A guide

I feel I can say this because I have been on the receiving end of a broken heart myself.

And I can honestly say that while yes I did indeed resort to eating ice cream directly from the tub, I did get ridiculously, falling-down, embarrassingly drunk, I did call my girlfriends in the middle of the night, bawling, I did listen to David Gray and cried until my face hurt, I did max out a credit card and I did call in sick to work.

I joined a gym; I joined a new gym. I worked at a gym.

I took a yoga class, I oil painted. I took a feminist literature class, I cut my hair, I grew it out again, and I resorted to all the other token, get-over-him tactics that any girl in the depths of despair would turn to when her world feels as though it has been shattered and her heart feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder and then strained, just for good measure.

But for the love of God.

I didn’t continue to text message him with little notes that read *hugs* every week. (Isn’t it painfully obvious that when someone decides to take leave of your relationship that they likely don’t want you hugging them anymore? And what are we, 13?)

I didn’t send a barrage of e-mails.

Nor did I elect to attach copies of my political science essays to those e-mails in the hopes of impressing him with my witty (wordy?) examinations of social democracy.

I didn’t call at 2:30 in the morning, two weeks after the fact, asking if we could 'talk.'

I didn’t send birthday cards and I sure as hell didn’t send flowers.

So P.S.

You shouldn’t either.