let the unconscious part of yourself, the part that keeps your daydreams, speak those wishes as if they were reality. between the lines, profess to desire what you know you don't want. act as though you were unhappy with what you know is precisely what you sought.

undermine your understanding of what's feasible at every opportunity.

map the lines of bitterness onto any available vector. hold him responsible for all the things someone else did, and that you've done in trying to numb the feelings you'd be better off seeing for what they were - dreams that are nice in fantasy but that you wouldn't really want to come true.

remind yourself what you've done wrong each time he walks by and every time you find his face in a crowd. dwell on how nice it was before your quasi-poetic allusions spoiled it.

feel guilty about casual relationships you were vehemently enjoying.

be unable to see that the middle ground between a one night stand and a relationship is a beautiful, passionate but forgiving, exciting and calm place to be. that there need be nothing more because orchestrated casual sex covers all bases, satisfies all your wants.

allow yourself to forget that he's a person, not a piece of logic, and you'll never really see things the way he might. insist that you're able to predict the way he'll feel.

presume that he sees you only as an attractive stereotype and wants nothing more than for you to prolong his fiction. deny that he has any capacity to see you as an individual and not an ambassador.

constantly remind youself of how nice it felt to receive his kiss, or his emails, and lose yourself in regret for what you accidentally lost.

speak your myths aloud because they sound good while you're saying them, and think later about whether they are true for you and whether they will hurt/offend someone you wanted to wake up with again someday.

refuse to understand that apology will probably only make things worse, because he most likely doesn't even want to talk to you right now, but in the same breath, refuse to apologize out of fear.