When They’ve Found Someone New

There’s that unnecessary awkwardness when someone talks to you about a past lover, perhaps more so if they let slip that the person you once made the centre of your universe has found someone new. The ‘I’m sorry’ faces that follow from what they realize could have been a hurtful comment — this I know all too well now. To ease their worries, I tell them that ‘it’s okay’, but I don’t seem to be able to convince them. This got me thinking about how we have come to feel and think about lost love, failed relationships and the seeming inevitability of being replaced.

Let’s be real. More often than not, when someone who once mattered the world to you finds someone new, it stings. It doesn’t matter if you still like them (it really doesn’t matter and I’ll tell you why), it just hurts, somehow. That being said, it doesn’t mean that we lie when we say ‘it’s okay’. For some of us, this hurt may dwell for no longer than a second or two. However, for many of us, it may last a few days longer than we would like.

Some call it ‘spite’, some call it ‘envy’. This hurt is often seen as a kind of anger manifesting itself as heartache. But if you truly no longer love someone how is it possible that you still feel that kind of hurt?

The answer has a lot to do with our fear of having been replaced. The thought of having someone better take our place allows our minds to cloud with insecurity. We compare and it sure hurts. All of a sudden, we wish we were more, so much more than what we were. Prettier, more capable, sweeter, more caring; in all, a more beautiful person. We struggle with thoughts of inferiority, and interestingly, it’s not like you still feel for them. Helpless as we are, we allow feelings of inadequacy, imperfection and insignificance to engulf the soul and all we’re left with is a sense of defeat.

So if you haven’t guessed it yet, that hurt we feel is none other than ‘doubt’. ‘Self-doubt’.

These negative emotions stem from our conceptualization of love being a race, and that he who first found someone new has found better and won. And in every competition, it follows that there are winners and there are losers. By seeing love as a competition of sorts, we thus frame ourselves as losers standing small.

But love was never a competition; it is merely a journey on which we embark. Many paths cross, but only time will tell if they diverge or, if we’re lucky, we find someone whose path converges with ours till the finishing line and beyond.

Never feel inadequate because lost love was never about how good enough you were — it was always about how good enough you were together. Don’t frown at the loss. Instead, celebrate and seek empowerment in lost love because little do you know, you were placed in their life for a reason. You were a lesson, a powerful lesson in life and love.

Be glad for having been able to touch someone’s heart in ways you never knew you could. Smile, knowing that you have once made them feel loved and appreciated, so they know that they’re worth every bit of kindness anyone ever has to offer them. Stand proud, knowing that you taught them how to love better now, because mistakes made with you will never be repeated, and that they will never hurt anyone else the same way again.

And as much as this seems to be about them, it is about you too.

Be glad that through it all, you learned what you should not stomach, what you should fight for and fight against. Smile, knowing that you must never settle for less, and only for the best; ‘best’ as defined by how they make you feel, beyond how attractive they are skin-deep or the size of their paycheck. Be happy that you were taught a life lesson on what you are worth and what you deserve. And above all, stand proud — because you now know that love lost was merely a lesson learned, albeit under a disguise, and that you have emerged as a stronger, wiser and better lover.