Posts Tagged “Guide”
Now that Zagat’s has announced new Dating (and Dumping) Guides for New York and LA, I’m bracing myself for some nasty stories. Zagat’s selected their dumping grounds based on the number of exits and proximity to transportation (so you can get the hell outta there), as well as the attractiveness of the clientele, so that you can immediately pick up someone else to hook up with. Nice. Is it my imagination, or does it sound like Zagat’s is catering to the Y chromosome crowd here? Sounds generally douchey to me. What kind of a guy would maximize the humiliation of being dumped? I never thought I’d say this, but I’d rather get the text: .”sry u r not the 1 4 me.”
Every girl needs a kickass toolkit for getting over a breakup. Getting dumped pretty much happens to everyone sooner or later, and usually we just sort of stumble through it, taking each horrible day as it comes and doing our best to stay sane. Well, you know I am all about strategy, about taking control of your life to get what you want. You may not be able to control being dumped, but you can certainly control your response to it. And I want to help you go through the trauma with the least possible pain, in the shortest period of time.
Here are the basic tenets of my Kickass recovery plan:
1. Self-pity is highly underrated.
2. Ditto for self-indulgence.
3. Maintaining your dignity will have a huge payoff.
4. Getting over a guy will suck, but can be freeing, energizing, and sometimes even fun.
5. Grieving is an aspect of love. If you love someone, and you lose them, grieving them is a loving act, even when they don’t deserve it. It’s also a way of loving yourself.
So. He broke up with you. You just got onto a great big roller coaster, and you’re going to need to hold on tight.
The First Stage: Shock and Awe
“Shock and awe is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.” (Wikipedia)
This is what he just did to you. He mowed you down like a Panzer tank. Maybe you saw it coming, maybe not. Either way it sucks, and it’s going to suck for a while. You can’t believe it. Literally. Your mind is not capable of absorbing this news immediately. “He is wrong about this! He will come to see his mistake!” Your loving friends will tell that it makes no sense, something must be going on with him, you guys are perfect together, he’s not going to last the weekend without you, blah, blah, blah.
Don’t believe them. He may, in fact, come back around and ask that you take him back. It happens. But guess what? I have NEVER heard of a relationship that was as good the second time around. When he Humpty Dumptied you he broke something and it is never going to be put back together the same way again.
Still, you hope he will change his mind. In the meantime, you will be saying a variety of cheerful and helpful things to yourself:
“This is great! Now I can hook up with new guys!”
“Awesome! I’ve really missed hanging out with my girls!”
“It will be great not to have to think about anyone but myself.”
But you know the pain is coming. It is coming, and it is going to slam into you like a Kansas tornado.
The Second Stage: Tornado Alley
The tornado hits suddenly, and it blows you right off your foundation. Your life has literally been turned upside down. There are several things you need to do in the second stage:
1. Respect his decision. It is his right to end the relationship. You hate it, but you can’t change it.
2. Sever all contact. This is not an appropriate time to think about remaining friends. What is the point? You don’t want him calling to “check in” and see if you are surviving the devastating heartbreak that he inflicted.
3. Go headlong into the pain. This is where the very important self-pitying behavior begins. Here are some activities I recommend:
Cry as many tears as your body can produce. Cry until your eyes are puffy and red. Cry until snot is running down your chin. It also helps to wail, if that’s feasible in your living situation. Keening would not be overdoing it. Eat whatever you want. This is not the time to think about your weight. Personally, my go-to breakup food has always been spaghetti with a ton of melted butter. Maybe your thing is Cherry Garcia. Or chocolate. Whatever. Get in some supplies and indulge. Get your friends to rub your back and hug you constantly. You are literally craving physical comfort in this stage and your friends can provide it. Listen to really sappy love songs. Wallow in the unfairness of it all. Watch sad movies about love relationships that don’t work out. I always liked Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Casablanca is a classic, of course. Titanic. You get the idea.
After a little while, you will get bored of all of the above. You will be crying your eyes out in your dark room, and you will catch a glimpse of the time. You will say to yourself, “Oh, look, Lost is about to come on.” You will wander over to the TV in the PJs you have been wearing for 72 hours, and you will turn it on. And at some point in the next hour, for just a moment or two, you will forget. And the healing has begun.
Third Stage: Making Deals with the Devil
In the third stage, you concoct schemes to get him back. You’re feeling better than in Stage Two, and you feel empowered in some ways. Unfortunately, you are likely to take the ill-advised step of making a fool of yourself. This is fruitless and will cost you major dignity points. DO NOT, under any circumstances, indulge in the following activities:
Drunk dialing or texting Engaging in drive-bys or any other spying activity Making drama in a public place Trying to talk to him about getting back together, also known as begging Promising to change in some way so that he will want you back Trying to make him jealous by acting skanky with another guy Cornering his friends for updates on what he is thinking Succumbing to the “maybe someday” delusion
You may, indeed you must, do the following:
Get his number out of your phone. Yeah, of course you know it by heart, but the symbolism is important. And when he rings, I’ll kill you if you answer. Defriend him on Facebook. I know, I know, exes usually don’t do that, it looks pathetic. Well guess what? More pathetic is your stalking him, reading his wall, trying to figure out which girls are now making a play for him, etc. Defriend him. Immediately. Block him on your AIM. Block him. Don’t just take him off your buddy list. Because when he sees that you’re online and tries to IM you, 1) you don’t want to know about it and 2) he will feel the little rejection of being informed that his message is not wanted. Pack up everything you have that reminds you of him and the relationship. DO NOT have a bonfire, you’ll regret that someday. For now, just pack it all up into a box and store it away. Tape the box shut, so that you can’t go rifling around in there when you’re wasted.
