This story has been over two years in the making. It is about unrequited love. Limerence. A version of this story has been told since ancient times. Maybe it’s not even worth adding another version to the mix. But I’m hoping it will provide me with some clarity and some healing.
PROLOGUE: THE FIRST THREE MONTHS
In March of 2023 I met Kyle. We matched on OkCupid. As soon as I saw his pictures and read his profile, I had a feeling that there was something deep, dark, mysterious and exhilarating about this potential connection. I prepared to dive into the soil.
We met at a local dive bar. He was late, apologetic, and unassuming in person. However, at this point I was already committed to getting him into my bed by the end of the night. And that’s what I did.
After a night of talking and my reading him his birth chart, smoking cigarettes under an awning in the rain outside the bar, and making out, we ubered back to my place in Richmond. We had sex. As he was on top of me, he looked directly into my eyes with a seriousness that took me aback. I felt that I would love this man.
Before we went to sleep, he mentioned as a side note that sometimes he has night terrors, where he will wake up and scream and punch in the air. He told me he had never actually hit anyone. By that point he was in my bed anyway, so I swallowed my fear and fell asleep.
Our relationship was tumultuous. I was pushy, I wanted exclusivity. He was still hung up on his ex. He was passive, a weed addict, and I successfully convinced him to agree to be my boyfriend. We broke up twice in three months, getting back together the next day or sometimes the same night.
One notable example: A month or so after meeting, I told him I loved him. He told me he did not feel that way, and wanted to get sober before dating anyone. But I kept hanging out with him that night. We got beers at a local punk barbecue spot, and I let out my messiest self—what did I have to lose? I thought at the very least I could garner sympathy for my mess that would make him want to fix me.
I spent the night in his bed. We cried and kissed. In the morning he was struggling to breathe and thought it was from smoking too much weed. We said our goodbyes, and I told him if he was in crisis he could call me. Hours later, when I was back at home, he called in a panic. He couldn’t breathe. He felt really sick. I came back over to bring him echinacea and mullein tinctures. He asked me if I would stay, and I obliged. He ended up feeling so sick that he was calling his mom, hysterical, saying he couldn’t breathe. He told me he thought it was all the dust from him not being able to clean his space. I invited him to come to my place to get away from the dust. I ended up nursing him to health for two days. It turned out he had the flu, but I was convinced that my love for him would keep me safe from getting sick. He promised that if I got sick, he would take care of me like I did him.
I got sick. At that point he was restless and resentful and ready to get the fuck out of my apartment. He apologized, I sobbed. He told me he still didn’t want to be with me, that we were too different, we weren’t compatible. He wanted someone who was more intellectually on his level.
I spent five days with no contact. I was terribly sick and suffering and sad. I became suicidal and spent a couple nights at my parents’ house. I was too sick to even smoke cigarettes, my one comfort at the time. On day 5, I forced myself to suck down a cig and then I texted Kyle, saying I thought we could be friends.
We met up that weekend. I took him to Albany Bulb in my car. He was morose, melancholic and sullen. He was trying to stay off weed for the day. We hiked in the beautiful hills, among wildflowers and manmade sculptures that persisted despite the unhoused community who used to live there being cleared out to make way for a park. When we got back to the car I lit up a cigarette. He asked for some. I was reluctant, because I knew he was trying to quit too. But I gave it to him. Suddenly, he wanted to keep hanging out. We caromed around Albany and Oakland in my car. By the end of the day we were having sex. We decided we would just be “friends” who have sex, I guess. Two days later I took him to Stinson Beach. He saw the couples around us being romantic and asked to hold my hand. The rest was a whirlwind and suddenly we were back at it, with a deeper connection than ever before. However I could tell he was still reluctant to fully commit.
Fast forward two months and he’s not responding to texts. I’m obsessed and panicked. He has a history of suicidality, and I tell myself that was the reason I am texting his mom and going over to his place around the back to check on him. This is the day before my birthday, which he had promised to spend with me on a romantic date. I find him zonked out in the late afternoon. He tells me he broke into his landlady’s house and drank her liquid valium, assuring me that he didn’t take too much. He callously jabs, “did you call the cops on me?” I leave heartbroken.
The next morning I broke up with him, for good. I couldn’t handle the torment of not knowing whether he was gonna turn up dead at any moment.
THE AFTERMATH
My three-month long relationship with Kyle utterly broke me. We took space and I started going to Codependents Anonymous to deal with the pain. I smoked a lot of cigarettes and listened to sadgirl music.
In CoDA, I was encouraged to go “no contact,” forever. However, I still held out hope that after a month of space we could reconnect and maybe he’d still be sober, and then we could be together.
When we finally met up, I found out that he was back with his ex from before me, the one he was hung up with the whole time we were together. I was hurt, and livid. I stormed off, immediately blocking him on everywhere I could think to, even Duolingo. I felt I was finally free. For the next few days, everywhere I went, I stormed around like I was the meth addict in rage mode from Grand Theft Auto. I was convinced that if I ran into him (we now lived in the same neighborhood) I would legitimately try to physically fight him. Which was a terrifying and euphoric thought.
I continued attending Codependents Anonymous meetings. I started dating another guy named Benny, who seemed simple and chill until he wasn’t. It ended in a mutual crashout.
