Breakups are horrible, any way they happen. A lot of tissues are involved, alcohol is consumed in copious and unhealthy quantities and best friends are stuck with having to listen to the same story on loop and forced to answer rhetoric questions like, “Why me?”
And this is when you have had a decent breakup. Sometimes, one of the people in the relationship simply can’t muster up the courage to break up in person. And they resort to ‘other means’.
Here are a few ways to break up in the digital and mobile world which will leave you single and earn you the tag of being an a******.
Over and Out
Breaking up over the phone? What kind of person are you? Breaking up over a text message? Are you even a person? You could call your current fling/love/affair/stranger and end it over the phone. With the way calls are dropping, you might be able to get away with a “Hey, let’s break up, okay? Hello? Hello?”
If you are having a bad day, they will be able to call back. If you are a jerk (which you most definitely are), you will switch off your phone. To outdo yourself in the ‘being a jerk’ department, break up over text. When they reply demanding answers, send them forwards of pension plans, flats that they can’t afford in areas they don’t know and random information about the latest online sale.
Let’s up the stakes a little bit, shall we? Why even waste the money to break up over text or over a call? Get into a wi-fi zone and send a short, crisp message on WhatsApp about wanting to break up. When they agitatedly ask what’s wrong, use the thumbs up sign randomly and intersperse these with the poop icon to ensure they don’t have an ounce of self-respect left. Change your status to ‘single and awesome’ within the hour and change that DP already.
Things can be real fun online – for you – if you are doing the breaking up. If you’re an insensitive lout, breaking up over Facebook is a great idea. First, change your relationship status, preferably before you inform them. Then, tag them in a status update. Go with something casual like “Gautam is feeling sad after breaking up with XXX *sad smiley * *crying smiley *”. Then delete all evidence of the relationship. Untag yourself from pictures.
To keep the charade of hurt going, post deeply philosophical quotes about love and life.
You, my friend, are the ultimate douchebag. New low, breaking up on Twitter, even for you. But here’s what you need to do. First, unfollow obviously. And then mute them to save yourself some major name-calling. Every time they post something about a break-up or love, retweet it with a “Hahaha, you would know”. Claim undying love for weird handles which have men/women with hot display pictures. Declare some handle (more marks if you pick someone they hate in real or virtual life) as the love of your life and ask them out to a tweet up or something.
If you aren’t a fan of breaking up over restricted letters, the email is always there. The thing with email is, it’s just not public enough. Unless you decide to CC the entire world and its boss, your breakup is actually going to have an iota of dignity to it and who wants that?
But you can use long-winded sentences about how you were never meant to be together and how their hair reminds you of a mop, and that’s always a good thing. You can also send them links to various articles like “How to get over the one that got away”, “How to not inconvenience the person who’s just broken up with you”, etc. etc. I will tell you one thing though – there’s no taking back a mail. You can delete a status update or a tweet, but an email, not so much. So be careful.
(Mansi Shah is founder of the blog Damsel in Destress which reviews experiences as varied as spas, books and plays. Mansi is, by her own admission, “clueless” at 30 with an easy penchant for humour.)
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