If you ignored my advice and gave in to your self-destructive urges, there will come a time when you realize that all of your bargaining and desperate measures have only served to make you look like a complete psycho idiot. And then you will stop.
The Fourth Stage: Boiling the Bunny
Boiling the bunny is all about revenge fantasies. These are extremely helpful, and I would recommend spending some time developing a few. Lie down in a quiet place, and roll the tape in your head. Visualize it, hear it, feel it. Here are some I have found useful:
Penis in a blender; it’s important to imagine pushing the button, whirl! Hitting him with your car on a dark road and speeding away He impregnates the ugly, gross girl he’s hooking up with and she decides to keep the baby Putting something so horrendous online that for the rest of his life, potential employers who 5. Google him will lose interest, and maybe even call the authorities Attending his funeral and fighting the urge to do a cartwheel at the cemetery
I’m sure you can come up with some good ones of your own, or feel free to use mine. Just sub in your own dickhead.
Here’s the only real revenge worth pursuing: “Don’t get even. Get even better.”
A word about rebounds: don’t do it. Not yet. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the guy. Wait until you are free and clear emotionally before you get involved with someone new. Right now you need to be on your own, to mend, to heal, and to generally get your shit together.
The Fifth Stage: Seasonal Affective Disorder
OK, this has been fun, but now it’s time to get back to the business of mending your broken heart. Grief is one of life’s seasons. Think of it as spending time in a climate where the sun never shines. It could last a little while. Here are some things you’ll probably be feeling at this point:
You realize he’s not coming back. It’s really over. You feel like shit. You really, really miss him. You focus on memories of the past. You blame yourself and try to figure out what went wrong.
I wish you could skip this stage, because it feels awful. You probably feel like you should be over it, and you’re not, and oh God, you’ll never be happy again. You will be happy again, of course you will, but not yet. There is no way around it, you must go through this.
For some women, this amounts to depression. I’m a big one for therapy, so go for some if you need to, keep a journal, keep your friends close. Now is not the time to wallow and be alone. You need some support during this stage, so get some.
There are some things you can do to shorten the duration of SAD:
Make a list of his faults. I’m not kidding. It’s important to remember that the relationship wasn’t perfect. It really wasn’t. There was the way he sort of checked out other girls sometimes. And he thought it was funny to tease you about your weight, but it wasn’t funny at all, not to you. When you put your tongue in his ear it tasted like wax. He flared his nostrils sometimes, and they got HUGE. Why did he have to make that screeching sound when he sneezed? You get the idea. Write it all down. Remind yourself every day that you deserve a guy who will love you unconditionally. And he doesn’t. Therefore…..you deserve better than him. Make some changes. Do something new, find a new source of hope. It could be a new interest, a new friendship, a new exercise activity. Open new avenues in your life. Reflect on the relationship, and think about what you learned. Take responsibility for your own shortcomings. Spend time with the two chicks: Lit and Flick. Now is the time to remind yourself that happy endings do exist. And the chicks never, ever let you down.
The Sixth Stage: Turning the Corner
You’re gonna be OK. You laugh at stuff again. You even crack jokes occasionally. You’re feeling a bit better. You can envision a time when you will be happy with someone else. You might not be ready right now, but there is the hope of happiness with someone new. When you feel ready, here are some things you can and should do:
Acknowledge that you are wary of getting involved again. New love means the risk of new loss, and that’s scary. Take it slow. Flirt. Yeah, you know you want to. It doesn’t have to be a means to an end. Flirting is fun and an ego boost, so enjoy it for its own sake. Go out at night. Put some rocking music on, get ready for a night on the town, and get out there. Go out during the day. Try to maximize the number of encounters that you have with other people every single day. Ride the bus, go to the library, do your food shopping, take a walk in the park, work on your laptop at Starbucks.
Will you meet Prince Charming on the street? Probably not. But you certainly will not meet him in your apartment. Just get out and move. Keep moving. Make eye contact with people, be friendly. That’s it. That’s the plan. It is the sum of what I’ve learned through my own breakups, and the breakups of many young women who have been kind enough to share their stories. I wish you all the best as you journey through grief to a new beginning.
No Comments »
Now that Zagat’s has announced new Dating (and Dumping) Guides for New York and LA, I’m bracing myself for some nasty stories. Zagat’s selected their dumping grounds based on the number of exits and proximity to transportation (so you can get the hell outta there), as well as the attractiveness of the clientele, so that you can immediately pick up someone else to hook up with. Nice. Is it my imagination, or does it sound like Zagat’s is catering to the Y chromosome crowd here? Sounds generally douchey to me. What kind of a guy would maximize the humiliation of being dumped? I never thought I’d say this, but I’d rather get the text: .”sry u r not the 1 4 me.”
Every girl needs a kickass toolkit for getting over a breakup. Getting dumped pretty much happens to everyone sooner or later, and usually we just sort of stumble through it, taking each horrible day as it comes and doing our best to stay sane. Well, you know I am all about strategy, about taking control of your life to get what you want. You may not be able to control being dumped, but you can certainly control your response to it. And I want to help you go through the trauma with the least possible pain, in the shortest period of time.