SPOTTY RECONNECTION
As October came and Kyle’s birthday approached, I started to feel tenderness and longing toward him. I decided to reach out to wish him a happy birthday, and to offer an “amends,” despite not having worked the steps. We texted throughout the afternoon, as I was walking around the lake in the crisp sunshine. I felt clear, free, light and happy. We set up a time to meet up. We met early in the morning in the late October air, and took a somewhat treacherous walk along the wet stones along a creek. There were brambles that snagged my new winter coat. We talked about addiction, codependency and OCD. Then we went back to his new place where he was renting from a strange woman who owned the house and lived there too. We sat in the backyard, rather silently, absorbing each other’s presence and I think both of us wondered what we were doing there. He told me he was meeting up with a girl he was seeing but was kind of annoyed with later that day. I felt relieved that he resented her, like he had resented me when we were together.
Our next meet was at my apartment—we were going to watch Ozark together. We did, and then we had a cigarette together. He lingered, I battled with myself and ended up telling him I wanted to have sex. Which we did.
Soon after that he stopped responding to me. I freaked out and blocked him.
This happened a couple more times that winter, before my CoDA sponsor dropped me and I desperately found myself in the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous rooms. I found a sponsor there and quickly worked the steps, resolving myself to stay away from Kyle, my addiction, forever more.
A NEW LEAF
I dutifully put in the time and effort recovering from my addiction, throughout the spring and into the summer. I struggled with the rigidity of the program at points, and some controlling experiences with sponsors who were, in fact, also addicts. In August of 2025 I felt fed up with one last attempt to work the steps and achieve freedom from my mental monsters, and when my sponsor vaguely threatened to stop working with me if I didn’t make amends to people I felt I hadn’t wronged, I quit. I went a month and a half without dating at all, and felt freedom I hadn’t in a long time. I was active in my tenant union and some other leftist political organizing. Finally, I decided to download a dating app.
Very quickly I matched with a man named Thor. We met up and immediately meshed. I invited him over that night. We spent the next three nights hanging out in somewhat of a frenzy. Then I went away for the weekend on a retreat with my comrades, and when I returned he ended things, saying he just wanted to be friends. I was devastated. My first thought was Kyle. I resisted for two days but then the craving overpowered me and I reached out. We began to talk again, but now he was living in Boston after a harrowing several months in and out of sober houses and homelessness. We waxed poetic about the past, made amends, and talked about yearning for each other. I was hooked, again.
I continued to try to date, to cover up the hole in my core that only Kyle could fill.
I met Eli, and at this point I was so worked up by the various experiences of enmeshment, rejection, and yearning, that I developed a strong attachment after two dates, at which point I lost my mind to obsession completely. It was unclear whether it was about Thor, Kyle, or Eli, or just MenTM. Regardless, I knew I needed to get well.
I returned to SLAA and worked the steps again with a new sponsor. I blocked Kyle, and ended things with Eli. Once again, I quickly became frustrated with my new sponsor and her rigidity. I wanted to go on a date with someone from Tinder and she suggested I was “in my addiction.” I soon decided to take another break, this one lasting a week. I reached back out to Kyle and told him I truly just wanted to be friends (something I was convincing myself was true), and he agreed, this time emphatically stating that he did not want to be romantic with me. So we set off on a new journey of really, really trying to be normal about each other.
We stayed in contact for months, this time while I worked my SLAA program. We had many phone calls where we joked about Tim Robinson’s “I Think You Should Leave,” and analyzed media and politics together. It was easy and smooth. Then he told me in the springtime that he had gotten back in touch with his other ex. It was chill! Really. I acted chill about it. And I thought I was, until I wasn’t. I spiraled into obsession, and wondered why her and not me. He contacted me less. He got sober briefly and then relapsed, pitifully messaging me that he had crashed out on his other ex and was “totally blackpilled.” I couldn’t handle that. Why was she worth crashing out on and not me? The next day I told him I needed space and blocked him. I talked with my new sponsor about it, who doesn’t judge me and trusts me to figure my own shit out (with the help of my Higher Power, of course). I processed and worked my program. Eventually we got back in contact. This pattern of getting overwhelmed and taking space, albeit in a more communicative way this time, persisted for a few months.
EPILOGUE: THE REAL STORY BEGINS HERE
Now it is August. I got back in contact with him one last time a few days ago. We had several phone calls and processed the fact that I am hopelessly in love with him, and him not me. I asked him whether he ever was in love with me, and he said he didn’t know, he didn’t think so. So here we are. We’ve decided to take space for half a year. Mutually and compassionately. I am not sure how to move on but I’m trying. Reaching out to exes from years ago. Crying to basically any song about love and loss. Writing this piece.
I thought this story was a tragedy, but maybe it’s more of a tragicomedy. I was talking with my friend about Kyle, and the conversation switched to imagining an absurd scenario in which she didn’t make cookies for her roommate who was returning with a big glass of milk, expecting cookies but finding none to dip in her milk. I thought this was hilarious and then it hit me—that’s it! I said to Tricia. See how that’s a tragedy? I’m waiting with a big glass of milk, and Kyle has no cookies. But it made us laugh. And I bet it would make Kyle laugh too.
hearthsoma 
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