7 Lessons I Learned The Hard Way: Breaking Up
Breaking up ranks right up there with moving as one of the most awful experiences we can through. After careful study of how I have coped with my own failed relationships, I present to you the top 7 lessons I have learned about breaking up.
Breaking up ranks right up there with moving as one of the most awful experiences we can through. After careful study of how I have coped with my own failed relationships, I present to you the top 7 lessons I have learned about breaking up
7. Facebook un-friend him. Do it right now. If you think, “We are totally cool and chill and it would be weird and dramatic to un-friend him” then you are sweet and wonderful but mistaken. Facebook is an un-natural, forced reminder of your ex’s existence that will turn you into a stalker. Soon you will fancy yourself a CSI style forensic scientist going through his latest photos looking for the hint of a new lady and trolling his status updates for evidence that he is thinking about you. Save yourself hours, if not weeks of your life, and un-friend him.
6. If you find yourself loitering on his block and looking up at the window of the apartment you used to share, ask yourself this: am I a crazy person? If the answer is “no” then you should leave immediately.
5. Do not listen to anything Fiona Apple. She will call to you like a siren’s song, urging you to wallow in the despair of your failed relationship and yet you must stay strong. No Fiona. Actually – you should also stay away from Beck’s Sea Change.
4. His boxers and band t-shirts are no longer suitable pajamas. Store them somewhere safe but out of sight so that in a year when you are dating someone else you can semi-weirdly start wearing them again. NOTE: This same rule does not apply to gifts and most certainly does NOT apply to the amazing Cleopatra style arm cuff he bought you from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nobody, not anybody, messes with my jewelry. And yes I did just slip into the first person.
3. Tell the critic in your mind to shut the eff up. That voice that’s asking, “Why didn’t you break up with him two years ago in Paris when he read your diary?” That voice that’s yelling, “How could you have said those horrible things to him when you got too drunk on your birthday and ended up belting the soundtrack of Stephen Sondheim’s Company while he fed you oatmeal?” Silence those negative thoughts being nice to yourself. Buy yourself that Frederic Fekkai hair conditioner, get a pedicure two weeks in a row and add on the ten minute foot rub, play hookie from work and take a hike, treat yourself like a princess because you are a princess and the universe is not respecting fact right now.
2. If you are in bed weeping, utterly drunk, clutching an over-sized coconut water and wishing he would just come over and watch Netflix, you need to remember that your sober self is a pretty smart cookie and she knew it was right for you to break up. Trust yourself, kiddo.
1. You might cry at work. You will definitely cry at a bar. You might send him an e-mail you regret. You will send him a drunk text. You will get weirdly boy crazy some moments dating just about anyone on OKCupid and then weirdly celibate at other times saying out loud that you are “done with dating” and “never want to get to know someone again. ” These moments, though painful and terrible, and even embarrassing, will pass. Given enough time they will even become funny and one day they will be great fodder for a column on breaking up.
Bonus Lesson: You don’t need to have a justification for breaking up. Just wanting to break up is enough of a reason to go.
Tell me what you have learned about breaking up in the comments or Tweet me. I wanna know!