Here are the basic tenets of my Kickass recovery plan:
1. Self-pity is highly underrated.
2. Ditto for self-indulgence.
3. Maintaining your dignity will have a huge payoff.
4. Getting over a guy will suck, but can be freeing, energizing, and sometimes even fun.
5. Grieving is an aspect of love. If you love someone, and you lose them, grieving them is a loving act, even when they don’t deserve it. It’s also a way of loving yourself.
So. He broke up with you. You just got onto a great big roller coaster, and you’re going to need to hold on tight.
The First Stage: Shock and Awe
“Shock and awe is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.” (Wikipedia)
This is what he just did to you. He mowed you down like a Panzer tank. Maybe you saw it coming, maybe not. Either way it sucks, and it’s going to suck for a while. You can’t believe it. Literally. Your mind is not capable of absorbing this news immediately. “He is wrong about this! He will come to see his mistake!” Your loving friends will tell that it makes no sense, something must be going on with him, you guys are perfect together, he’s not going to last the weekend without you, blah, blah, blah.
Don’t believe them. He may, in fact, come back around and ask that you take him back. It happens. But guess what? I have NEVER heard of a relationship that was as good the second time around. When he Humpty Dumptied you he broke something and it is never going to be put back together the same way again.
Still, you hope he will change his mind. In the meantime, you will be saying a variety of cheerful and helpful things to yourself:
“This is great! Now I can hook up with new guys!”
“Awesome! I’ve really missed hanging out with my girls!”
“It will be great not to have to think about anyone but myself.”
But you know the pain is coming. It is coming, and it is going to slam into you like a Kansas tornado.
The Second Stage: Tornado Alley
The tornado hits suddenly, and it blows you right off your foundation. Your life has literally been turned upside down. There are several things you need to do in the second stage:
1. Respect his decision. It is his right to end the relationship. You hate it, but you can’t change it.
2. Sever all contact. This is not an appropriate time to think about remaining friends. What is the point? You don’t want him calling to “check in” and see if you are surviving the devastating heartbreak that he inflicted.
3. Go headlong into the pain. This is where the very important self-pitying behavior begins. Here are some activities I recommend:
Cry as many tears as your body can produce. Cry until your eyes are puffy and red. Cry until snot is running down your chin. It also helps to wail, if that’s feasible in your living situation. Keening would not be overdoing it. Eat whatever you want. This is not the time to think about your weight. Personally, my go-to breakup food has always been spaghetti with a ton of melted butter. Maybe your thing is Cherry Garcia. Or chocolate. Whatever. Get in some supplies and indulge. Get your friends to rub your back and hug you constantly. You are literally craving physical comfort in this stage and your friends can provide it. Listen to really sappy love songs. Wallow in the unfairness of it all. Watch sad movies about love relationships that don’t work out. I always liked Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Casablanca is a classic, of course. Titanic. You get the idea.
After a little while, you will get bored of all of the above. You will be crying your eyes out in your dark room, and you will catch a glimpse of the time. You will say to yourself, “Oh, look, Lost is about to come on.” You will wander over to the TV in the PJs you have been wearing for 72 hours, and you will turn it on. And at some point in the next hour, for just a moment or two, you will forget. And the healing has begun.
Third Stage: Making Deals with the Devil
In the third stage, you concoct schemes to get him back. You’re feeling better than in Stage Two, and you feel empowered in some ways. Unfortunately, you are likely to take the ill-advised step of making a fool of yourself. This is fruitless and will cost you major dignity points. DO NOT, under any circumstances, indulge in the following activities:
Drunk dialing or texting Engaging in drive-bys or any other spying activity Making drama in a public place Trying to talk to him about getting back together, also known as begging Promising to change in some way so that he will want you back Trying to make him jealous by acting skanky with another guy Cornering his friends for updates on what he is thinking Succumbing to the “maybe someday” delusion
You may, indeed you must, do the following:
Get his number out of your phone. Yeah, of course you know it by heart, but the symbolism is important. And when he rings, I’ll kill you if you answer. Defriend him on Facebook. I know, I know, exes usually don’t do that, it looks pathetic. Well guess what? More pathetic is your stalking him, reading his wall, trying to figure out which girls are now making a play for him, etc. Defriend him. Immediately. Block him on your AIM. Block him. Don’t just take him off your buddy list. Because when he sees that you’re online and tries to IM you, 1) you don’t want to know about it and 2) he will feel the little rejection of being informed that his message is not wanted. Pack up everything you have that reminds you of him and the relationship. DO NOT have a bonfire, you’ll regret that someday. For now, just pack it all up into a box and store it away. Tape the box shut, so that you can’t go rifling around in there when you’re wasted.
If you ignored my advice and gave in to your self-destructive urges, there will come a time when you realize that all of your bargaining and desperate measures have only served to make you look like a complete psycho idiot. And then you will stop.
The Fourth Stage: Boiling the Bunny
Boiling the bunny is all about revenge fantasies. These are extremely helpful, and I would recommend spending some time developing a few. Lie down in a quiet place, and roll the tape in your head. Visualize it, hear it, feel it. Here are some I have found useful:
Penis in a blender; it’s important to imagine pushing the button, whirl! Hitting him with your car on a dark road and speeding away He impregnates the ugly, gross girl he’s hooking up with and she decides to keep the baby Putting something so horrendous online that for the rest of his life, potential employers who 5. Google him will lose interest, and maybe even call the authorities Attending his funeral and fighting the urge to do a cartwheel at the cemetery
I’m sure you can come up with some good ones of your own, or feel free to use mine. Just sub in your own dickhead.
