Before you guys read this article, I’m going to tell you guys that I’m a guy and I wrote this myself. It may seem like "male bashing" to you guys at first but keep reading till the very end to understand my point.
Guys are not robots, all of them can’t be The Terminator, we can’t just say I’ll be back after a breakup because once we’ve said Hasta la vista to our partner, in most cases, they don’t take us back and thus us guys do feel things, especially hurt, anger, and devastation because underneath all the abs and manly talk, guys are pretty vulnerable.
No, we are definitely not bulletproof and breakups are worse than getting shot because it’s the person you thought was your second half that shoots you while you’re not paying attention and then well, we try to cope with it as best we can. Here are the twenty things I’ve come up with that us guys do after getting our hearts crushed to pieces by the manicured hands of the female population;
1. Shed some tears
This might come as a shock to some but yes, we cry. Not full out sobbing or anything, just a tear here, a tear there, in the liquor aisle of the grocery store at 2am, maybe. Or at work after everyone has gone home, often while eating dinner alone and remembering how she used to make the best lasagna.
You can almost feel her sitting next to you and telling you about her day and your mouth is filled with delicious, cheesy goodness and all of a sudden you feel the first tear fall on your hand because it’s just too much. It’s completely alright and natural to cry about it because we’re only human. It’s totally fine to let it all out; the pain, rejection and sadness, the nostalgia takes weeks to get it all out properly. *Continue reading on next page*
2. Zone out often
Every little thing reminds us of her and we tend to start zoning out or daydreaming at the weirdest of times- for example, while watching the football game with your buddies, you’d suddenly get a flashback of how she used to hate football and talk constantly during the game. You found that extremely annoying but now, you miss it. You imagine how things might have been if you hadn’t let her walk away or done that stupid thing that you did, you even go as far as imagining your ‘could have been’В wedding and kids.
3. Making holes in our bedroom wall, among other things
It’s no secret that men are tenacious creatures, and when nursing a broken heart we tend to get angry- seriously angry, not just at our partners but at ourselves, our circumstances and at life in general. We look for things to break; we rip up old photos, burn the dress she left behind, and break her toothbrush in half- that sort of thing, fully aware of the fact that none of these actions affect her in the very least because at the moment all that matters is that we get all the pent up anger out of our system.
4. Use the gym as a sanctuary
We spend 24 hours at the gym and work out to the point where we can’t remember anything from the past. We take all our anger out on the weights and run on the treadmill faster than we ever could.В *Continue reading on next page*
5. Sleep for days
Breakups are exhausting, we spend most of our time in bed (alone) after a breakup. Life becomes a constant cycle of waking up, playing video games in bed, eating in bed and then sleeping all over again.
6. Beg them to take us back
Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there, we’re absolutely sure that she’s the one and there will be no one else ever. So of course, we try our best to make her realize just how perfect we are for each other and the only way to do that is to beg her to take us back and when guys get to begging, what we really mean is that we’ll come up with either excuses for our behaviour or excuses as to why we can’t ever break up.
It might be painful to watch but the harsh truth is that guys cannot let go, so remember that it’s absolutely normal for your ex to show up at your doorstep holding flowers and telling you that you can’t break up because that would break his mother’s heart.
7. Start talking to old friends
Like girls, guys too need to talk to their friends about things like breakups. We realize the importance of letting it all out and since most of us don’t think that therapists are a valid way of spending our hard earned money, we’re usually going to unload on our friends. Not the new high end office friends we have, or the mutual friends we have with our partner but the very old friends that have been there for us from the beginning.В *Continue reading on next page*
8. Take on a bad habit
If we don’t have friends or family to turn to, it’s very likely that we will start doing something that we won’t be all that proud of or something that we know she would never have approved of. But the thing is- she’s not there to control you anymore and just for the sake of doing something, you just start doing things you know won’t have any real consequences because thankfully, you’re not thinking for both yourself and your partner anymore.
9. Stalk our ex
We’re not talking about basic, everyday see who she’s followed’ kind of stalking, we’re talking proper FBI elaborate stalking as in see who has commented on her pictures and who she tags on funny posts’ kind of stalking.
10. Crash our car
You were on your way to playing football, a girl on a billboard reminded you of her, and bam. You crash your car and then proceed to yell at whoever it is you it- or whatever it is that you hit (even if it’s a parking meter)
11. Listen to sad songs
Blink 182, Bruce Lee, Mayday Parade- yep, all the songs we scoffed at before have managed to turn into our mantras, it’s gotten to the point where you can’t find a single party song to play at your best friend’s bachelor party.В *Continue reading on next page*
12. Start going out more
We take Drake’s suggestion and ever since we leave the city (city being a metaphor for the relationship) we start going out more. Bar hopping with our best buds seems to be just the cure for a rough break up.
13. Put ourselves on the market
After the essential mourning/denial period, we know when we need to find someone new and by someone new, I mean someone to spend one night with because why ever not? We start looking to pick up girls everywhere- the bus stop, the supermarket, tinder- you name it.
14. All the things she hated
Put our feet up on the coffee table? Check. Play video games all day without paying attention to our surroundings? Leave the toilet seat up? Check and check. We want to enjoy this freedom that we’ve got as best as we can and so we’ll do all the things she hated just to prove to ourselves that we can and that life is good without her.
15. Have marathons of our favorite movies
Top Gun, Die Hard, Vantage Point,В movies with loud sound effects and plenty of cursing to drown out the voices in our heads.В *Continue reading on next page*
16. Drive around for hours
We take the car out, get out of the city and just drive, maybe we’ll visit old places that we went to with our exes and spend some time there, or even end up at her door, you know, for closure. Or that might just be too painful for some of us and instead we just look for an open stretch of road and see how fast we can get the car to go because there’s something about doing this that makes you forget about everything for a while; it’s just you and the open road and maybe some rock music blasting on the stereo, and you start feeling like anything is possible. Who needs her, when you’ve got a nice car, nice music, and you’re still young. В В В В
17. Look at old photos from happier times.
This is very clichГ©, I know, but it’s true; we pull out all the photos we ever took and sit in front of the laptop for hours, staring at her face in every single photo wondering in which photo exactly she decided that doesn’t want to be with you anymore. Depressing, but an efficient way of spending time, eh?
18. GrowВ a beard
We mentioned staying in bed all day earlier on so this is kind of a given, we need change, plus we’re lazy so of course we’re going to let our facial hair grow. Next time you see a guy sporting a scraggly, untrimmed beard, you’ll know he’s nursing a broken heart.
19. Eat junk food
Just because we’ve started going to the gym more doesn’t mean we have completely changed our lifestyle. We do gorge on some- okay a lot, of good fatty, fried food because there will be no one to judge us when we get back home smelling of the McDonald’s kitchen.
20. Start paying attention toВ people who have always mattered.
Here is when we start becoming healthy inside. We actually start paying attention to that one girl who was always madly in love with us but we were too head over heels for you to even acknowledge her existence. We finally realise her importance and we do it the hard way, after going through a lot of pain and suffering because of the people who didn’t know our worth.
I’ve been through five breakups, personally. And none of them gave me the feeling of "the one" even when I was with them, I was cheated on. But, luckily, my girlfriend and soon to be wife is an amazing woman and she actually made me believe in love again. I do get those random messages and calls from my exes but I honestly don’t have the time or energy for any of that anymore.
My point is, men are weak too, men get cheated on too, men cry too, men are human too!
Talk to me
Are you someone who has recently broken up with their partner? Do you do any of these things? Can you relate to this article?В Let me know in the comments below!
