Hi all,

So I am going to be 28 this month, and I am realizing something I have been trying to bury deep inside: I can't forget my first love and its ruining my chances of being in love with someone else. I have no problem having men commit to me, but I am just not interested. It breaks my heart, because I need love so much.

2013: When I was around 21 I met my first love, lets call him Alex. We were in the same group of friends at uni, and we were obviously very attracted to each other. That first summer he had to go back to his country in Europe but we kept in touch as he said he wanted us to be together.

The thing you have to know about me is that I have a deep feeling of inferiority. I feel like I don't deserve love, so when I like someone, I see any little thing he does like it means he doesn't love me. Also, like my emotionally absent father (that I love and came to understand), I inherited the trait of not talking about my feelings. I would rather hurt myself, before someone else would hurt me. So no vulnerability there. Now that I am older and I know all that, I consciously try to be more vulnerable and talk about things I don't like but I still have work to do.

So lets go back to my story. As promised, when he came back we went to get a coffee and he wanted to talk to me about the fact he wanted us to be together. Do you know what I was thinking the whole time he was talking? " Why hasn't he paid for my coffee, he must not like me if he can't even do something like that... " so again I was closing myself off. A few days later one of my friends has a party at her house, I get drunk and I tell him how I need a real man and not someone who can't even buy me a cup of coffee. Btw, I am sorry if there is too much details, but I just want you to understand how stupid I was. So that night after we fought he left and I cried non-stop like I never cried. because i knew i was stupid.

2013-2014 So for the whole year after that it was like a roller coaster. I would go after him, he would push me away, then I would be interested by someone else and he would start coming for me, but I wasn't interested anymore. During that whole time we NEVER slept together as I was a virgin, but he was the first one I touched and he was the first to touch me, so I developed a big attachment to him.

2014-After the second year at uni, he left to go back to Europe. That summer he left, I chose a guy that was into me and slept with him. It was horrible, I didn't love him and he didn't love me; we stayed the summer together, but I just broke up. I was just hurting myself. That whole uni year (my last one) I didn't date anyone. The summer after that, I again just slept with a guy I chose because he was leaving the country soon and I didn't want a relationship. From the time Alex left, I never loved anyone and what really hurts is I never told him I loved him.

2016- So a year after I graduated - I had a chance to go to Europe for an internship. One of the big reason I also wanted to go, is because I would see him again. So I went and during those 6 months I saw him two times. First time, I went to his apartment in London. It was the best, at that time we slept together. But we never talked about us, in fact I didn't want to, because deep inside I was scared to be vulnerable again. We kept in touch and he invited me to come visit him in Paris. I had so much emotion that was pent up inside of me and I was so scared to tell him anything. He must of thought I just wanted to have a good time and nothing serious. That time in Paris, a stupid event made me again feel emotions so bad that I stayed shut the whole time I stayed with him. We met common friends at a bar, and there is this girl I know that is SUPER pretty, like breathtaking in my opinion. Of course, since I have no self confidence I just erased myself. Alex is a good guy and he has girl and guy friends so there is nothing wrong with him. He had not seen her in a while and so he bought her a pint of beer- at that moment all my self confidence went out the window. I felt like crap, just seeing that he was talking with her, and I felt ugly in comparison. Again I never saw all the things he did for me and the fact that he was not so comfortable with me since we had a complicated history. I just thought " He will never like me". So for the rest of the two days I spent with him I just stopped talking with him. We were invited to his friends house and I even started flirting with another guy BECAUSE I am stupid and didn't know how to TALK to him. The day after he brought me to the train station and I went home. We never talked about anything, he was doing so many little things for me but my ego and my low self confidence just ruined everything. That was the last time I saw him. When I came home I felt my heart was broken and shattered, like I while physically ill.

2016-2017 So a few months later, I met a guy that would become my boyfriend for a year. For the first time I decided to be in a relationship and it was ok. I just went with it because he (let call him Mike) was really into me and I was comfortable with him. I didn't really respect him though and I started not being attracted to him and stopped sleeping with him. I would dream of Alex for days in a row when I was with Mike. When I would open my eyes, I would just be sad and cry without Mike seeing it.

I broke up with him after some time, because we had a distance relationship I realized I was just not interested in him.

2018- I spent that year just partying, drinking every weekends, have bad influences in my life. I just felt better when I drunk and it made me forget all my bad feelings. That year, I drunk slept with two guys, that also tried to have relationships with me, but I didn't care enough about them to make an effort.

2019-I started picking myself up, stopped going out so much and purposely dating. For the first time I used dating apps, I met with guys that I would have never dated before, and that went good. Working on myself, discovering RPW and started understanding more and more what had happened to me during those years. That year I didn't sleep with anyone and I actually deleted Alex from my social media in an attempt to forget him and move on.

Now: I stopped drinking, its been now 6 months since I last kissed someone, and I am still using dating apps to meet people. I now feel like I was very immature at the time with Alex but still I don't know what to do because he is still in my heart. I am really wondering why I can't seem to forget him. It's not as bad as it was but I will sometimes dream about him, or cry when I hear a song that makes me think of him. I just feel like I never had closure and that maybe if I reach out to him, I will better understand that we are probably not a good match. My attachment to him really seems to be built upon air. I think I miss more the person that I was when I met him, than miss him really. Does it make sense? I was more vulnerable, more hopeful, I would text him and show him I liked him. Nowadays I never text first, I protect myself so much and I go after guys that are into me but that I am not into them.

So here you go, the story that is really weighting on my heart. I figured that maybe other women had similar experiences and could help me get over it. Let me know if you think I should contact him, or not, or if you have any advice for me.

TD:LR I have no problem having someone commit to me, but I am not interested because I still think of my first love that I never had closure with. I was very immature and would get jealous or interpret things he did in a bad way, when in fact he never did anything wrong. Since him I was never able to put myself out there and risk my feelings getting hurt. Due to that I am never with men who really interest me, and I am bored with them. Do you think I should reach out to my first love that I haven't seen in 4 years, or just work on myself.

Thank you all and I hope you are all staying safe <3

- Jasmine