Here’s the only real revenge worth pursuing: “Don’t get even. Get even better.”
A word about rebounds: don’t do it. Not yet. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the guy. Wait until you are free and clear emotionally before you get involved with someone new. Right now you need to be on your own, to mend, to heal, and to generally get your shit together.
The Fifth Stage: Seasonal Affective Disorder
OK, this has been fun, but now it’s time to get back to the business of mending your broken heart. Grief is one of life’s seasons. Think of it as spending time in a climate where the sun never shines. It could last a little while. Here are some things you’ll probably be feeling at this point:
You realize he’s not coming back. It’s really over. You feel like shit. You really, really miss him. You focus on memories of the past. You blame yourself and try to figure out what went wrong.
I wish you could skip this stage, because it feels awful. You probably feel like you should be over it, and you’re not, and oh God, you’ll never be happy again. You will be happy again, of course you will, but not yet. There is no way around it, you must go through this.
For some women, this amounts to depression. I’m a big one for therapy, so go for some if you need to, keep a journal, keep your friends close. Now is not the time to wallow and be alone. You need some support during this stage, so get some.
There are some things you can do to shorten the duration of SAD:
Make a list of his faults. I’m not kidding. It’s important to remember that the relationship wasn’t perfect. It really wasn’t. There was the way he sort of checked out other girls sometimes. And he thought it was funny to tease you about your weight, but it wasn’t funny at all, not to you. When you put your tongue in his ear it tasted like wax. He flared his nostrils sometimes, and they got HUGE. Why did he have to make that screeching sound when he sneezed? You get the idea. Write it all down. Remind yourself every day that you deserve a guy who will love you unconditionally. And he doesn’t. Therefore…..you deserve better than him. Make some changes. Do something new, find a new source of hope. It could be a new interest, a new friendship, a new exercise activity. Open new avenues in your life. Reflect on the relationship, and think about what you learned. Take responsibility for your own shortcomings. Spend time with the two chicks: Lit and Flick. Now is the time to remind yourself that happy endings do exist. And the chicks never, ever let you down.
The Sixth Stage: Turning the Corner
You’re gonna be OK. You laugh at stuff again. You even crack jokes occasionally. You’re feeling a bit better. You can envision a time when you will be happy with someone else. You might not be ready right now, but there is the hope of happiness with someone new. When you feel ready, here are some things you can and should do:
Acknowledge that you are wary of getting involved again. New love means the risk of new loss, and that’s scary. Take it slow. Flirt. Yeah, you know you want to. It doesn’t have to be a means to an end. Flirting is fun and an ego boost, so enjoy it for its own sake. Go out at night. Put some rocking music on, get ready for a night on the town, and get out there. Go out during the day. Try to maximize the number of encounters that you have with other people every single day. Ride the bus, go to the library, do your food shopping, take a walk in the park, work on your laptop at Starbucks.
Will you meet Prince Charming on the street? Probably not. But you certainly will not meet him in your apartment. Just get out and move. Keep moving. Make eye contact with people, be friendly. That’s it. That’s the plan. It is the sum of what I’ve learned through my own breakups, and the breakups of many young women who have been kind enough to share their stories. I wish you all the best as you journey through grief to a new beginning.
No Comments »
Guys are always expected to do the first move every time it’s time to kiss. Girls may want to do it but they often do not, fearing it might make them look desperate and easy-to-get. But hey, lots of guys like it when girls make the first move on them? Want to make a girl kiss you? Follow these three easy steps.
Hygiene. Dental hygiene should be on your number one list. No one wants to kiss someone who stinks. Girls are very sensitive with scent, thus, it gets them turned-on when you smell good. It’s an aphrodisiac so make sure you do not hold any offensive foul smell in you when approaching a girl, much more, kiss her. Eye-contact. The eyes are very powerful, and by maintaining close eye contact with her, you will both feel a certain degree of connection. While you’re at it, you might want to lean closer, whisper in her ear, touch the tip of your nose to her skin, like her cheek, ear or even shoulder. It’s sexy and quite electrifying. The deal her is to tease her into wanting to kiss you. So be patient. Touch. Before breaking the barrier by a kiss, establish some touching beforehand. Hold her hand, put an arm around her waist, rest your chin on her shoulder… there are many ways to do this. When your physical intimacy has heightened, there is no other way to intensify it more but through a kiss. So keep her waiting. Motion as if you’re about to kiss her but move away. This will definitely drive her wild.
If you would like to discover more intimate details on how to make a girl kiss you, do visit my website to get your hands on my FREE information which has helped thousands of men get women they thought they never had a chance with!
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If your wardrobe is screaming out for diamonds, but your wallet isnât, achieving red carpet celebrity style with costume jewellery is the perfect answer. With some thought and planning, itâs never been easier to achieve a glamorous star-style look without having to re-mortgage your home.
With the award season underway, a pair of sparkling chandelier-style earrings is quite possibly the savviest investment a girl can make for instant, dramatic impact. With so many styles of costume jewellery earrings available, itâs quite easy to be overwhelmed when choosing a design you can wear time and time again. Colour is possibly the most important factor: clear crystal is classic and works well with all outfits, while jet & smoky tones create a more subtle and sultry style. Or, for sheer drama, enigmatic jewel tones never fail to create an impact.
