Because it was not love. Because it was not love. Because it was not love.
That is precisely why we give things names, and invent words that describe the various things in the world.
If somebody hands you a fork, you understand you cannot eat cereal with it.
If somebody cuts you off after four dates of stormy sex and sweet talk under the blanket, then even if you felt that this was really it — what on earth has that got to do with love?
People are not careful here about correct terms.
Now seriously, and with an additional centimetre of empathy.
We read somewhere that something special and powerful happens between two people when they open up to one another and decide to place trust in one another — important — and even decide to invest time in getting to know one another. Most important.
And we too want to experience that sensation, which is far too hastily called love.
Because love is not a sensation that is fun and worth experiencing. It is not a product the company sends you on a week's trial so you can decide whether you fancy it.
Love is a long-term business.
We want to love quickly. So hungry that we do not let the bond between us and the partner be built and take root. So thirsty to declare that the struggle to find happiness is over, that we rush to call what we feel after the third encounter by the name of love.
And then suddenly it ends. In one blow. Abruptly, without preparation, and we are wounded and stunned, and lose a little more of our already shaky confidence.
But notice what actually ended. Not a love, because there had not been time for one. What ended was a projection — a very vivid and entirely sincere projection, assembled at speed out of hope and very little information.
That distinction matters enormously, and not as a consolation. It matters because if you file it as a failed love, you conclude something dark about your capacity to be loved. If you file it correctly, you conclude something far more modest and far more accurate: that you moved fast, and the evidence had not yet arrived.