Hi Meredith,

My boyfriend broke up with me just over a week ago. Now, I know I shouldn’t take it too harshly since we started dating around the end of September. From the beginning, there were a lot of problems: I’m 19, socially awkward, and the only other person I have dated in my relatively short life has been a kid from my hometown (who I crushed on for six years and only kissed and held hands with). My boyfriend was a year older than me, has dated multiple girls (and has had an intimate and sexual relationship with one of them), and had just broken up with the girl he’d been dating for years about a month before we started going out.

When he broke up with me he told me that I had just been a rebound. He apologized profusely and offered to be friends (more than likely to ease his own guilt about the situation), but also mentioned that there was a girl he’d known his freshman year in college that he would have liked to have dated. (So I’m 90 percent certain that, with or without realizing it, he dated me to get over one girl so that he could pursue another. Ouch.)

The problem doesn’t end there. See, while we were dating, he became close with all of my friends. Now I have to see him on a daily basis since he’s always in the lounges on my floor, socializing and having a good time, and also making a genuine effort to get me to open up. I wish I could be getting over him and healing properly so that eventually maybe I can get to the point where I can see him as a friend or at least an acquaintance, since I’m forced to interact with him so often. I don’t want to avoid my friends because of him, nor do I want to turn them all against him (nor do I expect that will happen), but seeing him is too much of a bitter reminder. I don’t know what to do at this point.

– Inexperienced and Rather Perturbed