When choosing a pair of earrings, itâs wise to consider the size of the drop. It might make sense to go for shoulder-skimming earrings if youâre a party girl who loves high fashion; but if the furthest youâre going to venture is the office party or local pub, itâs probably better to opt for a more wearable size. Also take into account the style that best suits you: large, wide chandelier earrings are perfect to widen a narrow face whereas long, slim-line styles will beautifully slim and flatter a round face.
Red carpet occasions give celebrities a license to go wild with dazzling necklaces. With plunging and strapless necklines galore, such events ensure every d̩collet̩ is dripping with diamonds; and with such a wide range of costume jewellery necklaces available Рfrom crystal and diamante to faux pearls and simulated gemstones Рevery celebrity style can be easily achieved.
Strapless necklines are the most versatile and can easily carry the most dramatic of necklaces. For âvâ-necklines, a simple rule for elegant style is to follow the âvâ shape, so a sparkling pendant can look particularly effective. With asymmetric necklines, all necklaces are best avoided to keep lines clean and striking. Earrings and a bracelet are the best choice of costume jewellery for this style of dress.
Celebrities love to show-off toned arms with a dazzling bracelet or bangle. Layering bangles has become increasingly popular with many stars and the key to this look is to mix and match a variety of styles. When choosing a costume jewellery alternative, the most important factor to consider is wrist size. A small, delicate wrist is complimented with a slim but striking bracelet or bangle, whereas a larger wrist can carry off bold jewel adorned designs in style. With bold bracelets, adhere to the motto of less is more with just a pair of complimenting earrings. For full-on glamour, a delicate bracelet or bangle worn with a matching, yet simple necklace and earrings exudes class.
Finally, whoâs to know your rocks arenât priceless diamonds? With celebrities wearing such a variety of gemstones from vintage rocks to contemporary cuts, faux gems are becoming increasingly difficult to spot from the real thing – and that is music to a girls ears!
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Now that Zagat’s has announced new Dating (and Dumping) Guides for New York and LA, I’m bracing myself for some nasty stories. Zagat’s selected their dumping grounds based on the number of exits and proximity to transportation (so you can get the hell outta there), as well as the attractiveness of the clientele, so that you can immediately pick up someone else to hook up with. Nice. Is it my imagination, or does it sound like Zagat’s is catering to the Y chromosome crowd here? Sounds generally douchey to me. What kind of a guy would maximize the humiliation of being dumped? I never thought I’d say this, but I’d rather get the text: .”sry u r not the 1 4 me.”
Every girl needs a kickass toolkit for getting over a breakup. Getting dumped pretty much happens to everyone sooner or later, and usually we just sort of stumble through it, taking each horrible day as it comes and doing our best to stay sane. Well, you know I am all about strategy, about taking control of your life to get what you want. You may not be able to control being dumped, but you can certainly control your response to it. And I want to help you go through the trauma with the least possible pain, in the shortest period of time.
Here are the basic tenets of my Kickass recovery plan:
1. Self-pity is highly underrated.
2. Ditto for self-indulgence.
3. Maintaining your dignity will have a huge payoff.
4. Getting over a guy will suck, but can be freeing, energizing, and sometimes even fun.
5. Grieving is an aspect of love. If you love someone, and you lose them, grieving them is a loving act, even when they don’t deserve it. It’s also a way of loving yourself.
So. He broke up with you. You just got onto a great big roller coaster, and you’re going to need to hold on tight.
The First Stage: Shock and Awe
“Shock and awe is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.” (Wikipedia)
This is what he just did to you. He mowed you down like a Panzer tank. Maybe you saw it coming, maybe not. Either way it sucks, and it’s going to suck for a while. You can’t believe it. Literally. Your mind is not capable of absorbing this news immediately. “He is wrong about this! He will come to see his mistake!” Your loving friends will tell that it makes no sense, something must be going on with him, you guys are perfect together, he’s not going to last the weekend without you, blah, blah, blah.
Don’t believe them. He may, in fact, come back around and ask that you take him back. It happens. But guess what? I have NEVER heard of a relationship that was as good the second time around. When he Humpty Dumptied you he broke something and it is never going to be put back together the same way again.
Still, you hope he will change his mind. In the meantime, you will be saying a variety of cheerful and helpful things to yourself:
“This is great! Now I can hook up with new guys!”
“Awesome! I’ve really missed hanging out with my girls!”
“It will be great not to have to think about anyone but myself.”
But you know the pain is coming. It is coming, and it is going to slam into you like a Kansas tornado.
The Second Stage: Tornado Alley
The tornado hits suddenly, and it blows you right off your foundation. Your life has literally been turned upside down. There are several things you need to do in the second stage:
1. Respect his decision. It is his right to end the relationship. You hate it, but you can’t change it.
2. Sever all contact. This is not an appropriate time to think about remaining friends. What is the point? You don’t want him calling to “check in” and see if you are surviving the devastating heartbreak that he inflicted.
3. Go headlong into the pain. This is where the very important self-pitying behavior begins. Here are some activities I recommend:
- Cry as many tears as your body can produce. Cry until your eyes are puffy and red. Cry until snot is running down your chin. It also helps to wail, if that’s feasible in your living situation. Keening would not be overdoing it.
