deserve your love and attentions.

A belated welcome to Fluther!

You are not the first person to be in this situation, nor will you be the last. The common denominator is that one person cares about the other, but discovers that their feelings aren’t that of eternal love. They are probably attempting to save you from the pain of a complete cut from the relationship, which may be good or bad.

The only advice I can offer is to accept the situation for what it is and do your best to move on. Seek out other activities that interest you and will allow you to focus on yourself instead of what you miss about him. It may help to find someone, be it a parent, a friend, or a counselor that you can talk to in order to get quality advice and will listen as you work through this.

Get involved in volunteer work.

If you truly want to get over him, you need to cut off all contact. It’ll be hard, and it will suck for a while, but it’s the only way. Better to get the pain over with now, than to let it linger for who-knows-how-long. Find other ways to fill your time, such as volunteer work – as @YARNLADY suggested.

Find other things to do besides wasting your time talking to him.
Get out and enjoy your life.:)

Tell him that you can’t be “just friends” right now. Maybe later.

Don’t have phone contact with him. Don’t have Web cntact with him (no Facebook friends).

Then focus on living your life. You’ve graduated. Now focus on your career. Focus on meeting new people. When you can, be open to having new relationships.

He is gone. It is over. Move on.

I couldn’t and still don’t understand why after everything and me waiting, that this is all it would end up to be. You will never understand because none of us can get into the other person’s mind. They have their own reasons, sometimes they don’t understand exactly why either. Also, when the feeling is gone there’s very little we can do. We are talking about feelings here, not subject to reason or logic. The same way we have no control in falling in love; we have no control in falling out of love. It just happens; it’s human nature.

He was one of the closest people to me so it’s hard to just let go. It is very hard. But you can condition yourself to be strong, it’s all about the mind and what you instruct your mind to do. That has worked very well for me. Some of the advice here is to find someone else, but IMO if you do that, you will always base your happiness on someone else when I think it should be found within yourself.

He still talks to me everyday…I want to be able to be his friend but I’m so hurt that someone I fell in love with, just wants to be friends. You know what is even more painful? When they don’t even want to be your friend and they cut you off entirely. So, when a guy wants to keep being your friend for me is the best compliment because he is respecting and valuing you as a person, even when the love is gone.

How do I get over this? Over what? Over him altogether or over the fact that you want something else with him? If what you want is to get over him, then cut all contact with him immediately. Yes, just like that, cold turkey. There is no reasoning about this, just do it. Conversely, if what you want is to get rid of the fact that he doesn’t love you anymore, but still want to be friends with him, then do your best to understand that he is not rejecting you but that his love has transformed into something else.

Good Lord. This happened to me just recently, too, and I totally agree, it sucks! You should ask him to explain to you why he just wants to be friends. That’s the least he could do. Then you’ll be able to take more direction towards getting over him or pursuing him better, if you still want to.

The guy I wanted to date told me he wanted to stay friends because he “wanted to see what else was out there..” So I felt like he wanted to see if he could do better than me before coming back. :(

@Carly- wow- I hope you know that you do not deserve that and aren’t finding yourself waiting for him to come back. You need to find someone who knows what he has when he’s with you. The guy told me that he wanted to just be friends because of distance but that’s the thing is we always knew for the past 4 years that distance was going to be there. So I was confused why all of a sudden he acted as if that was a surprise. I was willing to deal with the distance- I wish I could say the same for him. Hmph!!!

Open honest sharing of feelings with him is the first thing to be done.
Past that, you can’t make someone want for more.
You need to disconnect from this person so you can help your feelings move past something that does not appear to going to happen.
Focus on yourself, on other interests, but by all means, delete, move on, and don’t look back.
By holding onto this you are limiting yourself by your emotions in where you need to go and what you can be.
It is going to be hard, but truly start the process soon.

@livestrong NOOO! I was pissed off that he told me that. I’m not on speaking terms with him right now, and he doesn’t seem to care. All my friends told me I could do better than him anyway. lol

@Carly- good for you!!!

I’m so sorry that this happened to you. It’s more common than you think. He probably likes you just fine, but he (unlike you) just never had that deep, loving connection that you did. Right now, and as then, you were/are sort of his back up girl. He likes you, enjoyed having casual sex with you, but he never “fell in love” with you.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of guys who like to have more than one iron in the fire at any given time. That way he never has to be alone or have any downtime.

Most women (not all) have a very difficult time attempting to be “just friends” with someone that they have loved and lost. Because your relationship will never be what you wanted/expected it to be, and because he doesn’t feel the same way about you, it will always be a relationship that is on un-equal footing.

As hard as it will be to break away from him, completely, that is your best bet for getting over him. You will most likely always feel a twinge of love for him, but it’s better to put those feelings way in the back of your mind, so that you can move forward. If you attempt to be “just friends” with him, he will continue to tug at your heartstrings and give you mixed signals that are convenient for him. You’ll get tripped up and try to move into a real relationship with him again, and again he will rebuff you. Been there, done that.

I have to agree that it is in your best interest (his best interest doesn’t matter at this point, because you aren’t a couple) for you to break all contact with him. If you feel the urge to let him know that you will be breaking contact, just have a little chat or send him a note, that briefly tells him (without getting all emotional, because he will use that against you to either get you to change your mind, for his convenience, or to embarrass you, so that he looks like a super cool guy) that it is too painful for you to be “just friends” with him, because you feel more than that and you don’t want to be in an un-equal, un-rewarding situation with him. And then proceed to delete all of his contact info from your computer, phone, address book etc. If you have any gifts or mementos that he gave you, you have two fun choices. Either box the stuff up good and tight and put them in your attic or in the back of your closet, or have a nice little bonfire in your back yard. If you choose to keep the stuff, it can be comforting, knowing that the items meant something to you, and made you what you are today. But put them away. Just knowing that the stuff is there, can be enough to keep you from dragging it out and looking at it. I have a box like that. But burning the stuff can also be cathartic. Just depends on your own ideas of walking away from him.

Beyond that, don’t sit and wallow in your house. Have one good cry, with or without your good girlfriends, then say, “OK, now I’m done!” Then make plans to find out what kinds of activities you are going to involve yourself in from here on out. Make sure that you make yourself busy, doing fun things that you love, or doing nice things for other people that may need help (like doing volunteer work). Get up and get out of the house, every day. Do things. Don’t wallow. If you feel like you need to wallow, give yourself a 10 minute period each day, cry or scream if you have to, but after 10 minutes, STOP! Then go do something fun and constructive. After you start doing this every single day, the bad feelings of pain and remorse will lessen over time. Not immediately, but over time.

Next time that you meet someone that you are interested in, DO NOT compare them to the ex-boyfriend. That will stunt your growth and potential for finding love. But it’s OK to be upfront with any potential new guys and just let them know that you don’t want to get involved with some type of casual, wishy-washy situation, that you are interested in getting to know them and to see where it goes. But if the new guy doesn’t seem interested in persuing a real relationship (which is OK) then just casually dismiss yourself, early this time.

Good luck to you, my dear : )