Knowing how to get over a guy you never dated will help you move forward healthily. Just because he didn’t want to date you doesn’t mean your heart hurts any less, now that you know the possibility of a relationship is gone.

You may experience many of the same emotions you would if you’d experienced a breakup.

Feeling sad, disappointed, frustrated, rejected, confused, and fearful is valid. You might feel depressed and lost, all the while even feeling a little silly since you never actually were in a relationship with this guy.

While all your feelings are valid, I encourage you to stop feeling silly about your feelings for this guy. There’s nothing silly about it. You feel what you feel and it’s legit. Let’s focus instead on moving past this guy so you can find one who will want to be with you.

What You’ll Find Here:

Remove Him From His Pedestal
Don’t Deny Your Feelings
Keep a Journal
Make a List
Work on Your Confidence
Get and Stay Busy
End Contact with Him
Stop the Texting Anxiety
Stop Daydreaming About a Life with Him
Write it Down and Toss it Out
Stop Saying “It’s Just Bad Timing”
Stop Looking for Clues
Make Another List
Open Your Mind to the Possibility of Someone Else
Practice Self-Care
Refocus Your Energy
Allow Time to Heal Your Wounds
Wrap-up

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Remove Him from His Pedestal

When you crush on a guy, you put him on a pedestal. He’s the best at everything and he’s the perfect guy for you because of it.

It isn’t intentional, but it’s what we all do. When you place a man on a pedestal, you often fail to see his flaws and any cues that his interest isn’t being returned.

Instead, you see any snippet of attention from him as a sign that he is interested, rather than seeing the many cues that he isn’t.

We all tend to see the story that fits our narrative, rather than the truth when high emotions are at play.

Additionally, since you saw signs of his interest that weren’t really there, you also lack a feeling of closure on something you thought existed.

Did you imagine a life with him? Are you still fantasizing about turning his feelings around? Talking him into liking you maybe?

Eliminating these thoughts is part of removing him from his pedestal. Recognize that these aren’t facts, they’re fantasies. Holding out for the fantasy to come true will only keep you stuck in the rut you want to get out of.

Don’t Deny Your Feelings

If you’ve shared your situation with friends and family, they might not understand how real and valid your feelings are, but don’t let them minimize what you’re feeling.

Don’t deny those feelings or tell yourself you shouldn’t have them because you were not an official couple. Your pain is real. It’s never healthy to deny your feelings or try to shove them down.

Allow yourself time to feel sad, disappointed, frustrated, and anything else you feel. Reach out to your support network and tell them what it is you need from them. If you need a girls’ night, ask them to join you. If you need to sit and talk about it for a while, ask someone to lend an ear.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Keep a Journal

It can be helpful to journal about what you’re going through, especially if you aren’t a big talker or aren’t comfortable sharing this with anyone else.

Journaling helps with stress and anxiety as well as the challenges that come from both.

It also helps you move your thoughts and feelings from your brain onto paper and thus begin to alleviate the pain. It’s a great way to fully understand what you’re feeling, especially if you allow your thoughts to freely flow onto the paper.

Often, you surprise yourself with what comes out if you just allow things to flow. Keep this journaling space a judgment-free zone. Let the thoughts come, but don’t judge them as right or wrong.

Make a List

Once you’ve moved past the high emotions of the situation, it’s time to figure out what it is you want in a man and relationship.

One way to do this is to look at the good qualities of the men of your past. What about each guy attracted him to you? What did you like about him?

Divide a piece of paper into three columns and label each as follows: must-have qualities, preferences, and nice-to-have qualities. Be careful not to have the must-have column too large, as well as the nice-to-have qualities. A nice mix is great.

What you don’t want is a list of qualities that no man can have or a list that’s so broad, any old guy will do.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Work on Your Confidence

Breakups are always hard on your confidence. You blame yourself for all perceived mistakes, and so does he. Even in this instance, you might be hard on yourself for crushing on a guy who wasn’t truly available to you or interested in you.

This forces your confidence to dip, but you can rebuild it by following the steps here.

Look at that list of qualities you want in a man and work toward developing those qualities in yourself.

If you want a guy who is a hard worker, be a hard worker. If you want a guy who is kind and caring toward others, become that person.

We become attracted to people who are like us, so becoming a person like the one you want to have as a partner will draw that type of man to you. It will also place you in his path more directly.