- Eat whatever you want. This is not the time to think about your weight. Personally, my go-to breakup food has always been spaghetti with a ton of melted butter. Maybe your thing is Cherry Garcia. Or chocolate. Whatever. Get in some supplies and indulge.
- Get your friends to rub your back and hug you constantly. You are literally craving physical comfort in this stage and your friends can provide it.
- Listen to really sappy love songs. Wallow in the unfairness of it all.
- Watch sad movies about love relationships that don’t work out. I always liked Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Casablanca is a classic, of course. Titanic. You get the idea.
After a little while, you will get bored of all of the above. You will be crying your eyes out in your dark room, and you will catch a glimpse of the time. You will say to yourself, “Oh, look, Lost is about to come on.” You will wander over to the TV in the PJs you have been wearing for 72 hours, and you will turn it on. And at some point in the next hour, for just a moment or two, you will forget. And the healing has begun.
Third Stage: Making Deals with the Devil
In the third stage, you concoct schemes to get him back. You’re feeling better than in Stage Two, and you feel empowered in some ways. Unfortunately, you are likely to take the ill-advised step of making a fool of yourself. This is fruitless and will cost you major dignity points. DO NOT, under any circumstances, indulge in the following activities:
- Drunk dialing or texting
- Engaging in drive-bys or any other spying activity
- Making drama in a public place
- Trying to talk to him about getting back together, also known as begging
- Promising to change in some way so that he will want you back
- Trying to make him jealous by acting skanky with another guy
- Cornering his friends for updates on what he is thinking
- Succumbing to the “maybe someday” delusion
You may, indeed you must, do the following:
- Get his number out of your phone. Yeah, of course you know it by heart, but the symbolism is important. And when he rings, I’ll kill you if you answer.
- Defriend him on Facebook. I know, I know, exes usually don’t do that, it looks pathetic. Well guess what? More pathetic is your stalking him, reading his wall, trying to figure out which girls are now making a play for him, etc. Defriend him. Immediately.
- Block him on your AIM. Block him. Don’t just take him off your buddy list. Because when he sees that you’re online and tries to IM you, 1) you don’t want to know about it and 2) he will feel the little rejection of being informed that his message is not wanted.
- Pack up everything you have that reminds you of him and the relationship. DO NOT have a bonfire, you’ll regret that someday. For now, just pack it all up into a box and store it away. Tape the box shut, so that you can’t go rifling around in there when you’re wasted.
If you ignored my advice and gave in to your self-destructive urges, there will come a time when you realize that all of your bargaining and desperate measures have only served to make you look like a complete psycho idiot. And then you will stop.
The Fourth Stage: Boiling the Bunny
Boiling the bunny is all about revenge fantasies. These are extremely helpful, and I would recommend spending some time developing a few. Lie down in a quiet place, and roll the tape in your head. Visualize it, hear it, feel it. Here are some I have found useful:
- Penis in a blender; it’s important to imagine pushing the button, whirl!
- Hitting him with your car on a dark road and speeding away
- He impregnates the ugly, gross girl he’s hooking up with and she decides to keep the baby
- Putting something so horrendous online that for the rest of his life, potential employers who 5.
- Google him will lose interest, and maybe even call the authorities
- Attending his funeral and fighting the urge to do a cartwheel at the cemetery
I’m sure you can come up with some good ones of your own, or feel free to use mine. Just sub in your own dickhead.
Here’s the only real revenge worth pursuing: “Don’t get even. Get even better.”
A word about rebounds: don’t do it. Not yet. It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the guy. Wait until you are free and clear emotionally before you get involved with someone new. Right now you need to be on your own, to mend, to heal, and to generally get your shit together.
The Fifth Stage: Seasonal Affective Disorder
OK, this has been fun, but now it’s time to get back to the business of mending your broken heart. Grief is one of life’s seasons. Think of it as spending time in a climate where the sun never shines. It could last a little while. Here are some things you’ll probably be feeling at this point:
- You realize he’s not coming back. It’s really over.
- You feel like shit.
- You really, really miss him.
- You focus on memories of the past.
- You blame yourself and try to figure out what went wrong.
I wish you could skip this stage, because it feels awful. You probably feel like you should be over it, and you’re not, and oh God, you’ll never be happy again. You will be happy again, of course you will, but not yet. There is no way around it, you must go through this.
For some women, this amounts to depression. I’m a big one for therapy, so go for some if you need to, keep a journal, keep your friends close. Now is not the time to wallow and be alone. You need some support during this stage, so get some.
There are some things you can do to shorten the duration of SAD:
- Make a list of his faults. I’m not kidding. It’s important to remember that the relationship wasn’t perfect. It really wasn’t. There was the way he sort of checked out other girls sometimes. And he thought it was funny to tease you about your weight, but it wasn’t funny at all, not to you. When you put your tongue in his ear it tasted like wax. He flared his nostrils sometimes, and they got HUGE. Why did he have to make that screeching sound when he sneezed? You get the idea. Write it all down.
- Remind yourself every day that you deserve a guy who will love you unconditionally. And he doesn’t. Therefore…..you deserve better than him.
- Make some changes. Do something new, find a new source of hope. It could be a new interest, a new friendship, a new exercise activity. Open new avenues in your life.
- Reflect on the relationship, and think about what you learned. Take responsibility for your own shortcomings.
- Spend time with the two chicks: Lit and Flick. Now is the time to remind yourself that happy endings do exist. And the chicks never, ever let you down.
