I hear a lot of cliches now that I’m going through a terrible break up. One of them is driving me seriously nuts. I have very sweet, well-intentioned friends who, because they really want to see me happy, just keep pushing me to go out, meet someone new, date, date, and then date again the next night. I’m sorry, but whoever said the only way to “get over someone is to get under someone else” is a serious fool, (and kind of crass too). This is not the way to a healthy heart. Now that I’ve  been saddled with the sad, taxing task of getting over a person whom I was deeply in love with, lemme tell you, kissing an ex or flirting with a new guy? Road blocks. Reset buttons. And the last thing I want, after all the exhausting, sometimes thankless work of getting through this, is to have to start over.

I truly think it takes loads and loads of solitude, Law and Order SVU marathons, wine, listening to this song, soothing tea, runs, bad romantic comedies, long talks with girls who have been through similar experiences, writing, and just, tons and tons of time. But not… NOT another guy. I’ve only found those to be distractions from the task at hand, which for me, is healing, and self reflection in the form of;  “how did I end up here?”and, “how can I make sure I WILL NEVER BE IN THIS PLACE AGAIN?”

Kissing a guy, and then the result of having him call or not call: either one makes me want to cry. The ex before the ex? Just a reminder of everything that went wrong with him, on top of sleepless nights thinking about what went wrong with my ex-fiance. Then, I innocently hung out with one boy last month, just one night, which was weird and hard enough for me, but then the aftermath, like, the texts I was getting from him asking me out made me want to shed my skin, toss my phone in the Hudson, and move to Colombia. I’m just NOT ready and I have to accept that. Granted, this guy was no Ryan Gosling. Maybe he’s the one exception to my No New Boys Til I’m Healed rule.

To be fair, I understand that adage to a certain point. I do think if you’re not suffering from a true broken heart– say it’s more that you’ve just realized your crush likes someone else, or a guy never called for a second or third date… then yes, forage the waters with friends, kiss a cute boy to remind yourself you’ve definitely still got it and it’s his loss.

But the idea of rebounding right now after 4 + years of dating someone- and almost marrying him– makes me want to lie down from head spins and a sick tummy. I know that when I come out of this, I’ll have myself, my heart and head (and body too- running is really great free therapy for me right now) in tact. But if I could impose one bit of wisdom on you if you, too, have a broken heart (I sincerely hope you don’t!) : getting under a guy to get over one is not the road to happiness. It’s more like a trap door that only leads you back to the beginning of this tortuous time of painful grief. And no thanks, I don’t ever want to be back there.

Tags: dating

This entry was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am and is filed under love&money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.