Your Next Breakup Will Be Your Own Fault If You Do These 3 Things
I'd like to start by getting a few things off my chest: I'm the worst kind of millennial. If I'm being honest, I was born closer to the bi-centennial than I was to 1990, I repeatedly refer to things as #triggering and I tag my friends in upwards of 20 relatable Facebook memes a day (even if we're in the same room).
So the other day, fresh out of the most recent breakup, I was absentmindedly on my computer, binge-watching "Grey's Anatomy" funny moments and sending my friend super-duper triggering things when I came across a short little poem from one of my favorite dead, sassy-ahead-of-her-time poets, Dorothy Parker, called, “A Very Short Song.”
It reads:
Once, when I was young and true, Someone left me sad- Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad. Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse.
I know, how #triggering.
This left me with two thoughts. And while breakups are bad in general, Taylor Swift, Dorothy Parker and God all agree that breaking someone's heart is the far shittier thing to do. My thoughts on this were:
1. How is there not a TV judge that decides who the most guilty person in a breakup is?
2. Where does that leave someone, like me, who, for better or worse, seems to break their own heart?
I've broken my heart a fair amount of times, and it's a lot easier than you think. So, if you're looking for some pain and suffering today, enjoy this simple how-to guide!
Warning: If you follow these guidelines, you will break your own heart.
1. Ignore *literally* all the signs.
This one's really simple.
Basically, the shit that aggravates you to no end if your best friend's SO did it to her, just overlook it. Think this seems difficult? Just wait until you catch feelings for someone, and then you'll be able to make up justifications that excuse their crappy behavior quicker than KellyAnne Conway in an election cycle.
So he cancels a date one night or drops a few texts? No big deal. He means well! He has a mid-term coming up and uses that as an excuse not to text you? Valid! He's freakishly close to his sister and her cat is sick, so he doesn't talk to you at so he can support her and the cat? It's sweet that he wants to be there for her, so you should just act cool!*
*As things begin to unravel, your idea of "cool" will evolve from actually letting shit slide to constantly fact checking his alibis on 87 social media platforms. Don't let it happen, girl.
2. Pick the *literal* worst guys.
This one's a little harder because sometimes it's tricky to tell which guys are #theworst. A lot of the guys I used to date seemed really, really great – until they weren't.
In the wild, it is difficult to discern these guys from their genuinely nice counterparts, but anthropologists and girls on Twitter are working hard to find a solution to solve the issue of surprise fuckboys (and fuckgirls, for that matter).
Or, I mean, just fall for someone who is blatantly not into you — that'll do the trick.
For further inspo, there's always: people who don't call themselves a feminist, someone whose still too in love with their ex, someone whose too in love with themselves or maybe give your ex a call?
These are all objectively great ideas!
3. Do the whole thing over again.
The first step is admitting you have a problem; the second step is just to change nothing and progress in a problematic matter.
I'm serious this time. Eighty percent of falling in love is making the same mistakes over and over again, because even though the word “crush” seems to indicate pain, there's always that chance that the risk will be worth the reward. And that's the sort of hope we all wish for.
Here's to having hope and enough faith in humanity that I'll probably manage to break my own heart over and over.
