The Hardest Part Of Breaking Up Is Realizing You Prepared Him For Her

While sitting in our favorite dimly lit Italian restaurant sharing pizza and pinot noir, we found ourselves in a classic debate of “the grass is always greener."

When it comes to breakups, beyond all of the gray area bullsh*t, exes inevitably do one of two things.

They either stay perpetually and annoyingly single, or they get wifed up immediately, leaving you to wonder how the hell he did it so fast.

This debate became pretty heated as we chugged our wine between spewing out our sides of our argument.

Yes, one of us is the victim of the deliriously happy-in-love-moved-on ex, while the other is in utter peril with an ex who can't get enough of his single life.

While yes, this is a grass is greener situation, we both have pretty compelling arguments as to why we would beg, plead and dream of being in each other’s shoes on this one.

Let me explain why I would prefer my ex to move right along and date someone new right away.

Breakups are painful as it is. Period.

When your ex is a “remains single” type post-breakup, how do you really close the door on the relationship?

“He isn’t seeing anyone so there’s still hope isn’t there?!” is a thought that's not only stupid, but it keeps you from moving on.

When your ex stays single, it’s hard to give up hope it might not be over for good.

You stage ridiculous scenarios in your head.

You know he loves going to his favorite steakhouse on Wednesday nights, so you go there with your best girlfriend in hopes of “accidentally bumping into him.” You are so sure if he sees you one more time, he will come to his senses.

Scenarios like these never work. This will be learned the hard way.

Regardless of why you broke up, you are left picking up the pieces of a broken relationship and try to avoid all forms of mind wandering activities.

These activities include creeping on his social media accounts to see what he's been up to, and more importantly with who.

When your ex remains single post-breakup, you are left wondering who is in the running for the next potential girlfriend title.

You can become lost trying to find information on who he has been with, will be with and so on.

Insert panic, worry and countless hours wasted trolling social media here.

If you are lucky enough to have your ex move on right away, you can focus all of your anxious attention on one girl.

You can pick apart her career, her social media captions, her friends etc, but at the end of the day, at least you have one girl to focus on.

You don't have to refresh the Instagram feeds of four times the amount of girls to try to decipher if that really is his arm in that photo.

Think of how much time it saves to just worry about one girl versus worrying about several.

When he picks no one you are left thinking, “He would seriously rather be alone than be with me?!"

This is a tough pill to swallow, especially seeing as we are a generation who fears being alone more than anything.

Think about it. When an ex chooses to be alone, he is risking going back into the single world, which includes some pretty lonely nights.

It's easier to cope with the fact that an ex-boyfriend is simply “filling a void” with his next girlfriend, versus accepting he would rather be alone than be with you.

Above all, when he picks just one girl, after a certain time you start to get it.

You realize that her love of emo music and piercings is much more compatible to his lifestyle, so that part of their relationship probably works.

Whatever it is, you start to “get it,” and realize why he moved on to her.

The long and short of my argument is this: It is easier to move on knowing who your ex is sleeping beside night after night, rather than wondering who.

Or worse, you could be wondering if there is still hope for a reconciliation.

This may be biased, but it is way worse when your ex moves on right away.

The first and foremost hurtful thing is that it always leaves you to wonder something really upsetting such as, “Was he cheating on me with her?”

You can’t help but think that if he moves on seemingly overnight.

This frightening thought makes you feel like you were potentially betrayed and lied to, and it kind of makes your entire relationship seem like a joke.

You begin to question everything.

Every amazing moment you used to look upon fondly now stings because you question how genuine it was for him.

If he could move on to someone else that quickly, how in “love” was he really, if at all?

When your ex moves on, you could literally go into a tailspin comparing yourself to her.

If she’s completely different from you, you will wonder what if this really is his “type," and further question what the hell he sees in her after dating you.

“Did he even like me at all?!” is a common thought.

If the new girl is super similar to you, you'll can gloat to your girlfriends that he just moved on to a replacement who seems half as cool as you.

No matter how big of a clone game you talk up, you cannot escape the stinging fact that you know he chose her for whatever reason, and it hurts.

When an ex is a not-to-be-tied-down single type, and he goes out with God knows how many random girls, and you can just chalk it up to him needing to be a “guy."

You know the dumb bimbos he's hooking up with aren’t going to get a call the next day, which makes them seem like less of a threat.

Dumb hookups aren’t on the same level as a relationship.

You know you’re relationship material in his eyes, and these other girls are not.

Therefore, at the end of the day, you still feel like you’re better than them.

The hardest part about a moved-on ex is that it makes you question yourself.

He seems capable of being half of a happy couple, so it appears the problem isn't his ability to commit or make a girl happy.

This leaves you to think that the problem may actually be you.

He chose another girl and is making it work with her, even though you feel like if he gave an ounce more of an effort, you may have never broken up in the first place.

But he isn't giving you that effort; he's giving it to her.

You realize that one girl is benefitting from all that he learned from your relationship.

Maybe you taught him how to open up more, maybe you taught him a thing or two in the bedroom or maybe you helped him through a tough time in his life.

Regardless of what it was in particular, he probably learned a thing or two while you dated.

Knowing a new girl is benefitting from having a better boyfriend because of you just pours salt in your gaping wounds.

So there you have it. Which scenario do you think is worse?