How to Stop Thinking About Someone You Can’t Have

To stop thinking about someone you can’t have, you usually need to do three things: admit what you’re actually grieving, make the fantasy smaller, and give your attention somewhere else to go. Willpower alone rarely works, because pushing a thought away tends to bring it back.

This guide is for when the door is closed. They’re in a relationship, they’ve said no, the timing is impossible, or it would cost you something you’re not willing to lose. You may never have been together at all. That doesn’t make it hurt less.

First, name what you’re losing

With someone you never really had, you’re often grieving a possibility rather than a relationship. That can feel strange to mourn, so people skip it and go straight to “I should be over this.”

Try finishing these sentences honestly, on paper:

• What I hoped would happen was…
• What I liked about who I was around them was…
• What I’m afraid it says about me that it didn’t happen is…

That last one matters. If you’re still trying to understand why they’re on your mind so much, start with why you can’t stop thinking about someone.

Unrequited feelings often turn into a quiet verdict about yourself (“I’m not enough”), and that verdict keeps the thoughts coming long after the crush itself has faded.

Separate the person from the story

When you can’t have someone, your mind fills in the gaps. You rarely see them tired, irritable, bored or wrong. You see the version you built from a few good conversations and a lot of imagination.

Who you’re actually thinking about

The person

• Has bad days and blind spots
• Made a choice that didn’t include you
• Exists mostly outside your view

The story

• Always understands you
• Is one conversation away from changing their mind
• Lives in your head several hours a day

This isn’t about deciding they’re a bad person. It’s about noticing how much of what you miss you supplied yourself.

In one study, people who deliberately reflected on an ex’s less appealing traits reported feeling less love for them afterward, though it also made them feel worse in the moment. Simply accepting that the love was still there didn’t reduce the love, but didn’t lower their mood either. So use the negatives in small doses, and with some kindness toward yourself.

Five steps that tend to help

1. Stop feeding the hope

Hope survives on small signals: a like, a reply that felt warm, a mutual friend saying they mentioned you. If you’re looking for those signals, you’ll find them.

Decide what you won’t do for the next few weeks. For example: no checking their profile, no reading old chats, no asking friends about them. Mute rather than block if blocking feels too dramatic. The point is less input, not a statement.

2. Give the thoughts an appointment

Telling yourself “don’t think about them” is like being told not to think of a white bear: it keeps the thought on standby. Instead, give it a time.

Set aside 15 minutes in the early evening. When a thought about them appears during the day, note it (“later”) and carry on. At the appointment, write freely. Many people find the urge has shrunk by the time the appointment arrives.

3. Write it out, properly

Writing about painful experiences for a few sessions has been linked to better well-being in a range of studies. Writing honestly about it over a few short sessions (what you felt, what you hoped and what you now accept), in letters you never send, may help you make sense of it in a way replaying doesn’t.

4. Fill the space they took up

If thinking about them was how you passed the commute, filled quiet evenings or got a small lift of excitement, that slot doesn’t vanish when you stop. Something needs to take its place: plans with friends, a project with a deadline, exercise, a class. It doesn’t have to be meaningful. It has to be absorbing.

5. Expect the waves

Progress won’t be a straight line. A song, a photo or seeing them unexpectedly can bring everything back for a day. That’s not a reset. Waves get shorter and further apart when you stop feeding them.

When a thought about them arrives

1. Notice it“There’s the thought about them.” No judgment.
2. Name the storyIs this about them, or about the version I built?
3. Choose where attention goes nextA task, a person, your body. Anything specific.

Common situations, and what helps in each

They’re in a relationship. Waiting for it to end keeps you in a holding pattern that can last years. It helps to decide, privately and clearly, that you won’t organize your life around that possibility. If you’re close to them, it may be kinder to yourself to step back from one-to-one time for a while.

They’ve told you they’re not interested. This is painful, but it’s also information. A clear no is easier to recover from than a maybe, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first. Resist the urge to look for exceptions in how they said it.

They never knew how you felt. Some people find relief in telling the person. Others find it makes things harder. If you’re considering it, ask yourself what you hope will happen. If the honest answer is “that they’ll change their mind,” it may be better to work through the feelings first.

It’s someone you work with. Keep things friendly and professional, limit the moments that feed the feeling (long lunches, late messages), and put your energy into relationships outside work.

It’s someone you’ll never meet. Attachments to people we only know from a distance, like a public figure or someone online, are more common than people admit. The same steps apply: notice how much is story, and give that attention somewhere real to go.

If you still see them regularly

When the person is a coworker, a friend or part of your group, you can’t rely on distance. The skill you need then is emotional detachment: being around someone without your mood depending on them. How to emotionally detach from someone covers that situation in detail.

When the thoughts won’t ease

If months have passed and the thoughts are still constant, it’s often a sign the loop has become a habit of its own, separate from the person. Why your brain gets stuck on one thought explains how that happens. If you’re also losing sleep, struggling to function, or the feelings are tied to old patterns of rejection, a therapist can help you work through it.

Hypnosis won’t make you forget them

And it shouldn’t try to. What it can offer is practice: a relaxed, focused state in which you rehearse responding differently when they cross your mind, or when you see them with someone else. The evidence for hypnosis with unrequited feelings is thin, so keep the five steps as your plan. If you want to know what a session is like first, read what hypnosis feels like.