The Sixth Stage: Turning the Corner
You’re gonna be OK. You laugh at stuff again. You even crack jokes occasionally. You’re feeling a bit better. You can envision a time when you will be happy with someone else. You might not be ready right now, but there is the hope of happiness with someone new. When you feel ready, here are some things you can and should do:
- Acknowledge that you are wary of getting involved again. New love means the risk of new loss, and that’s scary. Take it slow.
- Flirt. Yeah, you know you want to. It doesn’t have to be a means to an end. Flirting is fun and an ego boost, so enjoy it for its own sake.
- Go out at night. Put some rocking music on, get ready for a night on the town, and get out there.
- Go out during the day. Try to maximize the number of encounters that you have with other people every single day. Ride the bus, go to the library, do your food shopping, take a walk in the park, work on your laptop at Starbucks.
Will you meet Prince Charming on the street? Probably not. But you certainly will not meet him in your apartment. Just get out and move. Keep moving. Make eye contact with people, be friendly. That’s it. That’s the plan. It is the sum of what I’ve learned through my own breakups, and the breakups of many young women who have been kind enough to share their stories. I wish you all the best as you journey through grief to a new beginning.
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Guys are always expected to do the first move every time it’s time to kiss. Girls may want to do it but they often do not, fearing it might make them look desperate and easy-to-get. But hey, lots of guys like it when girls make the first move on them? Want to make a girl kiss you? Follow these three easy steps.
- Hygiene. Dental hygiene should be on your number one list. No one wants to kiss someone who stinks. Girls are very sensitive with scent, thus, it gets them turned-on when you smell good. It’s an aphrodisiac so make sure you do not hold any offensive foul smell in you when approaching a girl, much more, kiss her.
- Eye-contact. The eyes are very powerful, and by maintaining close eye contact with her, you will both feel a certain degree of connection. While you’re at it, you might want to lean closer, whisper in her ear, touch the tip of your nose to her skin, like her cheek, ear or even shoulder. It’s sexy and quite electrifying. The deal her is to tease her into wanting to kiss you. So be patient.
- Touch. Before breaking the barrier by a kiss, establish some touching beforehand. Hold her hand, put an arm around her waist, rest your chin on her shoulder… there are many ways to do this. When your physical intimacy has heightened, there is no other way to intensify it more but through a kiss. So keep her waiting. Motion as if you’re about to kiss her but move away. This will definitely drive her wild.
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Men have no idea how much women talk about sex. They also don’t realise how swiftly girl-gaggles get down to the nitty-gritty, the detail of which would startle most men. In between bouts of hilarity, women swap anecdotes about men’s size, duration, technique, giving the impression that nothing is too sacred to scrutinise. But on closer examination, could this banter be a decoy to cover for the most untouchable topic of all; the vulnerability many females feel about sex?
While animals get on with doing ‘it’, humans have made such a song and dance about something that is as natural as sleeping and the rules and taboos can turn the hottest woman into a frosty ice-block in bed.
When I was growing up, good girls weren’t supposed to have sex at all. Good married girls were expected to do their duty and the idea of female orgasm was little more than preposterous. Then lurve-making was freed by the marvels of contraception and every self-respecting hippy thumbed their noses at convention by shagging with alacrity. Now the daisy-chains of the ‘60’s have been replaced by the manacles of the vamp and the pressure is on for women to perform.
Today the natural form of tender loving sex has become passé and marketing has seduced women into being on constant sex alert; to have ready shaven legs, a well manicured Brazilian, perky breasts and sanitised female parts that have the fragrance of artificial rose-petals instead of a musty old sack. Not only does this inhibit the spontaneity of a lustful ‘quickie’ but some also believe that their well manicured body has to be covered in elaborate outfits worn with the sole intention of being taken off.
While dressing up is a matter of personal preference, if women feel pressurised to do so the big question is: who are they doing this for? Do females really turn themselves on when trying to squeeze into their old school gymslip?
Now I’m nearly six foot tall and have the characteristic spread of middle-age; so it’s just ludicrous to imagine what this would look like in a cute little French Maid’s outfit. I also know that if my man wore his underpants on the outside of his tracksuit and flew at me from the top of the wardrobe, I would fall about laughing and, at our age, he may risk losing more than his erection.
One of the things the Vagina Monologues set out to achieve was to bring the diversity of female sexuality into normal conversation. But for starters even using the word ‘vagina’ was problematic. Some female callers to radio stations had the typical shock-and-horror reaction to this word being touted in public. Perhaps they would be more comfortable with any of the hundreds of vulgar euphemisms used to demean the only part that makes us definitively female.
This inability to utter the word points to the baggage attached to female sexuality and it is this that leads many women to feel shy about bonking. Parents seldom deal with sex as if it were an everyday topic to be discussed openly with children and their self-consciousness is interpreted as shame.
My first sex-education was a rather awkward clinical tour of vaginal tracts, Fallopian tubes and sperm sacs delivered by a nun at the convent I attended. Even at age 11 the credibility problem was patently obvious; what could a celibate nun possibly know about sex?
This clinical version certainly didn’t include ideas about sex being the most fun you can have with or without your clothes on and topics like oral sex and masturbation weren’t just hush-hush, they weren’t even mentioned. The most common misconception about masturbation was that it made boys go blind; ensuring that the bespectacled class nerd was ridiculed mercilessly.
