You know why the hardest person to move on from is the one you never actually dated? It's not the person you built a life with, it's the person you almost had a future with. Psychologists say the brain struggles significantly more with unfinished stories than finished ones. It hates an open loop. That's why situationships hurt just like real heartbreak. You aren't grieving a memory, you are grieving a fantasy. You are grieving the Sunday mornings, the wedding date, and the growing old together that never actually happened. Because you never saw their flaw. In your mind, they remain perfect. In a real relationship, love gets interrupted by arguments, bad days, and reality. But the almost person never gave you a reason to stop loving. So you're not fighting a person, you're fighting a ghost. You didn't lose a partner, you lost the potential of who they could have been. And let's be honest, sometimes the heaviest baggage we carry is the what-ifs. Because the saddest ending isn't a final goodbye, it's the one where things never even had a chance to start.