
The opening lines of (500) Days of Summer are something that have stuck with me since my first viewing of the film, which came out in 2009. I can still hear the narratorโs voice, played by Richard McGonagle, booming in my mind as he said, โThis is a story of boy meets girl. You should know up front, this is not a love story.โ

I recently rewatched the film for the first time in years. And it hits differently when youโre going through a breakup. I spent a long time wondering if I would have changed the way my decade-long relationship unfolded if I had known upfront that โthis is not a love story,โ that it would inevitably end in heartbreak. That I would be left feeling like Carrie Bradshaw when her writer boyfriend, Jack Berger, broke up with her on a post-it note after he promised to try to make their relationship work.
Would I have been left with the modern equivalent of the Post-It note breakup? Initially, before agreeing to talk on the phone two days later (after I begged), my partner of the past ten years tried to break up with me through a text message.

For a few moments, I felt as if I were inside a Sex and the City episode. You know the one. The infamous Post-it note breakupโwhen Jack Berger tells Carrie Bradshaw, โIโm sorry. I canโt. Donโt hate me,โ on a Post-It note before disappearing from her life. What makes it sting isnโt just the method (though cowardice does deserve its own category of heartbreak), but what that paper represents: someone who couldnโt be honest with you until they were already gone.
While the show plays the breakup up for laughs, thereโs something sobering about it all. Because the real kicker of the breakup isnโt just that he left, itโs that you were never worth the hard conversation. The ending didnโt just hurt. It made you feel disposable.
And maybe thatโs what makes breakups like Bergerโs (and mine) so hard to process: itโs not just the pain of it ending, itโs the method, the avoidance, the ease with which they walk awayโlike you were never really real to begin with.

He said, โI feel very guilty, and this is the hardest thing Iโve ever done. But I feel hopeless about the chances of long-term happiness. โฆ Iโm very sorry for all this pain. I canโt talk anymore right now, itโs becoming too painful for me.โ
I was left confused and second-guessing every single interaction we had ever had. I felt like Tom replaying every moment in my mind, as if it were shot on 35mm film. When did it all go so wrong? When did he stop loving me and start seeing me as his enemy? When did I stop reaching for our Eden? For that unattainable place of perfect connection within his heart, that always seemed to remain just out of reach?
We were having sex up until the night before he left. Iโll never forget how distant he was that night. He didnโt let me touch him, and I knew something was off. I knew something was amissโฆ and yet, I didnโt inquire. I was afraid to know. I was afraid to have another argument.
And now, as I sit here in the lobby of some office building near Central Park, waiting to meet my dozenth first date since the split, filled with regret. I wish we had fought, really fought. Because our lack of arguments led to a lack of passion, and that lack of passion seemed to be missing since after our first year and a half together.ย
So then why did we stay?! Part of it was that there was so much life happening. His Mother was dying, I was depressed, he was trying desperately to be an entrepreneur, we were living with his parents in a pressure cooker doomed to burst or swallow us wholeโฆ There was so much pressure on both of us. And yet, we stayed. It was comfortable. He was my best friend. And I honestly thought he was my personโฆ but maybe, all this time, I wasnโt his.ย
Itโs a jarring moment… looking back now, I realize I was โlove blindโโblinded by my narrative of what we were, what we could become, what I wanted so badly to believeโlooking back on ten years of waiting, hoping, gently pushing, and asking the person I loved to talk to me about our future. About marriage. About us.
And when I finally got my answerโafter he secretly started therapy without telling me (therapy I had begged him to pursue for years)โthe truth came out: he didnโt want to get married to anyone.
Exceptโฆ the question that keeps clawing at me in the quiet moments is: Was it really anyone? Or just me?

I now wonder if he always knewโdeep downโthat he didnโt see me as the one. But he didnโt want to be the bad guy. So instead, he strung me along, delaying the inevitable, convincing both of us that we were still building something real.
Like how Carrie accuses Berger of trying too hard not to be the bad guy, that hits hard. Because often, when someone is more concerned with how they’ll be perceived than how they treat you, they choose the path of least resistance. A Post-it note. Silence. A half-hearted explanation, months (in my case, years) too late. Itโs not just about ending the relationship. Itโs about choosing self-preservation over your partnerโs dignity.
He insisted it was โa compatibility issueโ. And maybe it was. We are two very different people, and yet somehow, we were two very different, very lost people who navigated life together during a time when we both really needed someone. And now I am trying to navigate life as myself, again.
A friend once told me that the minute someone breaks up with you, one of the first things you try to do is reclaim your dignity. And sometimes you go about it in very undignified ways. I tried really hard to resist my old pattern of becoming infatuated with someone else. But it proved to be extremely difficult.

I wound up sleeping with a friend I had been crushing onโฆ and then I briefly saw a Dom. I enjoyed the fantasy without the need to be vulnerable. It was a distraction from the need to process the mess of emotions swelling up inside me. The instant gratification of having somebody versus somebody. Though it did make me wonderโฆ had I done that with my ex? And if I had, would I even realize it?
Upon reflection, I donโt believe I did, at least not initially or consciously. I met him during an extraordinary time in my life. My younger brother had a series of suicide attempts, which resulted in my returning to the house that never truly felt like a home. And when he stabilized and went off to college, I felt empty. Lonely.
And that nagging feeling I was always running from, loneliness, hung heavy. So I ran. I tried to find comfort in another, but a specific kind of comfort. I wanted someone who had stared into the same dark abyss, unflinching. Someone who understood my pain and could hold space for it. Enter, my Ex.
At the time, his Mom was dying of cancer, we had a similar amount of profound loss, and we both wanted more for our lives. So it workedโฆ until, it didnโt. And when it didnโt, I tried to ignore it. To pretend that the pieces still fit together. And I kept doing that until he decided to leave.
Itโs only now that I realize how often I accepted crumbs and called it a feast. I clung to hope. I wrote off the silence. I thought I was being patient, but really, I was just afraid to look again.
The Post-it note is painful because it serves as a metaphor. Not just for how someone leaves, but for how little effort theyโre willing to put inโwhether itโs ending a relationship or nurturing one. Itโs what you leave behind when youโve already emotionally exited.
If I learned anything fromย Sex and the Cityย andย 500 Days of Summer,ย itโs this: clarity doesnโt always arrive in the moment. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes years. But one day, youโll look backโnot just at the good stuff, but at the whole picture. And youโll realize the relationship didnโt fail all at once. It failed slowly, with every avoided conversation, every unanswered question, every time you chose to believe in potential instead of reality.

And when you do finally see clearly, youโll understand that a Post-it note or a whispered “I just knew”โit was never about you being unlovable. It was about them not being capable of loving you the way you deserved.
So now Iโm sitting here (officially stood up by first date #12), staring into the abyss and wanting someone to reach out.
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