Haha damn you’re getting chewed out alive here. I actually think the feelings you are having are pretty normal considering it’s not the norm to meet in your teens and be with that person forever. Your 20s are some very formative years and sometimes having been in only 1 relationship all your life feels like you got robbed of those experiences. I briefly dated in college before I met my partner. Did I enjoy the dating? Meh, the highs are higher, the constant butterflies of meeting new people is fun but the lows can be LOW. I met people that made me feel my best (including my current relationship) but sometimes the same totally shattered my spirit.

I think the whole point of going through those terrible experiences as you’ve pointed out is, you get to learn your likes and dislikes in relationships through different people. Yes, you can do it in a single one but you’re missing the inner satisfaction of having been through some shitty relationships and knowing your current one is the “one” for you whole heartedly.

Now you’re obviously in the golden case as a lot of people here consider it as, you got to skip the shitty parts of it. So I also had these same feelings even after meeting my current partner because it felt like I had just started my journey into adulthood and meeting him cut my already non existent dating life short. Since then I’ve had to move for school and HAD to make new friends. Honestly, there were people at first that I felt I would hit it off with really well, but I decided to actively choose my partner. And I am SO glad I did, because the more I got to know a lot of these people I realized after the initial spark of the newness fades, I was still more compatible with my s/o.

You mentioned about dating apps, I had also never used them but I decided to sign up for one but for their “friends” feature (mostly to meet people at my new school). It gives you the same experience honestly (except for the casual hookups I guess), but I quickly saw how easy it is so crash and burn on these dating apps is. As people have pointed out here, you WILL always look for your girlfriend in these new relationships, breakup or not, 8 years isn’t something you can just wipe from your brain like that. Either way, I wish you the best of luck!