I YEARN for a girlfriend and the sweet moments that come with a relationship, but I’ve been struggling with connecting emotionally with anyone new for the past 2 1/2 years. I used to put in a lot of time and effort in a relationship, but I haven’t met anyone I’d be willing to do that for recently.

To share about that last meaningful relationship I had, we met at work and I had known of her (I’ll refer to her as G) for two years but we didn’t really run in the same circles. In late 2018, I followed her on instagram and I thought if she followed me back then she at least thinks I’m alright, because she’s pretty reserved and follows only a few people at work. To my surprise, she followed me back and from then on we started replying to each other’s IG stories and chatted almost daily. When she had to fly to another city for work, I asked my manager if I could work remotely for a week and she gave me permission. I told G I’d be there for a week and we should hang out at some point. We went out for lunch all week and on my last day, we went to a party where I got smashed. She sat me down and straight up asked me why I flew all the way there out of pocket. I needed to buy time because we were having such a good time so I asked why she was asking, and she told me she has some unconfirmed thoughts. I thought, well if I was about to get rejected at least I’m hundreds of miles away from home, so I told her that I liked her and wanted to get to know her. Her response was everything I wished for and I stayed the night at her hotel. We agreed to see where things go when we return home, and the long and short of it is we ended things after 2 1/2 years in mid-2021.

I’m already over G, but every time I think about how we were, I still feel a pang of sadness that I will never feel that way for someone ever again. I’d like to think I’ve moved on but I can’t seem to feel romance again.