I don’t want my ex back. So why can’t I stop checking on him??? (Long vent)

We broke up almost 8 months ago (24 m/21 m). We were together for 2 years. I know that 8 months sounds like enough time that I should have moved on by now but we haven’t even been properly no contact because we keep fucking resetting the clock.

Technically we met on Grindr and just happened to realize we went to the same university. I’d downloaded it with basically the stupid mindset of looking around and maybe mess around. I wasn’t expecting much because my physical type has always been annoyingly specific and guys just don’t do anything for me.

Then his profile came up and was almost exactly my fucking type, and finding out we were at the same uni made meeting feel way too easy. I remember thinking I’d somehow beaten the odds and found exactly what I liked without having to look very hard. A little shorter than me, lean, medium length dark hair, light skin, really intense eyes. Face card on point. There was something severe about him even when he wasn’t doing anything. I remember thinking he looked pissed off when he was literally just sitting there.

At first I fucking loved almost everything about him. The problem is that our personalities were completely different in ways I mistook for complementing each other.

I’m extremely routine oriented. I train regularly and care a lot about health, sleep, food, consistency. I like knowing roughly what my week looks like. I don’t need every day to be identical but I genuinely enjoy stability. I’m also not particularly extroverted. I don’t need constant activity or stimulation. Give me the gym, work, food, and a quiet evening and I’m perfectly happy.

He was intense. That’s the only word that captures him. Emotionally everything was intense. If something irritated him, it REALLY irritated him. If we disagreed, he couldn’t just let it sit. If he thought something was unfair, he needed to confront it. If he wanted something, he wanted it RIGHT NOW. If he was angry, you knew. And if he liked you, you fucking knew that too.

That intensity was intoxicating at first. When he looked at me I knew exactly what was happening behind his eyes. He could be incredibly affectionate privately which I don’t think most people who knew him casually would have guessed. And physically the chemistry was ridiculous.

I was also more dominant between us in everything and it worked like how we’d want it. Youd assume someone with his personality would constantly fight for control but that wasn’t really the problem. He could just relax and let go around me sometimes in a way I found amazing. It felt like I was one of the only people who got to see him put everything down. That kept me there longer than I probably should have stayed.

We’d sometimes train, then hang indoors later, eat, lie around doing absolutely nothing. Sometimes he won’t leave and he’d fall asleep against me and I’d think this is exactly what I want.

Then something would happen, and it didn’t even have to be something big. Plans changed, or I said something with the wrong tone unintentionally. He thought I was dismissing him. I thought he was overreacting. He’d push, and I’d withdraw. Then he’d push harder because I was withdrawing. I’d get colder because he was pushing harder. Then suddenly we were having a two hour argument about something that should have taken ten minutes.

I started thinking of the relationship as high cortisol and high octane with my nervous system constantly firing on all cylinders for a long time. I was constantly fucking activated around him. Tense and always anticipating the next conflict.

And after a while it started bleeding into everything else in my life, which was probably the biggest warning sign I kept trying to minimize. I’d be sitting in a lecture after we’d argued the night before and realize I hadn’t absorbed a fucking word for twenty minutes because I was replaying the conversation in my head. I’d try to study and keep checking my phone because he was either “typing…” a paragraph or hours of silence that somehow felt just as stressful. There were nights when an argument that started at 10 pm was still going after midnight when I had class the next morning. I’d sleep like shit, wake up exhausted, drag myself through uni, and then be irritated at myself because normally I’m extremely disciplined about sleep and routine, and you cant just shut that shit down like it’s nothing.

Even the gym, my most sacred and holiest thing in my life, started getting affected, which pissed me off hard. Its the most consistent part of my life and where my head clears. But there were days I’d show up already mentally fried from whatever had happened between us, have a garbage session because I couldn’t focus, or occasionally push training later because we “needed to talk” right then. Meals and macros weren’t getting fully in. Study blocks disappeared. I’d lose an entire evening to some disagreement and then have to catch up on coursework the next day while stressed and underslept. I was still doing what I needed to do, but maintaining the normal structure of my life started requiring way more fucking effort than it should have.

That was probably what made the stress impossible to romanticize eventually. I could tolerate friction, but what I couldn’t tolerate indefinitely was feeling like my relationship was constantly spilling over the edges and fucking with everything else I relied on to keep myself stable. Studying was already stressful enough. I didn’t need to be trying to study for an exam while simultaneously wondering whether the person I liked was furious with me because I’d said I wanted to finish studying before we talked.

I started noticing how peaceful I felt when I had an evening completely to myself. Then I’d feel guilty for feeling peaceful and miss him. Then he’d come over and we’d have an incredibly fun night together and I’d think I’d exaggerated all our problems. Then three days later we’d be fighting again. That cycle lasted way too fucking long. I kept assuming he’d eventually become easier to live with.

He wanted me to be more emotionally reactive and spontaneous, and willing to fight something out immediately instead of taking space. I wanted him to calm the fuck down. That’s basically the relationship in one sentence and neither happened.

Eventually I realized I was spending more energy managing the relationship than enjoying it, so I ended it. It was horrible. He didn’t take it well and neither did I honestly. He went from angry to devastated to angrier. He told me I was giving up, and I told him I was exhausted. He said relationships take work. I said a relationship shouldn’t feel like fucking work every single day.

We agreed to no contact. It lasted nine days before I checked his Instagram, then his mutual friends stories just to check if he was in the background like some pathetic creep. Then he texted "you good?" and I answered. Three more weeks of talking, joking, flirting, and then hooking up. It felt like getting him back, but after we finished and just lay there it felt empty and hollow. We werent fixing anything.

We did it two more times each one worse than the last. It felt good, of course it fucking was, but afterward there was no relief. Just this horrible clarity while looking at him and thinking why the fuck are you in my bed. We stopped indefinitely because we had to. That was three months ago.

I dont text him or call him, but my definition of no contact is bullshit. I still check and look at his follower count, his profile picture, his activity status. The fucked up thing is I dont even want him back ever after all the shit I went through. My life is objectively better, my training and progress is back on track, my apartment is peaceful and I sleep like a baby. I just miss the version of him that used to want to get close and fall asleep against me. I miss wanting to take care of and accommodate and treat him right.

Every time I check his profile im looking for proof he's miserable or happy or single, and none of it helps. I dont want him back, I just want to stop needing to know he exists. The relationship ended eight months ago and the sex ended three months ago, but this little digital habit is the last part of him I still have to break up with.