"You can't predict what someone else is going to do and when someone else is going to leave"
About this Quote
The intent feels protective. By naming unpredictability, she quietly disarms a common reflex: treating departures as puzzles to solve or failures to fix. The subtext is less “people are unreliable” than “control is the real illusion.” There’s a subtle shift of responsibility embedded in that framing. If you can’t predict when someone will leave, you also can’t build your life around forecasts of their loyalty. You can only build it around your own choices, boundaries, and capacity to live with risk.
Culturally, it hits a familiar nerve in an era where we’re trained to believe behavior is trackable: read receipts, location sharing, algorithmic compatibility, the pseudo-science of “attachment styles” turned into dating diagnostics. Connelly’s sentence rejects the fantasy that enough data will make love legible. It also sidesteps the more viral, punitive language of “cut them off” or “never trust anyone.” Instead, it offers a tougher kind of calm: accept that leaving is always a possibility, and stop confusing the possibility with a personal verdict.
Quote Details
| Topic | Heartbreak |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Connelly, Jennifer. (2026, January 17). You can't predict what someone else is going to do and when someone else is going to leave. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-cant-predict-what-someone-else-is-going-to-do-55380/
Chicago Style
Connelly, Jennifer. "You can't predict what someone else is going to do and when someone else is going to leave." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-cant-predict-what-someone-else-is-going-to-do-55380/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"You can't predict what someone else is going to do and when someone else is going to leave." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/you-cant-predict-what-someone-else-is-going-to-do-55380/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.




