Notes from a Heartbreak Hangover: relatable behaviours from the eye of a post-breakup storm

If you told me four years ago that me and the brilliant man I was dating would one day go our separate ways, I would have called you all sorts of parental-guidance-required-profanities and wouldn’t have liked you very much.

Yet, here I am sitting on the floor of an unlived-in rental property, at 35, childless, ringless, partnerless, my whole world upside down and inside out and my very nervous nervous system buzzing a different kind of buzz than when we shared our first kiss underneath a bus shelter 1416 days ago.

Gosh, breakups are ghastly, aren’t they? Eugh, the grief for someone who is still living. Grief for a story that never got its ending. Or at least, not the one you imagined.

A bit like when you’re watching a crime series, and you’re absolutely 110% certain you know how it's going to conclude. It’s so obviously the person who looks like the ultimate crime commit-er. You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voice; they just have that look about them. But the final episode takes a completely unexpected turn, revealing that the murderer was in fact the timid-looking “wouldn’t-say boo-to-a-goose” neighbour who reported the crime in the first place.

Okay, slightly morbid analogy, but I’ve got a heartbreak hangover and crime documentaries are a go-to on these solo Saturday nights. Nevertheless, binging Netflix is much better than Hinge hook-ups, bankruptcy from bougie trips to Bali or extreme glow-ups that leave you unrecognisable and unsatisfied. (I've considered all three, but only followed through on the latter via an extortionate monthly direct debit to SmileWhite, as if aligners will help straighten out other areas of my life).

Admittedly, I’m not out the other side yet, but I think I’ve made it past the brutal beginning. And, shit, that was brutal. Notably, made much more so by my propensity to listen to deeply melancholy music to intensify despair. If you want to cry, listen to Alice Boman.

But if you want to really cry to the point that you’re not sure what is snot and what is saliva (I know, gross), whether those noises are coming from you or an ill seal, mouth wide, face red and puffy-eyed like a toddler who’s been told no, listen to ‘The More I Cry’ by Alice Boman. I am certain this will be top on my non-shareable Spotify Wrapped this year, for sure. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So, three months in. And not necessarily any ‘easier’ than month one. In fact, it seems tougher. Now that the dust has settled and the adrenaline of moving house has too, along with the fizzling out of post-break-up transactional chat, a couple of disagreements thrown in there about dating app catch outs and who bought the bedroom rug.

But in the spirit of heartbreak honesty, I kept a note. A list of the things I did, felt and said. Some are ridiculous. Some tender. Some are admittedly a bit mad. All of them...necessary.

So here it is - some of the nonsense and navigation I have experienced along the way (thus far).

Things that are acceptable when you’ve broken your own heart:

- Mini Magnum icecreams for breakfast

- Another two...’cause they are only mini

- Spending your “saving-up-for-a-house’’ pot on vibey Instagram furniture for your new bachelorette pad

- Splashing out on a dining table with four chairs and never using it because a) it’s just you and b) you’re not really cooking right now (he cooked, and you’re grieving his Tuscan chicken dish)

- A cheeky glass of red at midday on a Sunday (in a mug, just in case the DPD driver knocks with your Insta-gridworthy and optimistic dining furniture

-‘‘Alexa? Play The More I Cry by Alice Boman’’

- Deleting Instagram to resist posting pictures of furniture - or watching his newly active Story feed with a screenshot of Strava. (WELL, HE NEVER POSTED ON STRAVA BEFORE. IS HE DOING THE GLOW UP THING?)

- Getting the app back again to re-review said story

- Deleting it again

- Feeling absolutely mental.

- Deciding you do need a social fix after all, but Facebook is for boomers, so you spiral on TikTok instead. Your new algorithm is dismissive avoidants, adult attachment styles, and “if you love them, let them go”

- Telling yourself you’ll go for a run tomorrow...then not

- Ordering a shit load of supplements because there aren’t many veggies in the ready meals you keep getting from the local offy. Wondering if it’s counterproductive to take vitamins with a glass of wine?

- Convincing yourself that no one will ever love you like that again

- Intuitively tapping into the creeping suspicion that he has already moved on

- Finding out through better than Sherlock detective skills (and a touch of re-instated social media stalking) that he has

- Cursing her blonde hair, pretty face and stupid fucking sausage dog

- Deleting Instagram.

- Making a fake Hinge profile to 1) see if you can find his 2) scope the current dating pool

- Realising the said pool looks like a lukewarm stew of beige and bios that say “just ask me”

- Uninstalling Hinge because it. Was. bloody. Terrifying.

- Feeling weird and teary in your new but unfamiliar local Tesco. Hearing a man’s voice that sounds kind. Imagining his hand grazing yours as you reach for the bananas, only to see his super hot wife holding their adorable baby beside him

- Assuring yourself you’ll go on that run tomorrow, then not

- Comparing yourself to your fellow thirty-somethings, either married, childrened, or long-term boyfriended

- Re-convincing yourself that no one will ever love you like that again

- Deciding to go to a friend’s wedding reception because you’re a strong, independent woman who looks excellent in a jumpsuit and dark under-eye circles

- Getting completely sloshed, swigging leftover table wine and sending him a message the following morning. Yes, let’s not talk about that

- Booking into a silent retreat and spending a week with very sad, single menopausal women who found it difficult to be silent, and then feeling weird that maybe they were a reflection of a future you

- Having an okay day until you’re reminded by your iPhone’s “on this day” of the first picture you took together on the third date.

- Season changing, clocks going back, darker, colder nights and no one to keep you warm but the dressing gown that he bought you last Christmas.

- And the slippers too.

- ‘‘Alexa? Play The More I Cry by Alice Boman’’

- ‘‘Alexa? Turn it up to 10’’

- Noticing all the sobbing is making your frown lines intensify, and you can’t pay out for Botox because you’ve already been charmed by the SmileWhite team member who told you that you are going to look perfect with straighter teeth. Thanks, Adam.

- Trying to find Adam on Facebook

- Deleting Facebook.

And I think that brings us pretty much up to date. Sorry. No fancy, life-changing advice here. No miracle cure for heartbreak. No “five steps to move on fast.” You just have to go through it. Perhaps the point of this ramble isn’t to offer false hope to the heartbreakee, but to offer them time, space to be weird for a bit, something to relate to in a world where we are so quick to fix and offer advice we don’t take ourselves.

There are a million podcasts and books out there telling you how to get over someone, how to move on, how to heal your heart. And sure, there are things that do help (wedding reception table wine ain’t one of ‘em). But really? You have to sit with it. The mess and melancholic mayhem that comes when you’re no longer tethered to someone you once thought would always be there.

Heartbreak is grief. The mourning of someone still around. It’s non-linear and we move through it, with setbacks and a whole lot of heartache along the way. What it is not, is a wound we fix. A “pop a plaster over the top” or “take a tablet twice daily with food” (or wine).

That’s why there are so many books, poems, songs, forums and, now, TikToks (take it from me) dedicated to one of the most universal and yet hideously existential agonies.

So yes, go ahead. Eat Mini Magnums for breakfast. Have a cry in Tesco. Curse the love songs on the radio and lose your mind, just for a while. Be with the meaninglessness of life for a bit, the blandness of it all, and the uncertainty without someone by your side. Be with yourself as you try to make sense of it all.

(Oh, one thing you must do, though, that I will swear by: Get. Off. Social. Media)