I Refuse To Be The Favor At Your Pity Party

No ending is ever planned. Nothing is ever really a bad idea at the outset. No one plans to fail. No one falls love expecting to eventually fall out of it. But life and circumstances usually have their own plans and give less than a fuck about yours.

You can’t half-ass love. Same for relationships. Sure, some do just that and we all know how it ends. How do we know? We’ve all done it. It’s okay to admit. What’s not okay is refusing to learn from it. From your mistake. Or mistakes. Probably plural. At some point we have to understand that we sell ourselves short if we don’t go full bore into any and all possible heartache.

But that heartache comes. It’s a symptom of being human. Heartache, loss, lessons to learn and/or ignore - it’s all right there inextricably entwined with the dirtiest of dirty words: LOVE.

What to do with the destruction when it inevitably hits? What is a viable plan of attack? How do you get back up, chin to the dawn, ready to be hurt again? Damned if I know. Hell, I’m currently single. I’m divorced, I’ve never even successfully broken up with a woman. I’m pretty sure I’m writing this as a way to get to the answer myself. So let’s go on this journey together. What do you say? Great. Good. Here we go.

So I may not know how to become stronger or how to gird your loins sufficiently for yet another attack on your consistently compromised well being but I can easily list enough things not to do that maybe you can grow by a process of elimination if nothing else.

So in no particular order, here’s what to do:

1) Do not forget that you are NOT living without someone - you’re living IN SPITE of someone.

Okay, so I’m already cheating a little. This isn’t exactly a “not” but still... Give yourself some credit. You’re down. You feel out. You probably will for a while - but that’s all boiler plate normal break up crap. It’s been true forever and will continue to be true until the day the sun finally goes supernova and incinerates us all. (Note: this is not a day to patiently wait on regardless of how great an idea it may seem.) The sun is still up there and you’re still down here. If I had to guess, just that fact alone is enough to piss off your ex. Way to go!

2) Do NOT listen to “your song”.

You know you have one. Even if it’s unofficial there’s that one song that just screams every truth about how you both felt (or thought you did) when the relationship started. If you press play again one of two things will happen:

A) You’ll realize how full of bullshit the singer is and you’ll start to foster a deep and meaningful animosity to an otherwise innocent songwriter (…who is probably happily married to a super attractive person and totally made up every image of sadness and angst in all of their songs. Man! What a fucking poser!)

OR

B) You’ll realize the error of your ways. And your ex’s. All at once the past will become a crystal clear timeline of amazing peaks and valleys that aren’t actually as deep as you made them out to be in real time. There’s still a chance, right? Hell. No. This is your brain and/or libido playing tricks on you. Either way, it’s bullshit.

3) Do not think about your sexual encounters.

This cannot be stressed enough! And don’t give me the crap about how you were soul mates and the sex wasn’t really important. You’d be lying to me and what’s worse is you’d be lying to yourself. You’re better than that.

I make this point because I’ve learned it the hard way. To quote a pop song (or twenty): you can’t get over someone if you’re under them.

Oh, she does that thing you like with her teeth? Cool. She’s probably already doing it to someone else (assuming she waited until you were broken up to start). He has washboard abs and found your g-spot on the first shot? Great. Ten bucks says there’s at least a few other girls who’ll tell you the same thing…but the timing of their proof might depress you even more, so better to not think of it al all. And abs will give in to time and gravity eventually. A dad-bod is only a few fast food dinners away.

And for the love of all that is sacred delete every nude pic you two shared! Every time you look at their body you’ll wonder where their new partner likes to give them a hickey.

4) Do not keep their number, email, Snapchat, handle, etc in your phone.

DELETE THEM NOW. I’ll wait. Welcome back. I’m sure it hurt. But it’ll be a lot easier than trying to explain why you sent a Snap or random text at two AM on a Tuesday night. It’s 2020. Odds are good you never memorized their info before plugging it into your phone. The smart thing to do is scroll to their name and tap the big red delete button.

5) Do not get relationship advice from a single, divorced man who writes in a journal at 12:37 AM on a Saturday night after watching Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. Seriously. I thought that went without saying but here you are, still reading. Wow.

Look, I can’t tell you what to do and am not qualified to advise you on what not to do either. But you’ve already read this far so I guess the thing to remember above all else is that even if your ex isn’t showing it, they’re hurting too. They failed too. They tried something and it crashed and burned. They had to deal with it too. This isn’t a means to a Schadenfreude end but hopefully it opens your eyes - and possibly dry them. Look around. There’s more than one pity party happening tonight.

You can be a favor at the party or you can be the DJ who scratches the needle to a halt when a love song comes on and confidently drops the needle on an uptempo number bound to light a fire under the feet of every dancer on the floor. Even if the only dancer is you.