Learning to Live With a Crush You’ll Never See Again

There are some people who never speak a word to you, yet rearrange the vibe of your day.

This is about one of those people. A very attractive one.

For over two years, he was the quiet constant in my work life. Not a friend, not a lover, not even a conversation. Just a presence. An unbearably attractive one. The kind of attractive that doesn’t demand attention, but steals it anyway. The kind that makes you forget what you were doing mid-thought. I can tell, because it has happened to me.

We never crossed lines. We never exchanged stories. But we exchanged looks. And somehow, that was enough to make ordinary days feel alive.

And now he’s gone.

He resigned. Just like that. And with him went the only part of my job that made me feel awake. People talk about heartbreak as if it only happens after love. But no one warns you about the grief of almost.

Almost knowing someone. Almost being noticed. Almost stepping into something that never had a chance to exist.

Our eye contact was brief, but charged.

Curious... Lingering. The kind where you can tell someone is wondering about you, not in a loud way, but in a quiet, private way. As if they’re asking themselves a question they’re not ready to answer.

And knowing that someone like him, someone so undeniably handsome, so out of reach in my own mind, might have felt even a flicker of attraction toward someone like me?

That mattered more than I want to admit.

Without that, everything feels flat. Mechanical. Like living in grayscale.

I don’t want to go to work anymore, not because the job changed, but because I did. I had built a small, secret joy into my routine, and now it’s been taken away without ceremony (or a funeral lol).

And yes, sometimes I feel like crying. Not because I lost him, but because I lost the version of myself that felt hopeful, seen, and slightly alive.

This kind of crush hurts because it was never contaminated by reality.

There were no arguments. No disappointments. No ordinary moments to dull the fantasy.

He existed in a perfect state - forever handsome, forever intriguing, forever unfinished.

And unfinished things have a way of haunting us.

We don’t grieve the person. We grieve the possibility of a life where maybe, on a different day, with a different kind of courage, something might have happened.

How Do You Live With Knowing You’ll Never See Them Again?

I wish I could give you a graceful answer. Something mature. Something that sounds like it came from a healed person.

But the truth?

Some days you don’t live with it. You just drag it behind you all day like a heavy suitcase you can’t put down.

Some days you open your laptop, stare at the same spreadsheet, and think: What’s the point if "he’s not sitting somewhere in this building anymore"? And then you hate yourself for thinking that, and then you think it again anyway.

Here’s the drunk version of the truth. The one that comes out when you’re tired, a little unhinged, and done pretending you’re okay.

You survive it by being ridiculous.

You survive it by letting your mind spiral for exactly ten minutes a day, no more, no less.

You replay the eye contact like it was a movie scene you paid for. You let yourself believe, briefly, that it meant everything. Then you shut it down like a bar closing at 2 a.m.

You stop romanticizing closure. You never got it. You’re not going to get it. And honestly? If you had spoken, if you had tried, he might have disappointed you. But that fantasy version of him? He’s undefeated.

Some nights, you imagine bumping into him five years from now (as if!) - hotter, calmer, completely indifferent. And you rehearse being unfazed. That’s fine. That’s part of the healing too. Petty healing still counts.

You remind yourself that he wasn’t your destiny. He was a mirror. He showed you that you can be desired quietly. That you can be noticed without being performative. That your presence alone can do damage.

And when it gets unbearable... you make him small on purpose.

You picture him doing something deeply unattractive. Saying something stupid. Chewing too loudly. Being emotionally unavailable in the most boring way possible. You ruin him. You have my permission.

Because you don’t miss him.

You miss the way your day had a pulse. You miss having something to look forward to that wasn’t a screen.

So you mourn her.

You let her cry in the bathroom stall if she needs to. You let her be dramatic. You let her be pathetic. This isn’t the time for dignity.

And slowly you start giving that attention back to yourself. You dress better even when no one’s watching. You romanticize random strangers. You let new faces interrupt the old obsession (if I may say so and only if you don't mind).

Not because they replace him.

But because the world is wider than one pair of eyes.

You don’t forget him.

You just wake up one day and realize he didn’t cross your mind until noon. And then one day it’s evening. And then one day, not at all.

And when that happens, you won’t feel proud. You’ll feel calm.

And that’s how you live with it.

Messy. Unpolished. Human.

And still moving forward.