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" &amp;quot;How could you do this to me?&amp;quot; I gasp between shaky breaths. I&amp;#039;m in Split, Croatia, a city I barely know, in a country where I don&amp;#039;t speak the language. I&amp;#039;d visited two months prior and had a fling with a local; he&amp;#039;d been the one to suggest I come back to stay with him for a week. Now I was here, but instead of the romantic week I&amp;#039;d been envisioning, he&amp;#039;d been constantly making plans with his friends; leaving me alone in his apartment. The final straw was when he said he had plans to travel to Zagreb, a city three hours north, with his brother over the weekend, and then asked me what I&amp;#039;d planned to do with myself during those days.  I sobbed as he watched, an anxious expression crossing his face as he leapt to the defense, saying I was overreacting and being ridiculous. Eventually, after more than a few half-hysterical insults on my end, I stormed out telling him to never contact me again. He took my request seriously: no texts asking if I was okay or calls asking me to come back. Meanwhile, I found it practically impossible to get a hotel reservation; the city was in the middle of a major music festival. Finally, I booked a place at a dingy hostel, where I&amp;#039;d be sharing a room with six loud dudes I had no interest in sleeping with in any sense of the word.  As I settled on my tiny twin bed and my tears subsided, I had the sinking realization that I&amp;#039;d had this feeling before. I was smack in the middle of what my friends and I term a heart scrape. It&amp;#039;s when you know you&amp;#039;ll be fine, that there was never a broken heart involved, but in the moment, the pain is shocking and raw. It&amp;#039;s the psychological equivalent of a full body trip over the curb, where you stand up and realize your hands and knees are gushing blood. You were fine a moment earlier, you know you will be fine later on, but in the moment, there&amp;#039;s a lot of pain and mess to handle. It&amp;#039;s the drunken third date when you make a fool of yourself in front of his friends. It&amp;#039;s the early I love you that awkwardly lands without reciprocation. It&amp;#039;s realizing he&amp;#039;s still in love with his ex. Whatever the scenario, it hurts.  I knew I should just shake it off, but I felt too angry, embarrassed, and humiliated at myself to do so. I&amp;#039;d skipped my flight back to New York to come back to Croatia to hang out with him. I wasn&amp;#039;t expecting a grand romance, but I had been expecting a fun vacation fling. But more than just saying goodbye to my images of swimming together in the Adriatic and drinking white wine on the balcony between kisses was the realization that my dating confidence was badly shaken. I wanted to be the type of person to always say yes to the grand adventure, but after this crash and burn, I felt a lot more gun shy when it came to romance.  Experts agree that&amp;#039;s understandable, and that sometimes, the best way to avoid a heart scrape is realize just how much risk is involved. &amp;quot;When taking risks with new people, weigh the cost-benefit,&amp;quot; suggests Andrea Syrtash, relationship expert and author of He&amp;#039;s Just Not Your Type (And That&amp;#039;s a Good Thing), &amp;quot;What is it costing you to put your trust in someone new, and what is it costing you not to take that risk? In your case, it cost you inconvenience, emotional stress, and probably a lot of money. But if you&amp;#039;d had a feeling he was a keeper, it might have been worth it.&amp;quot; But that was the thing: I&amp;#039;d known deep down he and I hadn&amp;#039;t ever been on the same page. If I&amp;#039;m being honest, while I genuinely had a great time with him the first time we met, what I wanted were the Instagram images and The YOLO bragging rights of jetting off to a foreign country to meet a guy. I&amp;#039;d left New York City back in April with a vague plan and more than a little insecurity derived from having no boyfriend, no apartment, and no secure job to come home to; meeting someone would have been proof to my Facebook friends (and myself, really) that I did belong in a little corner of the world. When he told me, in the weeks leading up to our reunion, about the island house his family owned, my imagination ran wild. I dreamed about the images: the aquamarine blue Adriatic sea, two glasses of rich red wine artfully arranged on the rocks, being introduced as the American to all his friends. In all honesty, I thought our love affair\u2014or whatever it would have been\u2014would have lasted a week. Whatever happened, I assumed there&amp;#039;d be plenty of time for photos, an afternoon sail followed by a &amp;quot;much needed glass of wine at a cafe&amp;quot; tweet, and enough anecdotes to trot out during post-trip brunches in Brooklyn. I&amp;#039;m not saying I deserved to feel the way I did, but I do think that if I&amp;#039;d taken the time to think about how bad I&amp;#039;d feel if our reunion had tanked, I&amp;#039;d likely have skipped it. I simply hadn&amp;#039;t thought ahead to this part. That said, having that contrast readily available can be a huge advantage in the aftermath of a heart scrape. &amp;quot;An attraction, even if it doesn&amp;#039;t work out, is always an opportunity to learn something about ourselves,&amp;quot; reminds Melody Wilding, LMSW, a Manhattan-based psychotherapist. &amp;quot;What drew you to that person, in both good and bad ways? It&amp;#039;s an opportunity to ask why you got caught up so quickly in a person who wasn&amp;#039;t good for you. Were you trying to fill a void or seek reassurance?&amp;quot; While, trust me, I&amp;#039;d much rather have been hanging out on the beach as part of a couple than performing self-analysis on a hot and sticky bus up the coast while listening to &amp;quot;Let It Go&amp;quot; on repeat, in a way, I&amp;#039;m glad this crash and burn happened. Next time I skip a flight for a man, I&amp;#039;ll make damn sure I&amp;#039;m ready for the risk \u2026 and I have some hotel reservation websites bookmarked, just in case.  Related:  Generation Ghost: the Facts Behind the Slow Fade  Related:  How We All Became Virtual Wedding Crashers  Related:  6 True Stories of Women, Dating, and Tinder  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a14707/why-mini-heartbreaks-hurt-so-good/>