I remember this like it was yesterday — I was sitting at the dining table having lunch, and my phone beeped.
“I think we should take a break”.
I stared at it for a few seconds.
“Okay. Bye, then.”
This was me trying to play it cool. I couldn’t let him know he had trampled all over my heart.
Not the most mature end to a relationship, but hey, he was 19 and I was 18. It was the first time I’d been dumped, and boy, did I handle it terribly.
For the next two years, I “dated” pretty much any dude I spotted in college. Seriously, at that point, my standards had fallen drastically. I also stalked him constantly (on Facebook…mostly), and got my best friend to stay in touch with him (much against her will) just so that I’d know what’s happening in his life.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse than being dumped via text, one of the guys I “dated”, let’s refer to him as ‘S’ (and I use the term “date” loosely…), asked a friend of mine to break up with me for him. I took this one well, since I was in this sham of a relationship only to get over the Texter… I can only cry about one guy at a time, I think.
However, three days later I found out S was dating somebody new, and I was utterly zapped. I mean, 3 days… My period lasts longer than that.
But, I digress. Here I was, even a year later, going out with random guys to get over a six month relationship that ended with a one line SMS (…back in the day when WhatsApp hadn’t taken over our lives). I was still crying at the drop of a hat, all the time, in college, in malls, in tea stalls, at movies, because everything reminded me of him.
Meanwhile, the Texter not only moved on in about five minutes, but also moved halfway across the world. I would torture myself by looking at photos of him, living his life as though nothing happened (I couldn’t find a way to make that sound less dramatic), and then proceed to listen to Adele and cry in my room. I know, I know, I’m a cliché.
I was convinced that boys didn’t have feelings. Maybe men just don’t care, and women care too much.
However, now that I’m older, wiser (?) and also a student of gender, I know that that’s pretty much bullshit. The end of a significant relationship is hard for both parties involved- and gendered norms (“taking it like a man”) have a lot to do with how men and women process heartbreak.
I eventually got over that guy, went on to meet lots of other guys, some great and others not so much. And what I realised is that everyone has a different way of coping with the end of a relationship. So yeah, you might be obsessed with your ex for a while and hang around their house hoping to catch a glimpse — but there will also come a day when you look back on the memories fondly or you just don’t care anymore — so hang in there.
About the author: Shamolie Oberoi is a student of Women’s Studies, a patriarchy smasher and rajma chawal lover. Apart from writing, her hobbies include consuming fizzy drinks and watching sitcoms. While she guest blogs for MYOLO, you can find her personal blog here. (The opinions expressed in this article are personal opinions of the author).
