Ask Anahit: Get Over It

How do I (gently) tell my friend they need to get over their ex, who is in a new relationship?

There’s this tweet I think about often (cursed sentence), which goes something like ‘Taylor Swift's music is for people who have never gotten over anything that has happened to them ever’ (also cursed sentence). I think about it often because, as alienated as I feel from Taylor Swift and her carbon emissions equivalent to those of a small landlocked country, I too have never gotten over anything that has happened to me ever, and I don’t really intend to start anytime soon. I think it lends my life a certain je ne sais quoi, and my bank account a certain deficit in therapy fees, that is both compelling and character building. It’s a bit like being a Greek tragic hero stumbling beneath the weight of the past, except the past is a handful of avoidant exes, a series of erotically charged and emotionally devastating encounters that I recall with the anguish of a Vietnam war veteran, and someone who once said hello to me weirdly in a pub.

Which is to say, really, that I am the wrong person to ask this question, because I really don’t think you can put a timeline on when and how and why people should get over things. Relationships affect us differently, and love burrows very deep beneath our skin, and being hung up on an ex isn’t necessarily about denial – it’s about processing the ongoing loss of a past that now feels untrue and a future that now won’t happen.

I really understand the impulse to want to fix your friend’s hurts. Obviously if we could all just get over our exes, our lives would be so much happier and the Instagram attachment theory cottage industry would go out of business. But life unfortunately isn’t a narrative, and we can’t skip to the end point of the healing process just because it’s where we should and will eventually end up. If your friend still isn’t over their ex, there is clearly something that they’re struggling to let go of, an imagination of or attachment to a particular life that won’t quite go away. Maybe sit with them in it for a bit, and see what comes out of it.