I Finally Ended My 17-Month Situationship

Hi guys, I have stopped writing here on Medium for five years now but today, I have decided to write a personal story in the hopes of helping myself to move on from this experience. I’ve always found comfort in writing and I hope that by sharing my story here I could find closure and truly start afresh in the new year.

It’ll be a long story ahead so feel free to leave this page if you’re bored.

When it all first started…

We matched on a dating app and started texting on 29 June 2024. His profile appeared on my main feed and I was immediately drawn to it — his age, occupation, height, and facial features. Let’s be honest here, we judge people based on looks when swiping on dating apps. There needs to be some sort of attraction to get the ball rolling right? I nervously liked one of the photos without leaving any comments in the hopes that he would like my profile too and start a conversation.

A few hours later, I opened the app and saw that we were matched. Our first conversation was about my dog and how he wanted to get a teacup Pomeranian. We chatted awhile on the app then I asked for his Telegram to show him a photo of my tattoo. I used this tactic to move the conversation off the app since there wasn’t any photo-sharing option within the dating app.

Usually I would meet guys offline within the next few days, at most a week as a vibe-check. But for us, it took a little longer since our schedules weren’t aligned. At first I was still worried that we would lose interest even before our first meetup. Well, in-fact we were texting a lot, sending 20–30 messages each conversation and I thought I finally found someone on the same frequency as me. Every time I received a message from him, my heart would skip a beat and I would be excited yet nervous to reply. He was flirty and I was wary — keeping my guards up and protecting my heart. Ironically, those early moments were what I missed the most now as I am typing this.

Our first meetup

10 July 2024. After more than a week of texting and anticipating, it was finally the night of our first “date”. I was so excited that I started getting ready 3 hours before. I’ve never been this excited to meet any guy. Yet, I had a gut feeling that something was going to crop up. Well I was right. 2 hours before, he texted asking if we could push back the timing. At least, he didn’t cancel on me. Even 30 minutes before meeting, the location was not decided. By then, I had form a bad impression on him and my excitement had died down.

Despite what happened before we met, I still went ahead and waited patiently for his arrival. He was dressed casually in black and crocs, while I wore a bodycon dress. When I first saw him, I knew he lied about his height on the app. While usually I would be bothered about height, somehow I made an exception with him. And later on, I made a lot more exceptions.

He was genuine, authentic, and spoke his mind freely — traits that I found rare to find in guys I met. The guys I met were mostly manipulative and avoidant, which made it difficult to form a genuine connection. With him, I never had to second guess and I believe he has never lied to me about anything.

Usually, I would never allow a guy to send me home especially on the first date. I always kept my guard up. But somehow, I let my guard down. Before I knew it, I opened my heart to him — more quickly than I ever imagined. The heart that took me 1.5 years to heal after my first breakup and I swore to never let it break easily again. But it happened again. It wasn’t his fault — it was me who was holding on and living on borrowed time. What should have ended at the six months mark dragged on for another year.

The moment I knew something was off

While for the first five months we were indeed dating as he has confirmed, something happened that led me to spiral down into emotional unstability for the upcoming months. We were on the last day of our 5 day – Malaysia trip where we stayed at his parents place out of convenience.

“Tomorrow when we leave, could you go to the carpark first as I don’t want us to be seen by my relatives. If not, they would definitely tell my mum about us.”

Those words haunted me for the rest of the month. We had been dating for five months, and I told him I needed an answer by the sixth month. Initially I gave him a three months timeline but he said it was too rushed to make a decision so I extended it to six months. I thought perhaps if our first trip turned out well we would become official soon after.

The rest of December 2024 I was dwelling on those words. Why do I need to be hidden out of sight like we did something wrong? While he was enjoying his Christmas and year-end holiday overseas, I was mentally preparing myself for the worst — that we weren’t going to be an official couple as I had hoped.

The difficult conversation — Part 1

January 2025 came along and I popped the question over text. What are we? I didn’t asked directly, I beat around the bush with a long message hoping that he would get the idea. He told me that he doesn’t want to be tied down again so quickly, and that he would understand if I wanted to find someone serious to be in a relationship with.

“I like spending time with you.”

These were the exact words that kept me around for the rest of the year. I convinced myself that if we spent more time together, he would see the good in me. In-fact, later on I realised he does see the good in me just that he was unable to reciprocate my feelings.

Despite knowing this, it was hard for me to let go. I wanted someone to celebrate valentine’s day and my birthday. We are five years apart and our birthdays are only five days apart. It would be so nice to celebrate our birthdays together. Ironically, now it’s December again and I still wish to celebrate next year’s birthdays together.

So we continued hanging out. In 2025, we went to more places together; Bangkok, Genting, Batam, Taiwan, Busan. Another reason why I loved our trips is I get to see him for an extended period of time. Still, that wasn’t enough.

