Broken Heart

Dear Dr. Darcy:

3 weeks ago my girlfriend dumped me.  We were together for almost 2 years.  Since then I’ve felt like I was hit by a train.  I can’t sleep, have no interest in going out and I have tickets for an Olivia Cruise that I was supposed to go on with her.

I keep thinking that if I don’t hook up with anyone else, she’ll change her mind and want me back.  But she unfriended me on Facebook, she changed her status like the second she dumped me, and she won’t answer any of my calls or texts.

I’ve decided that if I can’t have her back, I don’t want to love again.  I’ll be that girl who just fucks women without any need for relationships.   Do you think this is dysfunctional?

ANSWER

I have a lot of thoughts, but no, I don’t think you’re dysfunctional.  I think you’re very hurt and you’re not sure what to do with your feelings.  I think playing ‘nice girl’ hasn’t gotten you the outcome that you hoped for so now you’re willing to become someone entirely different, which is to say, a player.

I recently spoke to someone about the use of the term dumped. I argued that it’s a negative term that forever lumps the ‘dump-ee’ into a victim role and assigns all the power to the ‘dumper.’   I believe that we become our stories, and maybe we don’t need every last fact outlined in that one explanatory sentence; a sentence that we’ll invariable need to repeat dozens of times to our friends and loved ones.  Think about it:  When we begin a relationship, we tell people that we’ve been together X number of months or years.  We don’t say, I asked her out three months ago. You illustrate this point in the second sentence of your question.   So start by choosing language that will empower you.

It’s time to let go of the ex-girlfriend.  If she intended to ‘take a break,’ she wouldn’t have cut off all communication with you, thus you are broken up, not on a break.  There is no fast track through the grief process – not through abstinence and not through a dozen one-night stands.  And punishing innocent women for the pain that you’re enduring is pointless, karmically wrong, and unacceptable. Pick an upbeat friend and go on your lesbian cruise with a commitment to having fun, and by the time you come home you’ll be feeling more like yourself.  And if you decide not to go, feel free to send me those tickets.  No sense in them going to waste.