A few times in your life, someone comes along that you have the potential to spend the rest of your life with. After it ends, you try to convince yourself that it wasn’t a good relationship, but you can’t seem to pinpoint any time during the relationship that you thought it wasn’t anything but good. Then someone tries too hard or too little, or someone lies or cheats or has a minor character flaw that the other person can’t seem to get over. Then all of the sudden the relationship is over, and one person is on the prowl to find someone else to satisfy their physical and emotional needs.
Sometimes both people jump on the Rebound Train, but for some reason, in my experience, it’s always only been one — the other person. I’m not big on always needing to have someone to talk to, but I understand that other people’s brains work differently and they desire the physical touch or emotional attention of others. This is what leads to rebound relationships.
Whether or not you realize it, you’re out searching for someone, anyone, with which to make a connection. You look for common interests and acceptable physical/personality traits, but you also subconsciously start looking for something else — none of the traits you disliked in your previous significant other. You just got out of a relationship with a control freak? Let’s find someone who lets you do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. You just broke up with someone who’s so messy they can’t even see their bedroom floor? Let’s find you an OCD neat freak and so on and so forth. We don’t realize it, but the main thing we look for in a rebound is that the person is nothing like our ex, even if that means overlooking the fact that you don’t ever think you’ll spend the rest of your life with that person.
Rebounds are the kind of relationships that usually don’t last more than a year. You genuinely like the person and hanging out with them; maybe they’ve made you laugh harder than you ever had before or they share some of your hobbies and you’d rather be spending time doing those hobbies with them than hanging out with your friends — all of that is actually real. But then what? You definitely like them; sometimes you even convince yourself you’re in love with them. But are you really? Or are you just hoping to pick up this new relationship where your last (actually serious) relationship left off? That’s what a rebound is — a place holder between your last relationship and your next, and you need to be mature enough to realize that it takes a long time for relationships to grow into what they are, and starting a new relationship isn’t going to be exactly like your last one minus all the flaws.
It’s also true that not every relationship (no matter how soon after another relationship) is necessarily a rebound relationship at all. Sometimes that’s just the natural progression of life and some people move on quicker than others. But it’s true that rebounds exist, and it’s also proven that it’s usually the dumper that jumps into the rebound more frequently than the dumpee. Being single after a breakup can leave you uncomfortable and vulnerable, but sometimes you just have to know what you want in yourself and someone else before you can make rational decisions about moving forward after a breakup. Especially if that “moving forward” process involves snuggling with puppies and keeping busy by drinking wine and watching Cheetah Girls with your friends. Or maybe that’s just me.