He once told me that you know you found the one when you look forward to waking up next to that person every single day. That was something I never told him about. That my favourite part of every trip was waking up to him the next day. It was always a torture waiting for the next text message since we would usually only meet once a week or even longer since he was busy traveling around almost every month. When we were overseas, it felt good that my comments had immediate replies and I wouldn’t be sitting around waiting for the next text message.

Another thing I never told him about — I secretly took notes of important information in my phone notes app. Things like his shoe size, his preferences, addresses. Those were the things I wanted to remember and was afraid of forgetting. To him, it might seem like a creepy behavior. He probably wondered how did I remember everything about him. It was simply me paying attention to the things that mattered to me.

But I wondered. I wondered if I did not remind him about my birthday, would he remember it because he cared? Maybe not. Would he cautiously remember my preferences such as not eating most seafood? I don’t think so. Well, I don’t blame him for that. I couldn’t expect him to remember by heart like I did.

The difficult conversation — Part 2

9 September 2025. Honestly, I never expected that one day he would be the one initiating to end things off. I thought we would drag on till someone else enter his life. To put it simply, it was more than a year and it was convenient for both of us. My weeks flew by quickly when I looked forward to meeting him again the following week.

I had just ended my lesson in school when I saw the last text message he sent.

He said he felt bad for wasting my time.

My heart sank when I read that message. I immediately knew something was wrong. The last time this topic came up was in January. Even though throughout the months I have been trying to end things, it was almost impossible for me. It had already become a toxic dynamic that I would cut him off and we would be fine again the next week.

I started panicking and bombarding with several messages. Did he find someone new? I thought I was finally emotionally stable and hadn’t cause any turbulence in the past month.

“I have been reflecting on my life. I can tell that you are looking for a boyfriend and I feel horrible.”

As much as I have been trying to conceal my feelings for him, I wasn’t aware that he could still smell it from afar. He even noticed the way I looked at him in the eyes — something that even I’m not aware of myself.

“We need to stop acting like a couple and slowly transition to being friends.”

I wished he was joking. How I wished it was just in the heat of the moment.

So for the next two months, I tried to treat him as a friend only. But deep down, I couldn’t accept this new phase. I wanted things to go back as they were, for as long as it could last.

I have been lying to myself for a long time

Later on, I found out that perhaps from the beginning we weren’t meant to be. Not because I’m not good enough, but it wasn’t at the correct time. He admitted that I was initially supposed to be a fling and that he didn’t expect we would last this long. Well, looking back maybe it would have been better that he ghosted me and be with the girl he claimed to have really liked.

Sometimes, I thought that maybe if he met me at a different phase, things would turn out different. While I believed that he had already given us a shot, he just couldn’t feel the same way I felt for him. But deep down, I was feeling bitter. I felt that when it came to me, I didn’t have a fair shot. I know I am worthy enough and I have qualities that other girls don’t have. So why couldn’t it be me?

He was close to the ideal man I was looking for. I wanted a man who was ambitious and career-driven yet taking out his precious time to spend with me. I wanted someone who was genuine and authentic, so that we don’t have to play the guessing game. What made him even more special was his family background. While he comes from an above average family, he built something else from scratch; wanting to prove himself to the world. That’s the trait that I admire most about him. He also spends frugally, which is something that inspired me to work towards as well; I’m a horrible big spender.

Maybe this was also one of the reasons he feels we are incompatible. Because we spend differently and we see values in different things. Or maybe, if I have already graduated and built a successful career, he would look at me differently. I could go on and on with the possibilities, but I know that feelings can’t be forced. I just wanted a reason to make myself feel better.

He once mentioned about how we see things differently; that I was narrow-minded. But at the current stage of my life, I think there wasn’t anything else I could do to change that. Some things in life just have to come with experience.

I also didn’t want to deal with my messy heartbreak after. I knew exactly the state I would be in; having gone through it for 1.5 years previously and I just didn’t want to go through the healing phase again. Things were always happening at the end of the year. Then I would spend the new year trying to pick myself up again.

Sometimes I do wonder, did he simply got used to my presence or did he really enjoy spending time with me. It was heartbreaking to hear him speaking good of me and saying that other guys would favor someone like me. But what’s the point when he doesn’t feel the same way as I do. For me, nobody else mattered if it wasn’t him.

How I truly feel about him

Honestly, I don’t have the answer to this. I know that these feelings have gone past infatuation but it is not love either. In-fact, the feelings grew deeper when he was being vulnerable and opened up to me. I thought that he would finally feel an emotional connection with me, together with the physical connection that would be the ingredients to form a relationship. But apparently not.

