Stories
When there are new challenges to rise up to, KAIST CAF will be at the very forefront.
Stories
KAISTian Stories
How a Breakup Completed My Relationship: A Story that Had to End Because It Never Had a Beginning
Author
OOO (KAIST GSMSE)
발행일
2026-05-21 14:01:15
When I was younger and less mature, I once tried desperately to win someone’s heart. Back then, I couldn’t manage my own emotions, let alone navigate something as complicated as love. I clung onto the relationship desperatelyㅜ, and in the process, I was erasing myself little by little. Back then, I didn’t know you could fail when it came to feelings and relationships.
There are times when it feels like certain thoughts are stuck in my head, echoing inside my mind. It often becomes so bad that it starts to have a negative impact on my life. During one of those difficult periods, someone came into my life. Being with him was a welcome escape, filling me with emotions I'd forgotten and helping me leave my troubles behind. I couldn’t easily let go of someone like that. At first, I grew fond of him because he stood beside me during that rough time. I liked the way he made me laugh and how attentive he was. He listened to me, looked into my eyes whenever I spoke, and even matched his walking pace whenever he was with me. Over time, I didn’t just appreciate those gestures—I began to like him.When he shyly told me he wanted to be with me, part of me felt uneasy about liking someone again, and yet another part of me was happy that this meant I could know him better. As we grew closer day by day, I assumed this was going to be a story with a happy ending.
We began by taking note of our similarities and were amazed at how much we had in common, given that we had only just met. I loved our endless conversations where we would affectionately exchange stories about our day. Whether I was getting ready in the morning, sitting in lectures, or walking across campus with my friends, I was always searching for a fun episode to share with him. All I could think about was telling him about my day.
One day, he asked me what I thought love was. I said true love was when caring and sacrificing for someone else equates to protecting yourself. When I asked him back, he said he wasn’t sure what love was. He wasn’t even sure if he’d ever truly been in love. “Something I previously thought wasn’t love now seemed like it might have been after all,” he said. When I noticed that we were having fewer conversations like this, I knew that something needed to change in our relationship.
After a drinking party with friends from our department, we were walking across a pedestrian bridge when he (probably emboldened now that he was tipsy) said, “I really like you. What do you think of me?” Of course I liked him. But I wanted this conversation to take place when we were sober, so I instead said teasingly, “Ask me that when you’re not drunk.”
But the next day, he said nothing. As our ssum(Korean slang term referring to two people who have “something” but haven’t actually started dating) dragged on, my anxiety became impossible to ignore. Feeling like I was suffocating, I demanded that we define our relationship. He said he didn’t want to date me but wanted things to stay the way they were. It was an incredibly selfish thing to say. Why start anything, then? Or maybe nothing had ever really started in the first place. To me, the options were simple: end this obscure relationship or make it official. I had made up my mind that this was not going to work. Yet somehow, it felt like I was breaking up with a lover, even though we had never dated.
I told him how I felt, unable to stop my tears. He responded by saying, “Then… we don’t have to break up.”
I hated the idea of letting him go when he already had a place in my heart. My rational side knew that if he didn’t want to start dating me, the only logical option was to cut things off. But emotionally, I still wanted to stay with him—however ambiguous our relationship. When reason won, I pushed him away and said we should stop, only for my feelings to swell again a few days later, bringing me back to square one. Maybe he felt just as conflicted. With such a shaky relationship, all we did was make each other feel even more insecure.
We grew more comfortable the more time we spent together, and our affection grew. Yet, our relationship remained undefined. I also could feel that he was slowly losing interest. I told myself not to take things too seriously and instead control my expectations, butI kept hoping for him to reciprocate the same depth of feeling I had. When he didn't, I was left feeling disappointed and hurt all by myself.
