I know you're getting downvoted, but I appreciate your input, it's definitely different.
I (33m) struggle with thoughts about ex (34f) even though new partner (31f) much more compatible
Basically title...
Background I got out of a very long and desperately unhappy and demanding relationship about 2 years ago.
Been in therapy essentially the whole time working on various issues but crucially here getting to grips with my romantic intensity.
Never had issues with respecting boundaries, but I like everyone (romantically in a purely monogamous way), and tend to get really into the people I date.
I've been dating off and on, met some awesome people, didn't work out, but I'm on good terms with all even friends with quite a few so it's been good.
Short term ex Met this person just over 1yr ago, we saw each other a lot for about 3mths (I mean multiple times a week, looking after her puppy, lunch dates with her mum without the ex, intense).
She was always icy, never seemed interested, but would say yes to whatever activity if I asked and it didn't involve her planning or putting any sort of work in. For some reason this was like drugs to my brain and I fell hard.
Thankfully she randomly decided one Saturday to break up with me and I wouldn't fight it (which she didn't appreciate) so we went basically cold-turkey just under a year ago.
New relationship 2 months ago I met someone really great, she's actually putting in the work as well and it's going gangbusters. She's also incredibly pretty (I'm not bad looking but not on the same level), genuinely concerned about her eyesight.
Additionally she's constructive and genuinely into me (probably on a similar intensity level as me).
But I find myself thinking about the girl I saw a year ago increasingly often. Part of it is that I'm now concerned the relationship could end just randomly, and part of it is that it just seems easier - I don't have to always be the one asking and I can just enjoy some dates without the stress of planning everything.
And this is messing with my head and it's so frustrating.
TL;DR After a decade of dating women who expected everything done for them, I'm now potentially in a healthy relationship and struggling to keep my brain from thinking back to the "good old days".
It's like when the crazy guy says it's easy and then pulls out a pinboard with pictures and string connecting them and proceeds to explain how it makes sense in his head and you have to admit that you sort of follow but also can't believe what you're hearing is reality.
If you don't butcher it like you did, ISO8601 caters for any amount of precision you need.
For the vast, vast majority of my usage 2023-07-23 is sufficient. If you need a time as well just append the time and the nice thing is it'll still keep things in order (I've not found myself needing to use the timezone notation as well since I don't usually share dates cross-border). For work I use the week notation a lot 2023-W30-4.
04-06-13 is not helpful because now I don't know if you're European and mean 4th of June 2013, or if you're american and mean 6th of April 2013, or if you're some weirdo who means 13th of June 2004.