What I do know that his actions stirred me up emotionally. I would get jealous about his female friend; got upset when he doesn’t reply after a few hours; posting updates on Instagram and not sharing with me privately first. I wanted to feel special, not just any of his Instagram followers.

I was jealous that his friend could visit him whenever she wanted, while I couldn’t because I was someone that nobody else knew about. I was scrolling through our past messages and clicked into her profile. I was caught stalking and he questioned me about it. It just felt that he was being protective of her.

I always felt that they were acting more than just friends — or that she likes him one-sidedly. He spoke fondly of her, and she would come up in our conversations subconsciously. While on the other hand, he had never mentioned about me to her or anyone. And I should have known, that I wasn’t someone that he would talk about to others in his life. On my end, it was the complete opposite. I would be talking about him to my friends and the people close to me know his existence.

Also, I couldn’t understand why he would take photos of us together on trips when I wasn’t allowed to post those photos on my Instagram anyways. I had to resort to posting on my close friend’s list so the photos wouldn’t go to waste. His photos with his other friends could go public, while the photos of us would have to hide in the shadows. I would be the only person scrolling through them in my photo album in one of those late nights.

I overanalysed his actions a lot. Every time when I was upset and making a fuss, he would take the time to explain himself and coax me. I thought that this meant he cared about me, about my feelings. Because if not why would you bother explaining yourself to someone whom you don’t care about.

But I guess it was just how he treated his friends. I was not as special as I thought.

I feel that we have come a long way since our dating phase. At the start, he was super mysterious and avoided sharing too much personal details about himself or his family. He would asked me why I don’t ask him about his day or about him in general; that we seemed to be always talking about the same things when we met. I have told him the answer later on — I was waiting for the day that he would share things with me without me asking. It was just like how I would share almost everything with him about my day because when something happened, he would be the first person that comes to my mind.

He wasn’t leading me on — I was leading myself on

Since January he was already upfront about what he wanted at this point while I was just secretly hoping that I could change his mind as the time passes.

He has said multiple times that he wasn’t a good person. But if you’re reading this, I just want to let you know that the right person would accept who you are, seen you at your worst and they wouldn’t leave. They would choose you, to help you become a better version of yourself, and grow together in life. They should be someone who you feel at home with; not having to pretend to be someone else you are not.

Why I finally decided to leave for good

This is the fourth time I tried to leave. Every time when I told him we should stop meeting, and listed the reasons for justification, it wasn’t for him to read. It was for myself. I was trying to tell myself that I wasn’t happy anymore. I was tired of pretending that everything was fine.

But he wouldn’t take me seriously. Or rather I always sounded like I said things in a heat of the moment. Truth is, I didn’t want to feel alone again. I knew exactly what state I would be in once we truly cut contact with each other. I would be screaming internally wanting to reach out to him again and go back to how we used to be.

We met a total of 79 times, which translates to almost every week. I would still scroll back to my calendar and the events would flip through like a book in my head. I have the ability to remember the events based on their dates, and live through the day again in my head. It is hard to let go of someone whom you spent almost every week with, texting every day; for almost 1.5 years. But it was something I needed to do for myself; that dragged on for too long now.

As someone who love to scroll back to old text messages and reminisce those times, deleting the entire Telegram chat without backup would mean no turning back. The first time I deleted the chat was out of anger but that didn’t count because I made a backup of the chats.

This time it was different. I sent a few farewell messages and before he could read them, I calmly cleared the entire chat with a swipe. Later on, he did realised about it and reached out on Instagram. Like how he always did previously. Usually, this would be a sign for me that he cared and I would go back again. Later, I decided to remove him from Instagram as well. Ironically, his Instagram was what I cared most about at the beginning. Now, I want nothing to do with it.

Then I started writing this story here. Even as I am writing, I would stop every now and then to check my phone. I knew what I was hoping for — a text message from him. But I know I chose the right time to leave. He would be busy enjoying his overseas trips lined up this month; the trips that I could only be part of in my dreams.

Final Words

Personally, I do not see this experience as a waste of time. You have unlocked a few parts of the world for me. While it is bittersweet that there would not be any new memories of us, it was a great year of adventures with him. I would keep our memories close to heart, and I hope you would remember the good times too. I would be forever grateful for our time spent together, it felt so easy and carefree in the early days. Spending time with you felt like an escape from the harsh reality.

While I don’t know how long I would take to fully move on from this experience, I wish the best for you that you would figure out what you want in your life — even if that means I’m not part of it.

The biggest lesson I’ve learnt here is that if you like the person enough, you should respect them enough to let them go. As I type the last words, I would be closing this chapter of my life and bring peace to myself.

If I could turn back in time, I would love to know you again and I think we would turn out great as friends in another parallel universe.