They Don't Like To Lose: Why Competitive People Can't Get Over Breakups

Competitive people love a challenge. If competitive people come face to face with a problem, you can bet your ass they're going to try to solve it -- and they won't stop until they do.

They constantly strive to rise to the occasion, to beat everyone else by demonstrating their superior abilities, to prove they're the best.

No dilemma, no person, no situation is a match for a competitive person with a drive to win, win, win.

They're the people you go to when you need something resolved, when you need someone unstoppable, when you need a headstrong, steadfast force to buckle down and get sh*t done.

But as strong as these people are, the one thing that will deeply affect a competitive person is a breakup.

Competitive people have a hard time getting over their exes. All the things they value about the way they operate at work and throughout the rest of their lives get completely f*cked when it comes to dealing with a relationship that has ended.

Competitive people see a breakup as a loss they cannot overcome.

Competitive people are stubborn, and this stubbornness drives them into refusing to stop until a problem gets fixed and victory is achieved. Competitive people live their lives trying to win.

And for a competitive person, a breakup is the ultimate loss. Because after a breakup, there's absolutely no chance of that victory, no matter how hard a competitive person works to get that person back.

Once a relationship partner decides the relationship is over, it's over -- and a competitive person simply can't accept a loss that permanent.

Accepting defeat in any capacity is not in a competitive person's blood.

Competitive people need to figure out what exactly went wrong when they fail to solve a problem.

Regardless of how permanent the loss is, competitive people will still try to figure out what went wrong.

They crave seamless resolutions and perfect closure, all tied up neatly with a bow. Unfortunately, however, the problems surrounding love aren't as easily solvable as other problems.

Sometimes, people lose feelings or get bored. Sometimes, circumstances affect the stability of a relationship. Sometimes, sh*t just happens.

All of this means a competitive person will never really be able to find out what happened. They can make guesses and try to come up with rational answers, but it's hard to intellectualize love, to make sense of something that is so senseless.

Trying to analyze love so linearly will only result in more confusion.

Competitive people hate to be doubted.

In their quest to intellectualize love, competitive people might even look inward to figure out what they did wrong in the relationship.

They might wonder if they were a bad relationship partner, if they didn't show enough affection, if they showed too much affection. All of this forces them to question the superiority of their abilities -- and they hate that.

Competitive people know they're worthy of success, whether that success comes in their family life, at their jobs or with romance.

And they don't like when anyone questions any of that or makes them feel like they aren't capable of anything they put their minds to.

It's bad enough that an ex implied they weren't good enough to date, but when competitive people have to confront that realization themselves, they go crazy.

Competitive people don't want their partner being happy with anyone else but them.

Competitive people are bold, self-assured and assertive.

They're confident in their abilities and in what they can bring to the table, and everyone is aware of this confidence because of how frequently competitive people try to use it to succeed.

So, when they experience a breakup, they want their ex to remain aware of how wonderful they are.

Competitive people refuse to accept that their ex could be happy with someone else (who probably isn't as good as them anyway).

If they actually see their ex start dating another person, competitive people might "randomly" text their ex or engage in a little bit of passive-aggressive liking of new coupley pictures -- just to steadily lurk in their ex's life and casually remind him or her of their existence.

Competitive people want to believe they're still the best their partner has ever had. Nobody else could possibly measure up.

Competitive people just can't let go.

Competitive people can't ever let go of that one job they didn't get, that one problem they couldn't solve -- and that one person who rejected them.

They are confident they're the best, and they're going to prove it whenever they can. When they fail at doing so, they never forget it. The experience of failure is scarring.

Letting go of someone who rejected them -- in other words, who saw them as less than the best -- is just another failure they now have to add to their list of failures.