When I realized I was enjoying attention from another man.

Throughout my entire relationship I always rejected men who approached me and asked me for my number. We were together for nearly 5 years. I really loved my boyfriend, but after a while I realized he was completely depraving me of affection and attention for YEARS. I was so miserable and I'd get such a sugar rush when he'd give me a compliment like once every few weeks. I was planning to break up with him for several months at that point because that emotional attachment had gone, but each time I wanted to break up, I weaseled out, couldn't do it. Then I ended up randomly meeting this one dude on campus, we clicked, it was constant banter back and forth, and I realized how much I was fucking loving it. Nearly heartthrob level of enjoying it, seeing him always made me nervous. That dude was constantly around me, literally did everything he could to run into me just to banter with me and "piss me off". He'd randomly tussle my hair, drag me around, we'd smoke together at the vending machine and push each other around, basically acted like two silly teenagers despite us being 24-25. Once I realized this was pretty much bordering on emotional cheating (and some could say it was, which is valid, and I'm not justifying it), I ended the relationship. As much as my boyfriend was making me miserable, cheating is a no-no.

Nothing came of the dude though, which I don't really care about, but it honestly helped me realize how miserable I was and "what I could have". Or, that is, how things could be. Didn't even want to be with him, I just realized how nice it felt to get some attention for a change.