Walk Away Partner Syndrome: It Has Probably Happened to You

[This essay is now available in audio on YouTube]

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Bye Bye, Bae.

In 2015, the budding relationship I felt so excited and hopeful about was slipping into toxicity without me realizing it. Tracy and I met on OKCupid while I was on the rebound. I had recently been blindsided by a woman I was madly in love with and uprooted my entire life to move with her to Minneapolis. Within three weeks, she dumped me, and I was not handling it well. I rebounded, rebounded, rebounded right into Tracy’s arms.

She made me laugh and was exactly my type, but most importantly, she was very in to me. This felt incredibly reassuring (to my ego) after having the rug pulled out from under me by a woman I thought I was going to marry.

Though Tracy and I had multiple issues, one being that our relationship was founded on my need to feel better about my breakup, the apex issue we faced, or rather I faced, was Tracy’s monthly cycle…