Wanting a man who values volunteering means you should volunteer. Now you’re putting yourself in an environment where men are volunteering. Some are even available men!

To attract confident men, you must be a confident woman!

Get and Stay Busy

A great way to distract your mind from things is to get busy. Rekindle a hobby or find a new one. Reconnect with your friends or make new friends. Find groups of people who are interested in the same things you are.

This is not something I just recommend to you because you’re mourning a lost love. This is something I recommend to everyone.

Having a hobby you love and friendships to carry you through keeps your life interesting and makes you more attractive.

It also helps you become someone’s beck-and-call girl. When a guy calls for a last-minute date, you can easily say, “Sorry Gregg, I have Yoga tonight. How about Thursday instead?” This makes his time with you more valuable. He must work for it. He needs to become a priority in your life. These are all good things.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | End Contact with Him

Unless you work with this guy, it’s time to end contact with him. Especially if you’re having a difficult time overcoming the mourning. Stop reading his social media accounts. Stop texting him. Quit looking for him behind every corner.

You’ll soon stop these behaviors if you get busy with your friends and hobbies. They’re a great way to distract yourself.

All you’re doing by maintaining contact is keeping an open wound. Each contact or look at what he’s up to picks off the scab and starts the healing all over again.

Stop the Texting Anxiety

At one point, you had a friendship that included texting and maybe a few phone calls, but now, you’re obsessing over him and he’s over you. Somewhere along the line, you went a little overboard and he quit replying to you.

So all you have left are the texts he sent before he stopped contacting you.

You pour over those old texts. Was there a hidden message that you missed? Didn’t the fact that he was texting you at all show that he was interested? And what about this phrase here? Isn’t that a sign that he was interested?

You’re still waiting for him to change his mind and reply to you. As I just said, you’re probably still texting him, hoping for a reply. It’s consuming your thoughts.

Your feelings are chipping away at your dignity and self-respect. It’s one thing to have a crush on someone, but it’s a whole other thing to be obsessing over a relationship that’s not going to happen. And somewhere inside, you know this, or you wouldn’t be reading this article right now.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Stop Daydreaming About a Life with Him

You’re attracted to him, and your mind wanders to what your life together would be like. You create a fantasy world in which he comes to your front door, kisses you when you open the door and sweeps you off on a fantasy date that is romantic and magical.

In other fantasies, you envision what your kids would look like, how he’ll wake up on Sunday mornings and make you French toast and strawberries.

You’ve built a life with a man who doesn’t want a life with you. Instead of having the real thing, which is out of reach, you envision a perfectly tailored fantasy life where he’s the perfect guy and you’re the perfect girlfriend and maybe even wife.

This has to stop. Your mind doesn’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality, so these feelings are very real in your brain. To move past caring for him, you must stop envisioning that perfect life with him. Your mind needs to stop thinking that this is a real relationship, and the only way to do that is to stop imagining it as one.

Write it Down and Toss it Out

In my book, He’s Gone, Now What, readers learn a technique that’s proven to help them overcome obsessive feelings about someone.

The first step is to either write a letter to him (that you’ll never send him) or just write your feelings on a piece of paper. Don’t use a journal because you’ll be destroying these pages later.

Take some time and make sure you get it all out. If you’re writing a letter to him, it’s a goodbye letter. Let him go.

If it’s feelings, get them all out. Write it all down and don’t judge what you write. It doesn’t need to be limited to one page or one day. Use as much paper and time as you need to get it all down. You’ll know when you’re done because you’ll feel better.

Once you have it written, it’s time to destroy it. You can either safely burn it, like in a fireplace or a fire pit, or you can shred it, tear it up, or otherwise destroy it. Just be safe.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Stop Saying “It’s Just Bad Timing”

By saying “It’s just bad timing,” you’re suggesting that there is a possibility of a relationship later. There isn’t. This has nothing to do with timing.

When the problem is bad timing, it sometimes resolves itself. You may excuse his disinterest by telling yourself he just got over a bad breakup. Okay, but how long ago was that? If it was more than a few weeks, it’s irrelevant.

You may also excuse his lack of interest as being due to too much distance between you, but people often make long-distance relationships work, so that isn’t a valid excuse either.

If he was the right man for you, those things would sort themselves out over time. The fact that he knows you exist, and you aren’t together tells you it’s more than just bad timing.

