Modern breakups rarely end. They just slowly downgrade into emotionally confusing subscriptions.
Some breakups end in chaos.
Blocked numbers. Public crying. One person moving somewhere else and suddenly becoming really into ceramics.
But most modern breakups don’t actually end.
They just… flatten out.
Into reactions. Occasional memes. Instagram story replies sent at emotionally vulnerable hours like 00:47 on a Tuesday.
Nobody says “I still want access to you emotionally without having to actively date you.”
So instead we say things like:
“I still care about you as a person.”
Which is technically true.
And also deeply unhelpful.
Because modern dating has accidentally invented a relationship category that exists somewhere between friendship, emotional support hotline, and low-stakes digital haunting.
You stop kissing.
But you continue witnessing each other.
No girl, human beings were not built for this.
I don’t think our nervous systems were designed to receive:
“happy birthday ❤️”
from someone who once saw us naked and emotionally destroyed us near a grocery store parking lot.
We used to lose people properly.
Now they just remain softly available forever.
Watching your stories.
Liking your vacation photos.
Reacting “😂” to memes six months after telling you they “don’t think they can give you what you deserve right now.”
Which, by the way, is such a fascinatingly humane sentence.
Because nobody ever says:
“I like you just enough to keep you emotionally nearby but not enough to significantly inconvenience myself.”
That would at least be honest.
Instead everyone speaks in these emotionally HR-approved corporate statements.
“You’re amazing.”
“I’m just not ready.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“I still want you in my life.”
Yes. Obviously.
Most people would love emotional access without emotional responsibility.
That is literally the dream.
And maybe that’s why so many modern breakups feel incomplete.
Not because we’re soulmates.
Not because the connection is too powerful.
But because nobody fully leaves anymore.
We just slowly reduce each other’s access privileges.
From:
• good morning texts
to:
• replying to stories.
From:
• intimacy
to:
• passive emotional surveillance.
And the worst part is that sometimes it genuinely does feel comforting.
Familiarity is seductive.
Even inconsistent familiarity.
Especially inconsistent familiarity.
Because the human brain is apparently willing to interpret:
“haha omg this reminded me of you”
as evidence that destiny still exists.
Which is humiliating for all of us involved.
And I say “us” because I am unfortunately not above any of this.
Of course I’ve kept talking to people I should’ve emotionally archived.
Of course I’ve stared at a notification for forty minutes trying to determine whether:
“hope you got home safe x”
meant love, guilt, loneliness, boredom, habit, ego, horniness, or simply a functioning thumb.
Modern romance has turned everyone into a part-time behavioral analyst.
And honestly? I’m tired. Not of love.
Just of ambiguity pretending to be emotional maturity.
Because sometimes “staying friends” is healthy and evolved.
And sometimes it’s just two people refusing to fully experience grief because occasional contact feels softer than loss.
Which I understand. I really do.
But I also think there’s something uniquely destabilizing about never fully disappearing from each other’s lives.
No clean ending. No real absence.
Just permanent low-battery emotional availability.
Like:
“I no longer want to build a future with you.
But I would still love access to your personality.”
And maybe that’s the real problem.
We confuse access with closeness.
Attention with care.
Consistency with love.
And ‘still talking’ with something meaningful still existing.
Sometimes it does.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes you’re not star-crossed lovers.
You’re just two emotionally literate people struggling to unsubscribe from each other gently.
Hello,
Instagram suggested your profile to me, and we had one mutual connection, so I think that’s probably why Instagram suggested you to me.
I clicked through to your blog and started reading your writing. The strange thing is, it’s 5 a.m. here. I suddenly woke up, and then I saw that you had written something along the lines of, “If you tend to overthink in the middle of the night, you’re probably in the right place.”
So I started reading.
And I felt like I was okay until I got to “We’re Still Talking.”
And then I completely fell apart.
Because you described, almost exactly, what a Dutch man did to me for six years under the name of “love.” The same pattern that hurt me again and again, sometimes in the hardest ways possible.
And then I broke down all over again because it honestly felt like you had taken those words straight out of my heart and written them down.
And there are so many other pieces of yours where I’ve seen parts of myself.
So here I am, sitting in my bed at 5 a.m., and I’ve been crying for almost an hour because of your writing.
I just wanted to tell you that.