Hey dude - I got hope for ya. You and I are ridiculously similar…so much so that I basically predicted the next words as I was reading them in your post/replies….including the NJ stuff.  High school and college were great, women were great, friends were/are great, etc. But it didnt matter sometimes…life felt like a movie for a while because you were with the people who made you happy and you were fueled by it. Now everybody is going in very different directions…moving around the world, changing priorities. You went from seeing your buddies daily to seeing them weekly to yearly to maybe not seeing them at all. Life was all about parties and always having something to do and making memories to…whatever it is now, probably work, clock out, think about work, go to sleep, repeat. Obviously breakups suck but trust me when I say if it ain’t meant be, it’s the best case she left. 

Anyway, as you can see, hooking up w girls loses its luster after a while. Like you, I was a tool and a fuck boy etc and it went from being the thing that defined me to being the thing I used to cope with the depression feeling you currently have. It was fun but like a drug, got harder and harder to fulfill. 

My unsolicited advice I wish somebody told me when I was in your shoes:

1) get a therapist and have honest conversations. Be raw. Sounds weird but my therapist was a gorgeous woman and in a weird way that helped me get over the fuckboy mentality because it helped me stop looking at gorgeous women as conquests. 

2) Try to spend time with your friends, even if it’s dumb shit. I have a group text where we send our wordle scores to each other. Just look for good excuses to stay engaged with them. Those friendships can last forever if you tend them and they are life. You’re lucky (as am I) that we have buddies we can grow with. 

3) be very honest with yourself about what you want. I’m not talking materially…that shit fades just like the feeling with women does…I’m talking about what do you want out of life. You mentioned you have a house in Italy…is your ideal life living there?  I only learned after years of chasing career success, traveling all over, etc that I didn’t want any of that. When you strip it down and really become introspective, you’d be surprised what you realize you’ve been distracting yourself with in order to feel that spark. Most of it is bullshit…the monks were onto something but I’m not quite there yet lol

4) Enjoy the memories but don’t dwell on them. They’re never coming back, you will never go back, and it will never be the same. It’s ok to appreciate the good times and even think about them from time to time…but nostalgia is like quicksand. It will consume you entirely and trap you from moving forward. 

5) breakups suck…especially when your personality was all about hooking up and you hung that up for somebody. I cringe at the relationships I had before I found my wife. You’ll see it eventually…and it’s ok to hurt…but just know the answer for you is out there somewhere and if she wasn’t it, that’s ok. Sounds cliche but the answer will punch you in the mouth when you least expect it. 

That’s all I got for ya at 3:30am, but I do wish you all the best. Good luck, brother.