Understanding one’s own body is the key to breaking down socially imposed sexual bashfulness, claims sex therapist Marlene Wasserman – aka Dr Eve on popular radio talk shows. Author of Pillowbook, Dr Eve recommends that girls masturbate every day giving new meaning to the phrase: “I got it all this morning”. Apparently there’s no getting around it, only by regularly paddling the pink canoe will you come to grips with the buttons that turn you on.
There are many how-to books on the market but says Dr Eve; all women’s bodies are different and when it comes to learning about orgasms, there is no one-size-fits-all. She adds: “Books that recommend pushing a bit here and tweaking a little there harm women.” Many may try these techniques but if they fail, the reader believes there’s something wrong with herself, not that there’s something wrong with the book.
Instead Dr Eve advises learning about one’s sexuality as a process rather than some handy techniques, and the starting point is to be as familiar with the contours of your vulva as we are with the lines on our face.
Just the idea of squatting naked on a mirror produces some extraordinary reactions in women. From reluctance to revulsion, the lack of enthusiasm for becoming familiar with one’s own vagina calls attention to the deep-rooted conditioning underpinning sexual shyness or shame.
From God’s lips to man’s ears, female sexuality was contrived as the source of evil and consequently girls need to overcome many illusory bad feelings about sex. Guilt is the big baddie here and even young girls still condemn other sexily dressed teenagers with insults like ‘slut’ and ‘whore’. Not so long ago these tags were used for women who slept around, but what shows up the absurdity is that no one ever knew how many partners it took. Was it a total of two, ten or forty-three different lovers that turned one into a ‘ho’?
Fabled ideas about female sexuality mean that girls often fall-back upon the misguided notion that men know what to do. This is a disastrous falsehood as most boys resort to the school playground or the movies for their sex-ed. I’ve often wondered whether those ‘educated’ solely by cine-sex believe that the most common sexual position is the one with the woman cheerfully bouncing around on top. The only reason for this becoming the movie standard is because such an arrangement provides the best camera shot of her voluminous breasts.
As men are equally in the dark when it comes to sex-ed, most report that they would prefer their women to guide them rather than having to rely upon assumptions; or make the mistake of basing their judgement on what a previous lover liked.
Another major inhibiting factor for women is the obsession with physical perfection. Many agonize that their cellulite, wobbly bum or tell-tale love-handles will turn their partner off. What few females realise is that he’s so preoccupied with getting his end away that he’s unlikely to even notice these self-proclaimed imperfections.
What’s the point of using your imagination to put yourself down anyway? Self-flagellation won’t alter his view; it will only switch your libido off. Instead therapists like Dr Eve recommend using your imagination to think yourself into a state where you start feeling sexy and desirable.
Along with learning about sex, we also need to unlearn the fables that led us down the garden path to inhibition and frustration. Sex is not a stage performance; it is the most natural act of all. So instead of nattering to friends, who you may be unlikely to wish to bed, how about starting to have conversations with the partners in whose hands our sexual satisfaction lies?
Stephanie Vermeulen runs seminars on Applied Emotional Intelligence and Women’s Issues in business and public forums as well as being an inspiring speaker, writer and personal coach. Her books, ‘Kill the Princess: Why Women Still Aren’t Free from the Quest for a Fairytale Life’(USA) / ‘Stitched-up: Who Fashions Women’s Lives?’ (South Africa) & ‘EQ: Emotional Intelligence for Everyone’ are available from leading bookstores and online from Amazon.com and Kalahari.net. She can be contacted via her website http://www.eqsa.co.za.
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From Publishers Weekly
Whitaker, a reporter at Time and ghostwriter of The Beardstown Ladies’ Commonsense Investment Guide, and Austin, a contributing editor at Self, know from firsthand experience that many women don’t negotiate effectively. Whitaker says she never considered requesting more than a flat fee for her work on the Beardstown book, but later rethought her position when the book became a bestseller, reaping countless profits for the packager. Whether accepting a new job, closing a real estate deal or considering volunteer projects, women should not fall into common traps of giving up too easily, acting overly nice or selling themselves short, Whitaker and Austin urge. Writing in an upbeat style, the authors provide lots of morale-boosting examples of women who have managed to conquer their weaknesses and adopt winning negotiating strategies, along with studies demonstrating the differences between how men and women negotiate. Careful preparation, listening to the other party and patience are key negotiating strengths common among women, they say. They also offer many standard tips for specific situations, such as negotiating on the phone, advising women who need time to think out their negotiating strategy to simply say it’s not a good time to talk and to call back when they’re ready. (Mar. 6) Forecast: The message that women can be good girls but not end up as doormats may hit home for many readers, especially if the authors make their case on national television as planned. Still, given the competition, and the familiarity of much of the advice, the book’s success is likely to be modest.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Journalists Whitaker and Austin, once victims themselves, now set the scene for win-win negotiations, and they impart their advice with a chuckle. Three powerful and natural female instincts, they say, can be deployed to best effect when negotiating: empathizing with the other side, listening to your opponent, and interpreting nonverbal cues. Plus, specific remedies are gladly given for such commonly negative negotiation events as car purchases, prenuptial agreements, and salary talks; and they even offer pointers on how not to cry (looking up at the ceiling is their major advice on that score). Start with baby-sitter bargaining–and graduate to practicing unlocking deadlocks. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Buy The Good Girl’s Guide to Negotiating: How to Get What You Want at the Bargaining Table at Amazon
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