Although some people may tell you that one of the best things you can do after a relationship is to get back out there, I beg to differ. While dating can make for a great distraction as you try to come to terms with your relationship, the truth is that there’s nothing wrong with sitting with your emotions, grieving your loss, and allowing yourself to hurt. Marinating in sadness may not be where you want to be, but it’s part of healing and it’s time you need to take to recoup.
Because breakups are very personal things and we all handle them differently, there is definitely no one way to get over a breakup. However, I do believe, based on experience that time alone is what everyone with a broken heart truly needs. If you find dating works for you, then go for it. If not, then here are seven reasons why NOT dating after a breakup is a great idea.
1.You may think you’re ready, but you’re probably not.
The first stage of grief is shock. This is the stage where you’ve yet to really come to terms to with what has happened so you’re not exactly in touch with your emotions. You may think that the void you feel is because you’re not ready to date again, but it’s more likely that the stage of grief you’re in is preventing to you feel what’s really going on inside you at the moment.
2. You need time to process the lessons learned.
All relationships teach us something. Whether it’s the relationship with have with our family and friends, or one of a romantic nature, we learn something and it changes us in some ways. After a relationship, you need time to process those lessons; you need to be able to look at where things went wrong (or right), and figure out how they changed you, why they changed you, and what you need to do in the future to make sure those lessons weren’t lost on you.
3. You’re likely to compare everyone your meet to your ex.
With a breakup fresh on your brain and your ex still in your very recent past, you will, absolutely, compare the new people you meet to your ex. You’ll be sitting across from a date at dinner and notice he doesn’t do something exactly like your ex did, and suddenly you cross them off your list. That’s not how you’re going to have a successful dating life; you can’t run around comparing everyone you meet to your ex, in either a good or bad way.
4. You may find you’re trying to rush things out of fear of being alone.
One of the big concerns after a breakup is the thought, “Will I be alone forever now?” Well, no, you won’t, but it doesn’t matter how many people tell you that, you’re going to think what you’re going to think. So because this is an inherent fear we all have, and after a breakup people are still raw and grief-stricken, your instinct might be to rush things or even straight-up settle, just to avoid being alone. That’s the last thing you want to do; in the long run, you’ll just be miserable.
5. You’ll definitely find yourself talking about your ex on dates.
Even if you don’t mean to, you will talk about your ex on dates. How could you not? It’s something that’s weighing on your mind, something that you can’t shake, and if you’re talking about your ex all the time with your friends, then it’s just going to slip out accidentally on dates, too. You might even end up getting teary-eyed on a couple of occasions and no one wants that... talk about one hell of an awkward date.
6. You might assume every person you meet isn’t trustworthy.
It doesn’t matter how a relationship comes to an end, with every end in life, a part of us is shaken. We’re forced to realize that things were probably not as we believed them to be and since this is the case, dating is the last place you should be. You need to wait long enough until you no longer see someone as a suspicious character out to break your heart.
7. You still need ample time to find you again.
When you open your heart and let someone into your life, you don’t necessarily lose yourself, but parts of yourself are transformed and molded to fit the new piece of the puzzle of your life. This isn’t a bad thing, but just something that happens. If you’re with that person for years and years, and have built a life together, that converging into one is even more extreme. What this means is that after a breakup, more than any other time in your life, you need to be alone for awhile. You need to find you again, remember how to do things solo, and reclaim the person you were before the relationship, so you can go into a new one completely in tact.
