I overheard an acquaintance mourning the end of her long-term relationship. She thought things were going well. They even used the L word.

“I just want an explanation,” she told me.

To what? His disinterest in working things out? You know what kind of people don’t try to work things out? People who don’t want things to work out.  Blindside breakups are not complicated to figure out, just uncomfortable — someone who once thought the world of you no longer feels the same. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but Behrendt and Tuccillo said it best: “He’s just not that into you.”

It sounds harsh but love ends the way it begins — gradually, without rhyme or reason. In the same way it’s hard to pinpoint the moment we fall in love, it is painful to recall when exactly we checked out. While the two are similar, it’s funny how we don’t demand a reason for the former.

That said, he simply stopped loving her. He doesn’t owe her an explanation because there is no explanation. That’s like asking why you like certain colors over others. You just do.

If that’s an unsatisfying answer, then falling out of love can be compared to growing tired of new clothes. You have your eye on a classic merino wool cardigan for ages, so it’s all the sweeter when you can finally call it yours. In the beginning, you wear it all the time. It becomes a staple — a piece that is so “you” it begins to define you. You live in that cardigan until it pills and runs and you learn to love it with all its beautiful flaws. You learn its smell. Your tastes have changed since when you first bought it, but you quite like the worn-in look. It flatters you.

But as February closes and seasons change, your sense of style is no longer compatible with that thick, winter cardigan. It feels clingy on your spring-ready skin. You’re not sure those buttons always looked that way. These are “reasons,” but only because they justify a feeling you can’t otherwise explain: you just don’t like the cardigan anymore. It has no place in your current life. You wear it because you own it, not because you want to. And knowing now that you are fine without it, you hate to think you never really needed the cardigan in the first place — maybe you were just cold.

Rom-com’s religious following says, “Wait—don’t give up when the honeymoon phase is over!” But it doesn’t matter what phase it is because you can’t make someone stay in love with you. You can’t make someone think you are worth it. Most of all, you can’t question faltering affection because the answer would sneer crueler than the reality that love doesn’t always last.

“It doesn’t make sense,” my heartbroken acquaintance said, as if the matters of love were suppose to divide nicely like a math equation.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That is so strange.”