Stop Looking for Clues

“He liked my Instagram story! He must like me!” No. Maybe he just liked the story. Just because he isn’t crushing back doesn’t mean he isn’t a friend.

“But, he said…” No again. Your desire to have a relationship with him is causing you to read things into situations that aren’t really there.

By constantly checking on him and looking for clues that he might want to be more to you than just a friend, you’re staying stuck in the fantasy.

He might just be a nice guy who doesn’t want to hurt your feelings or who enjoys the amusing memes you post. It doesn’t automatically mean he wants a relationship.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to block and unfollow this guy on social media. All social media. No buts. Get him out of sight, and don’t go back and re-add him in a week. Let him go. He has other friends who post funny memes and he’ll survive without yours.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Make Another List

The first list was a list of qualities of all the men you’ve dated. This time, make a list of his good and bad qualities.

By listing his good qualities, you gain an understanding of what attracted you to him. Mesh this list with the good qualities of the other men in your life and see where the overlap is. Again, this is the type of guy you want to go after.

But you also need to make a list of his bad qualities. This goes back to taking him off his pedestal. Recognize that he’s not the all-powerful perfect male. He’s just a guy like every other guy. He has his flaws, which you’ve probably failed to see before.

If you struggle to make this list, get a friend or two involved. If nothing else, they’ll dump on him out of friendship for you. They know his bad qualities.

Open Your Mind to the Possibility of Someone Else

Right now, he is the only man for you. You can’t imagine yourself with any other guy, but as you take these steps, he should start to drift off that only guy for me list.

As he does, open your mind to the possibility that another guy is better for you than this guy. If you’re doing all, or even some of the things suggested in this article, you’re starting to see that Mr. Perfect isn’t perfect for you.

You should also be envisioning an as-yet faceless man who is perfect for you. He carries some of the good qualities you identified in your crush and men from your past. But he doesn’t carry too many of the negative qualities in those same men.

You’ll know when you’re ready to consider the possibility of another man. Then, you’ll be ready to get back out there, have a friend set you up, or create an online profile.

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | Practice Self-Care

Crushing over someone can take time and energy away from taking care of yourself. Self-care should never be cast aside. It’s an important part of what helps you build and maintain self-esteem and self-worth.

And it’s not selfish, as many women believe. Whether you only have yourself to take care of, elderly parents, or children, taking time out for self-care is a must. It helps you focus on loving and appreciating yourself.

Of course, it also just feels good and helps you destress and relax. It’s a nice way to reset after a bad day, week, or month.

You’ve spent a ton of time and energy on a guy who hasn’t reciprocated. Now, it’s time to put that time and energy into yourself for a change!

Refocus Your Energy

In the course of crushing on this guy, how far has your work ethic fallen? Have you been able to focus on any career goals you have, or did this crush sap all your energy?

Regain control of your life by refocusing on your goals. What is it you want out of life, other than a man (not that man)? What are your career goals? Where do you want to live? What kind of car do you want to get next?

Get back to working on things that have a positive meaning in your life. Show your boss you’re there to succeed. Start that new house savings account and maybe take a few classes in something.

It’s time to start living your life for you, not for a relationship that will never happen!

Allow Time to Heal Your Wounds

This won’t go away overnight. It will take time.

Recognize this and don’t get down on yourself when you have a slip-up. It will happen. You’ll be plugging along quite nicely, then something will remind you of him, and WHAM! You’re feeling that old pain again.

That’s okay. It happens. Let those feelings come, then let them go. Don’t stay with them. Feel them and allow them to pass.

Setbacks are part of life, like it or not, but it’s how you manage them that makes the difference.

You have a choice in how you react to everything in your life. Taking control of your emotions and your reactions is one more step to becoming a confident woman, and it’s that confident woman who will attract great men!

How to Get Over a Guy You Never Dated | That’s a Wrap!

I know you’re hurting right now, and I’m sorry. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make your pain go away, but I can’t. The best I can do is give you sound advice and let you know that I’m here for you. Knowing how to get over a guy you never dated isn’t intuitive. If it was, I’d be out of a job.

You aren’t the first woman to go through this, and you won’t be the last. Since the beginning of time, women (and men) have gone through this very same situation and they all lived to tell about it.

Feel the pain. Work on taking the steps above, and work through it slowly. Each day, you’ll feel a little better than the day before. Soon, this whole crush thing will be a blip in your rear-view mirror.