At some point, the act of liking someone began to make me feel smaller. Some days he was warm, other days so cold—it was like mixing hot water with ice to keep everything lukewarm. One moment he would say, “You are the person I care about the most,” making me feel warm inside, but then he’d say, “This relationship honestly doesn’t interest me as much!” in an icy voice. My emotions fluctuated constantly with the temperature of his voice. Whenever he said something that felt even slightly warm, my cool heart would melt instantly. However, the warmer I felt inside, the more I would crumble in the end. I clung onto everything he said like my life depended on it. His words and actions dictated my mood for the entire day. If he spoke to me in a kind voice, I felt happy and grateful. If he treated me coldly and distanced himself, then I would feel downcast all day. I hated this side of me, but I was still drawn to him. Every single day revolved entirely around him—I constantly thought of him even when we were apart. That sense of being connected to him, however fragile, felt good. The days and weeks went by like that.
By then, our lives had become so intertwined that it was impossible to imagine life without the other. After we concluded our daily schedule, we naturally gravitated toward each other—not deliberately, just out of habit. It became a regular routine for us to meet and talk about how our day went over beer. Whenever either of us snapped back to reality, we wondered if maybe it really was time to stop. Time went by with us repeatedly saying “Let’s end this” and “No, let’s try to make this work again” back and forth like some kind of tennis rally. I think I was hoping that my feelings for him would one day fizzle out so that I could finally let him go. The word gyereuk(literally meaning “chicken rib,” a phrase used to describe something not particularly valuable to keep, but also not quite worthless enough to discard) comes to mind. To me, he was someone I genuinely wanted in my life, but to him, I was a gyereuk—someone he didn’t want to let go of completely, but definitely not someone he actually wanted. Our relationship was too bare to be called love, but it was also too much to be called friendship. It was clear that this relationship was a failure.
Through him, I hit rock bottom emotionally and saw how far my pride could fall. The harder I tried to fully win his heart, the more he wanted to distance himself from me. When I got fed up and forced myself to push him away, he would eventually approach me again. Each time, I tried to put on a facade of reluctance as I returned to him, pretending I couldn’t see the bigger problem. This essay would be several times longer if I tried to recount every moment spent drowning in that confusing mix of dopamine and desperation, but I know I really liked him. Wanting reassurance, I asked, “Don’t you like me anymore?”
He said, “60% of me doesn’t like you, and the remaining 40% does like you.”
That 60% part stung quite a bit, but I was actually happy that there was still 40% that appreciated me. When I asked, “Why do you spend time with me if you don’t like me that much?” he said, “At this point, being with you has become a part of my daily life.” Truth be told, I was honestly overjoyed to know that I was part of his life.
Even after hearing all that, I was more afraid of losing him than I was of losing myself. I was constantly scrutinizing my words and actions, taking care not to say or do things that he might dislike. I felt myself grow smaller and smaller, yet I convinced myself that it was fine. Sometimes, I would stare intently at his face when he was looking elsewhere, on the verge of confessing my love for him right there and then. However, I stopped myself from blurting out my feelings and instead acted like it was nothing. The more time I mulled over our relationship by myself, the more frustrated and hurt I became. Consequently, I lost the bright, carefree side of myself. I was constantly trying to guess his feelings, but that just made me feel even more anxious and obsessed. He couldn’t stand that. I realized later in life that this entire process wasn’t a failure of love, but a failure to look after myself. Only after losing myself in the name of protecting him was I finally able to admit that this relationship had failed.
But the truth is, I wasn’t unhappy all the time during our so-called relationship. I genuinely had fun with him, and though it wasn’t truly comfortable, it was familiar, and that mattered to me. Sharing a drink at the end of the day and sharing our burdens was a significant source of stability for me. Despite our harsh words and actions at times, we lasted surprisingly long. I had long abandoned my pride in front of him. Was I afraid of losing him, or was I afraid of losing myself the more I loved him? So when he finally let go of the relationship I had been trying so hard to hold onto, the months and years we’d spent together made it hard for me to accept that this was really the end. He wasn’t just a part of my life; he wasmy life.
