This story is about a Malaysian woman who spent nearly a decade tied to someone who was never quite hers.
For almost a decade, he was my constant. Not my boyfriend and definitely not my soulmate, but something I can’t quite put into words. Now that he’s getting married, I feel like I’m losing more than just a friend.
We were never in love, but he was always there
I met him almost ten years ago on Tinder, back when I was still in university and he was already working. Back then, I was still figuring myself out. Imagine me being a broke student, fumbling through love, desperate to feel like an adult.
He wasn’t rich either, not flashy at all, but he had this calm, steady presence that I found comforting. I can say that, like almost all other girls at that age, I wanted to go out with a guy who was capable of covering all our so-called dating expenses.
The phrase ‘Let’s go Dutch!’ was never brought up, not even once whenever we went out together.
We clicked instantly. It wasn’t clicking in a fairy-tale, “this is my soulmate” kind of way, but in the effortless way two people sometimes just get each other.
We joked about stupid things, we talked about life for hours, and in between all of that, we had so much fun in the bedroom.
We weren’t in love. We didn’t pretend to be. But over the years, he became my constant.
He once asked me why we had never gone on proper dates or done all the cute things couples usually enjoy. To be honest to you readers: I had no idea, man.
He watched me through heartbreaks, first jobs, failed attempts at adulting. We laughed about it sometimes at how he had a front-row seat to me growing up. He would tease, “I’ve seen all your phases already,” and he wasn’t wrong.
He’d seen me when I was crying over guys who didn’t deserve me, when I celebrated my first promotion, when I doubted myself so much I almost quit everything.
He was always there. Not as a boyfriend, not as a lover. Just… there. And that meant more to me than I ever admitted out loud.
The year he disappeared
Then, out of nowhere, we lost contact. A whole year of silence.
When Tinder decided to throw him back into my life again, it felt like fate. We matched, laughed at the coincidence, and picked up right where we left off.
But that’s when I found out what happened during that missing year.
He had been in love. Really in love. So much that he moved in with her, met her parents, and took care of her sick mother like she was his own.
He thought he had finally found the woman he’d marry.
Until one night, she disappeared.
He called, searched, and begged for answers. Her family ignored him. And then the truth came out: she was engaged to someone else the entire time.
Her family knew. They let him carry the burden of care, only to discard him when he wasn’t useful anymore.
That same night, heartbroken and half out of his mind, he got into an accident that left him with broken bones and months without a job.
When he told me the story, I remember sitting there speechless. I couldn’t even imagine how he survived that year as the amount of betrayal, loneliness, and physical pain on top of the emotional wreckage were just a bit too much.
I wanted to hug him, but I also knew he didn’t need pity. He just needed someone to listen. So I did.
Fast forward to now
He survived it. He healed, mostly. Enough to let someone new in.
Today, that someone is his fiancée.
On paper, she’s nice. Sweet, even. A little too controlling for my liking, but maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe after years of chaos, he needs someone who keeps everything in order. And now, they’re getting married.
And here I am, trying not to feel like the ground is slipping under me.
Not because I’m in love with him. I’m not. I never was.
Not because I’ll miss the intimacy, though I won’t lie — I will.
It’s everything else.
It’s the way I could call him at 2 a.m. without worrying if I was “too much.” It’s the way he knew my history without me needing to explain myself.
It’s the way he never judged when I made mistakes, because he had seen me make enough of them already.
With him, I didn’t need to perform. I didn’t need to be the “polished adult” or the “responsible daughter” or the “cool girlfriend.” I could just be me — messy, reckless, unfiltered.
And once he gets married, I know that door closes. No more late-night talks. No more spontaneous meet-ups. No more “us,” in the undefined space we carved out for ourselves.
What I’m really mourning
I keep telling myself I shouldn’t feel this way. After all, we were never more than friends-with-benefits. He was never mine to lose.
But the truth is, what I’m mourning isn’t him.
It’s the space he held for me.
For almost a decade, he was my witness. To my mistakes, my milestones, my becoming.
And now, as he steps into this new chapter of his life, it feels like that witness, specifically my witness is gone.
The girl I was when I was with him – reckless, honest, unfiltered – that girl disappears too.
And maybe that’s why this feels so much like heartbreak, even though it isn’t.
The hot take from this story is that I would say: Sometimes, the hardest part isn’t losing the person. It’s losing the version of yourself that only existed with them.
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