The Carpenter’s “Good-bye to Love” plays softly in the background of my kitchen. The song pings at me, hitting something both sad and resolved in my soul. I listen to Karen Carpenter bid farewell to the idea of romantic love, vowing to start navigating life alone. I hear her melancholic melody and catch my own experience in it.
There are areas where the song and I diverge: the song is about saying good-bye to love because it never really showed up in the first place. For me, saying good-bye to love feels less like lamenting over empty shelves and more like pouring the last bottles of alcohol down the drain.
After leaving a disastrous relationship, I had devoted a year to dating myself in order to break an unhealthy cycle: I’d get into a toxic romantic situation where I’d inevitably get hurt, I’d swear off dating in response to the heartbreak, and then I’d jump into the arms of the first man who even vaguely promised to be my Prince Charming.
If once is an event, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern, then I was in pathological territory when I left that last relationship.
The Love Addict in Me
In that year of dating myself, I realized something absolutely sobering (pardon the pun): I was addicted to love. I promise I’m not trying to jump from a 1970’s hit song to a 1980’s hit song. However, it took devoting an entire year to focusing on myself to realize just how badly I was addicted to focusing on someone else. I was addicted to the giddy introductions, the obsessive infatuation, the ways that the whole world disappears when you’re in your lover’s arms.
And—as uncomfortable as it is for me to admit it—I was addicted to all the toxic parts, as well.
I was addicted to jumping through hoops to make myself the easiest, most convenient girlfriend in the history of girlfriends. I was addicted to constantly trying to prove my worthiness (and constantly feeling like I was falling short). I was addicted to reenacting scenarios that reminded me of all the negative messages I got as a child; all the childhood wounds that a kid gets when both parents have demons that are far stronger than their capacity to love.
Like anyone struggling with an addiction, it wasn’t like I wanted the bad parts. The same way an alcoholic doesn’t enjoy getting sick from drinking too much or feeling that life-pausing hangover the next day, I didn’t enjoy being with men who made me feel like love was something I had to earn (and never would). I just didn’t know how to break from it. Just like how some believe that the cure for a hangover is “the hair of the dog that bit you” (meaning, drink some more, that following morning), I’d believed that if I just kept trying, if I just become more convenient, more palatable, less needy, then maybe I’d finally get there.
Ultimately, I’d never get there. I’d inevitably get hurt, one way or another, sometimes by them leaving me, sometimes by me being pushed so far past my limits that I’d snap and end things in the most dramatic way possible. I would then (just as dramatically) swear off dating, shouting, “good-bye!” to love like a kid kicking their friend out of their tree fort. Little did I know that it was akin to vowing, “I’ll never drink again,” while knowing, full well, that I’d be meeting up with my friends at the bar soon.
Who Am I?
When I took a cold, hard look as to why each romantic situation only got more disastrous with each guy, I had to acknowledge that it was because I had become more desperate with each heartbreak. This felt more like a gambling addiction, where losing prompted me to go “double or nothing” in hopes that I could make up for what I’d already lost. Just like in the world of gambling, all that did was leave me in more debt than before. I started ignoring red flags that would’ve had me turning and running just a year or two prior. I emotionally latched onto men with increasing determination.
Likewise, while it’s easy to just point the finger at the man from my last relationship, citing him as the reason I devoted a year to dating myself, I have to point the fingers back at myself. Yes, he’d been volatile and manipulative and unfaithful… but, in that relationship, I’d been turning into someone I didn’t even recognize anymore.
That relationship was the first time such a dynamic lasted for almost a year, and it was in that year that I saw just who I became in this Sisyphean quest. I’d become someone who lost all sense of self, who orbited around the man and how to shape herself to fit his moods. But, worse than that, I was becoming someone who was starting to mirror his tactics. I could feel my soul starting to rot. I hated the person I was becoming.
Post Going Solo
I’ve dated three times in the years since my solo endeavor through old school methods like being introduced through a mutual friend. All three were pretty good guys, and they all ended on good terms. But they were all short-lived and followed a similar pattern: a phenomenal first date, followed by a few weeks of bliss, followed by the guy ending it, for reasons outside of the relationship (one was soon moving across the country, another wasn’t over his ex, etc.). It was sobering for me to realize that at least part of why this pattern kept repeating was because of me; in those very beginning stages, I would notice that spark of attraction in the guy and dump gasoline on it—putting my hand on his leg to escalate the physical closeness, telling the man I wanted to kiss him as a way to make the first move.
I’d rationalize my behavior as being empowered, as being transparent with my intentions. In reality, I was just hoping I could speed up the process and more quickly be chosen. I might’ve grown to love my own company, but I was still addicted.
Good-bye (for Now) to Love
Just like Karen Carpenter in the song, while I acknowledge there may come a time where I’m proven wrong, at least for now, this has to be my song. This particular farewell wasn’t like the kid kicking their friend out of the tree house, nor was it like turning my back on something that didn’t actually exist. It was the grim understanding that, at this moment, I’m still incapable of having “just one drink,” metaphorically speaking.
I miss how vibrant the world looks during that initial romantic high, but I know what the fallout looks like, and perhaps what’s needed right now is to devote a little more time to finding those vibrant colors on my own.
Abby Rosmarin has spent the last nine years as a professional writer. Her work has been featured on HuffPost, Bustle, Thought Catalog, Elite Daily, The Bangalore Review, Chaleur Magazine, Hello Giggles, Elephant Journal, Literally Darling, and more. A former model and current grad student, Abby has navigated through the highs and lows of trauma recovery, self-discovery, and becoming comfortable with one’s own company. She is the author of The Ballerina’s Guide to Boxing, Venom, and other independently-published works. Her new book is The Year of Dating Myself: How My Solo Tour Healed More Than Just My Heartbreak (July 8, 2025). Learn more at abbyrosmarin.
