Most of us have been there at one time or another. You just got dumped. Moving on isn’t always pretty — especially those first few months being back on your own.
First comes the saddy sad phase.
1. You go through your daily routine.
2. Your friends call to check up on you and you answer the phone from inside the pillow fort you built in your living room like:
3. Whenever anyone asks you what your plans are for the night you’re just like:
4. You don’t want to, but you drag yourself out of the house for a friend’s bridal shower:
5. You head home for the holidays and spread some cheer.
6. You know it means a lot, so you attend your best friend’s birthday dinner made up of all couples.
After a while though, the sads start to fade and anger sets in.
7. You check Facebook and someone on your news feed has posted a picture with your ex in it.
8. You have to drive past your ex’s street on your way to work each morning so you always make sure to send them some positive vibes.
9. As the months go by, you hear your ex has started hooking up with someone new.
10. You head to meet a friend for lunch and see your ex across the restaurant on a date with their new person who, by the way, isn’t really that cute, you guys.
This angry phase usually nestles in quite nicely with the PARTY phase.
11. It starts out slow. A friend calls you and says “hey! there’s a new wine and cupcake bar opening downtown!” and you’re like:
This might be enough of a reason to leave your living room pillow fort!
12. Before you know it, look at you! You’ve start heading out to brunch instead of eating ice cream in your pajamas!
13. You’re even making friends with the bartenders!
14. You’re going drinking and your friends tell you you’re acting crazy and probably need to head home but you’re like:
15. You run into your ex at the bar and they say “hi” and all you can think is:
16. Of course, there are hazards to this party phase like when you wake up after a night out and see you’ve texted your ex 7 times.
17. Inevitably, just as you finally start feeling better and meeting new people, your ex will call or text you to let you know how much they still care about you and want to stay friends.
18. But eventually, you have to get back out there and so you let a friend set you up on a date. They ring the doorbell to pick you up and you force yourself to go because you know you have to start moving on:
19. But sooner or later, after a lot of moments of doing things like this:
20. You’ll wake up one day and finally be back to this: