Most of us have been dumped. Sometimes it’s a long time coming and you’re not all that surprised. Sometimes it comes out of the blue (for you) and you’re stunned. Every so often it comes shortly after you were seriously considering doing the dumping, but decided against it, mentally recommitted yourself, only to have all that work be for naught.
No matter how it comes, these are the five stages of being dumped. Duration varies based on how fucked up your dumping was/your level of crazy.
One: Apologizing/Bargaining
You throw yourself on the mercy of the court. You pull aaaaaaalllll your personal and relationship baggage out for the judge to scrutinize. You apologize for it’s shabby-ass condition and promise that you’ll get new baggage, less shitty baggage. You’ll help with the laundry. You’ll actually try during sex. You promise to alter fundamental parts of yourself that you are actually incapable of changing. You offer to sell your mother to a Thai brothel. Anything, you’ll put anything on the table just to go back to the moment before the person you’re seeing said, “It’s over.”
You may not even like the person any more. You may be as sick of their shit as they are of yours but you will goddamned if they are going to win this final battle. You may be heartbroken and you genuinely mean that you will turn yourself into an oral sex-loving clone of Idris Elba/Sophia Vegara. You may just not want to deal with having to find a new home and understand that in certain zip codes, dignity is worth less than a broker’s fee. Either way, you will lie emotionally prostrate at the feet of your former partner and go all in to get them to take back the last hour.
What you are incapable of seeing right now is that none of your tactics will work and that you will burn with the shame of these moments every time they flicker across your consciousness, for the rest of your life. And that burning starts off hot as lava in the next stage.
Symptoms: Tears, compulsive behavior (eating), frequently being found wail-sobbing to Adele
Duration: One Day-The Rest of Your Life
Two: Anger
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKK YOU!” You shout into your phone leaving the twelfth voice mail that evening for your brand spankin’ new ex. Or if you learned from the mistakes made in Stage One, you have the presence of mind to step away from your phone and go on long morning and late night jogs, when the streets are either deserted or populated by people weary enough to give the sweaty person, viciously muttering profanities a wide berth.
This is the stage where you catalog all of the various ways your self-absorbed, weak, no-wonder-they’ve-never-had-a-relationship-longer-than-four-months, piece of shit, pathetic excuse for a human ex, acted like a lazy, brain dead, sociopath. You are also intensely pissed at yourself for seeing each individual piece of your exes excrement scented puzzle and failing to put them together in time for you to do the dumping. ‘And OH! The self-loathing! You cannot believe you wasted any time apologizing to that “person”. If you haven’t caved to the white hot fire burning in your chest and either called or found them in person and told them to crawl up their own ass and die by choking on their own bile, then you want to laser burn every moment that goes by, that doesn’t provide you with the opportunity to rectify the fact that the last time your ex saw or heard from you, you were a groveling mess. If you were thinking about breaking up with them before they jumped in and did the job for you, the self-hatred burns so hot you are frequently surprised when you look down at your arms, you don’t see blistering.
Symptoms: Inability to not be sarcastic about everything, habitual swearing, compulsive behavior (working out, a need to take a bat to every sound system playing Celine or Taylor Swift).
Duration: One Day- The Rest of Your Life
Three: Resetting
The good thing about the apologizing and anger is that they fill up a lot of time. Time you were used to spending with your ex. But now that those sentiments have passed you have to get on with things. Moving out. Dividing up friends. Giving back all the things you didn’t burn in the your rage fire and then Instagram, so that motherfucker would see their autographed Firefly DVD set go up like the Godfather.
You decide to try to be friends because maybe your social groups are so intertwined it would be awful for everyone you like if you continued to voice your wish to stab your ex in the face out loud. Or, if you’re lucky, you both go your totally separate ways and you never, ever have to see or hear the other person ever again.
Symptoms: Healthy blood pressure, sudden need to redecorate or try a new hair style (top of the head and/or facial).
Duration: One Day- The Rest of Your Life
Four: That Motherfucker is Dating Someone New
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THEM,” you tell your friends over (many, many) drinks when you hear the news. How dare they! How FUCKING DARE they have the balls to date someone before you started dating someone. Immediately you have suspicions. You’re sure that they were dating this person while you were still together or were at least considering it. The anger is back and OH! Here go hell comes!
Hopefully, this person is out of your immediate reach. You deleted their contact info and if your friends have it, they are good people and refuse you access to their phones. However, in the 21st century, not having someone’s number doesn’t cut off one’s ability to act the fool and self-flagellate. Facebook is your best friend and your worst enemy and you are going to use it as your jumping off point to hunt the new significant other like you are starving and they are a particularly delicious looking doughnut who can’t be bothered to spell out “you” and is “OMGEE!!!! REALLY EXCITED FOR SORORITY REUNION WEEKEND/DAVE MATTHEWS AT THE GORGE, BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!” Thinks “reading is “BO-RING” and is SOOOOO happy to have that DUI behind them.” Oh Jesus. You. . . what? You can’t. . . You don’t even. . .
Symptoms: The having of one night stands/immediately entering into an ill-advised relationship. Scheduling a fantastic vacation or going very public with a prestigious achievement.
Duration: One Week-As Long as that Other Relationship Lasts
Five: Whatevs
Whether you still know this person or they’ve faded into the background of your history, you no longer see everything that happens to them through a hyperopic, self-obsessed lens. You may be seeing someone new and are caught up in that or you are happily buzzing along, happily single and seeing to the other areas of your life. You say, “you’re doing you,” and you actually mean it.
Symptoms: Ability to get through a date without bringing up your ex. Ability to watch TV shows or movies with romantic story lines with out breaking into sobs or punching throw pillows.
Duration: Until the Next Asshole Dumps You-The Rest of Your Life
Image: Flickr
