Below is a partial list of the activities I engaged in. It’s really just unbelievably sad. But if you can’t laugh at yourself…then publish it on the internet and let everyone else laugh at you instead:
- Listen to break-up songs repeatedly at high volume. When you find yourself playing Aerosmith’s “What It Takes” over and over again as if it holds some sort of significance…there’s nothing left for you. Put a shotgun barrel in your mouth and do yourself a favor. Stephen Tyler has the emotional insight of Fonzie’s used condoms.
- Compose endless speeches in my head about the ways I’d tell her off if she called me to take her back.
- Got even angrier because she never called me so I could crush her with rambling indictments that would have made no sense to anyway.
- Screened just about every watchable break-up movie. This includes High Fidelity, War of the Roses, Annie Hall, the Wedding Singer, Chasing Amy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Swingers, 500 Days of Summer…I could keep going.
- Obsessively stalk my ex’s picture site. Then alternate between rage and maudlin sorrow when there were snapshots of her with men I couldn’t identify. By the way, drinking in no way improves this situation. There’s nothing quite like yelling angrily at someone you don’t know who probably isn’t even sleeping with a girl you’re no longer seeing.
“Hey, sweater guy! What the fuck are you doing at a car show??? WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE??? ARE YOU FUCKING THE SWEATER GUY, SCIENTIST??? I’LL KILL HIM!!!”
Classy.
I received a ton of advice about what to do and how to look at things and what to focus on from pretty much every direction. Honestly, I got way more input than I needed or was even realistic to follow-through on. But eventually I realized the person with the best perspective about it that I ever spoke to was a stranger behind the desk at a video shop.
I went in with my sister and the clerk recognized her and asked who I was.
“Oh, this is my brother. We’re renting a movie because he’s trying to get over a rough break-up with his girlfriend of 3 years.” She answered.
The guy looked me over once and asked, “Did you leave her or did she leave you?”
“She left me” I answered.
“Fuck her. She sounds like a bitch.”
Honestly, what more about it is there to say?
