At some point or another - unless, of course, you're one of those so dramatically socially inept that you've never even been able to look at someone you've found attractive without feeling nauseous - you've had a relationship that involved a breakup.
There are, of course, a whole litany of polite ways of how to cope with a breakup, but none of those are interesting to me because very few of them-- long walks alone, throwing a party in which all of your friends trade stories about how funny you are, blah blah blah-- work in the first place.
They're polite, certainly, and they're definitely going to be among the more popular remedies for this all-too common social dilemma.
But the truth is that the only way to truly get over a breakup, you have to do something outrageous.
At least that's what works for me.
I'm not what you'd necessarily call the meat-and-potatoes type, but I'm less a partier than I was when I was eighteen (and most people who are are generally lying to themselves about how much abuse their bodies can take.
) For men, the process of breaking up tends to be harder than it is for women, not the least of which because women almost always have ready back-ups, other men who've wanted to date them for years but were turned down for one reason or another who, once the woman's feeling particularly lonely or put out after a particularly horrid phone call or (my favorite) tacky letter about why they just don't work well together, these broken-hearted women can go into their contact lists and call up one of those lonely chumps for a night of dinner and adoration.
Men tend to be those chumps on the other end, so the breakup that goes untended ultimately results in sleepless nights, showerless weeks, and constant, bad poems about love that hopefully no one will ever have to read, despitye that these men almost always find some poor soul who's willing to enable the behavior.
So if you've just gone through a break up-- if the woman you thought was the One has just left your heart shattered along the highway and has found herself a replacement in, oh, a week or so (because you and I both know that they can,) here's the surest way to get over it: you have to go through as many contacts that you have, through all of the single women, the unhappily married ones, the ones just out of relationships, any turn yourself into a sort of serial chump for a while..
Chances are good that you can find women looking to get over a break up right now.
Chances are even better that you can find ten within a block.
So if you've just gone through a breakup, my friend, I strongly suggest that you find yourself in a situation where there are lots of single, volatile women to share in your recovery.
Dance troupes are a good start.