I even went to his place once, desperate to keep our relationship alive. But the more I clung, the more resolute he became. For a while, I tried to deny my failure. I resented my own naivete for believing that our relationship was special and different from the rest. A part of me didn’t want the feelings I had for him to end up meaningless. Another part of me hoped he had reciprocated equally deep feelings for me. I missed the way he used to smile at me, and how he always made me smile. I wondered whether things would have been different if I had acted differently. But above all, I was left disappointed in what I had become. I wanted to share with him my feelings and thoughts as a final goodbye, but he avoided even talking to me. So I pushed all those feelings down and sent him a long message, thinking maybe—just maybe—he would change his mind. But he replied, “You’re too much. Why are you taking things so far?” What hurt the most was having my sincerity dismissed—sincerity I had shown because I fully believed he was also just as sincere. He had been my everything, and I hated how suddenly we had become nothing. Yet he seemed unfazed by being apart from me.
By the time I had exhausted myself enough to finally let him go, what hurt more than losing him was realizing how little I had cared for myself while I was with him. That was the first time I learned that even if a relationship fails, I shouldn’t fail myself in the process. I tried to remember what my life looked like before I met him, but nothing came to mind. I had to rediscover who I was. I naively leaned on him for everything. I had lived my life looking forward to the time we spent together every evening—so letting him go meant I was once again truly alone. I wondered why I was the only one struggling this much. Was it because I poured too much into this relationship? Part of me resented him, too—he was the one who said he liked me first, yet he pulled away as soon as my feelings grew deeper.
I tried to get my mind off things by being busy. I focused on living my life and slowly began to rediscover who I was on my own. Through my failed relationship, I learned that I could be whole without someone beside me. Even though I didn’t have love in my life, I was still myself, and I realized that I should have been myself even when I was in a relationship. A healthy relationship should mean that you can be yourself more, not less. I promised myself that next time, I wouldn’t lose who I am.
When I finally came to terms with the breakup, he seemed to feel a twinge of regret. But I knew it wasn’t because of anything about me specifically—it was probably because he felt the emptiness that comes when someone close to you suddenly vanishes. I didn’t let myself be fooled by his sudden change of tone. It wasn’t as though he was disappearing from the world forever; if we were truly meant to be, maybe someday our paths would cross again. It just wasn’t our time. He entered my life too early. I loved him so much, but we were both too young and inexperienced, and that immaturity resulted in us hurting each other. I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out if we met now. Maybe we could have had a steadier, more mature relationship. Or maybe we never would have started anything at all, refusing to reveal the rawest parts of ourselves.
I still don’t know whether he left me or let go of me, or whether I left him or let go of him. All I know is that at some point we both realized we couldn’t be together anymore, so we decided to move on. When he left for good, he told me that time would dull the pain—that even if it felt like the world had ended right now, given enough time, I would be okay. And he was right. As time passed, the deep cuts of sadness healed, and eventually my heart was once again filled with happiness. The memories with him stayed the same, but nostalgia made everything seem a lot better in hindsight. My heart used to ache whenever I thought of him, but now I can smile when I look back at our time together. Sometimes I miss the version of myself who wore a bright smile whenever I was beside him, but I also know that I cannot repeat the same mistakes that resulted in my darkest days.
“As the distance between us grew, I became closer to myself.”This is a line from a song I heard, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. My failed relationship broke me, but it also rebuilt me. I experienced growth because of that love. A failed relationship isn’t always someone’s fault. At the very least, I can say that the girl who loved with everything she had did not fail.
When my heart finally settled down, someone new came into my life. He gently landed beside me, like someone I’d known for a long time. If it had been the old me, I would’ve been too afraid of opening up, lest I get hurt again. But this time was different. I made a promise that I wouldn’t lose myself in the name of love. I had learned how to gauge another person’s emotions and wait patiently for someone who loved me as much as I loved them. I didn’t have to walk on eggshells or filter my emotions. With someone who respected my pace, I could laugh freely at the smallest things, stay true to myself, and love without abandoning who I was. That relationship eventually came to an end too, but I am confident that I will meet someone who will see me as I am, and the sincere love I desire. Until then, I will look after myself well enough so that I can love wholeheartedly like I was always meant to.
썸네일 파일