To illustrate predominantly why young men break up with their girlfriends I drew her the first graph. Now, when men of this particular vintage are responsible for breaking up with their girlfriends, their reasons can be pigeon-holed in varying degrees anywhere in this triangular continuum. You'll note at each axis point the behaviours stupid, selfish and horny. Let's take for example Bloke 1. He broke up with his girlfriend because she didn't know the words to Kenny Rogers The Gambler, which he thinks is the greatest song ever written. Now there's some validity to their break-up because the two are fundamentally unsuited to each other because our girl has better taste than wanting to have The Gambler played as she walks up the aisle. Bloke number 1's break-up reason is stupid. He's not especially selfish because he wanted them to do something together (i.e. get plastered and sing The Gambler) and his reason isn't based on horniness because he's not chasing anyone else.
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| Graph 1. What sort of idiot my friend's ex boyfriend is. |
Bloke 3 broke up with his girlfriend because he met another girl at a party, got her number and wants to rub his private parts against her instead. As long as he has a string of chances with other girls, he will keep breaking up. Bloke 3 is archetypal horny and again, our girl is better off without him. Then we get to Bloke 4, who is my friend's ex-boyfriend. I won't go into particulars. but I was tempted to drag him across into the hornier part of the continuum because his friends took him to a strip joint just after they broke up. I cannot be sure he wanted to go with them, but I'm tempted to drag him into the street and give him a fucking good hiding anyway.
While my friend absorbed this first graph, she said she understood, but she felt like crap. "Okay.", said I. I have a graph for that too. The second graph offers an explanation as to what happens to men and women's contentment post break-up. I want to elaborate why I use the word contentment as opposed to happiness: happiness is the temporary state of what contentment is long term. You can be happy one minute and miserable the next, however contentment is the result of collective feelings. In this situation, men experience a surge of euphoric happiness arising from their sudden freedom. They can eat and drink what they like, they can spend hours doing stupid things like playing computer games, going to the pub, watching cricket and attempting to fornicate with anyone with standards low enough to allow them. It really is terrific. However, over time, the typical man will start to feel that their life is devoid of order and while there may be plenty of people in their lives and around them, they just feel lonely. As their contentment ebbs away, they will find that they begin to crave the very thing that they shrugged off at the very beginning.
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| Graph 2. Her ex may be flushed with freedom now, but believe me, it's a slippery slope. |
Women feel differently. The experience of a break-up starts off as an act of trauma that is followed by a definite grieving process. However, women experience improvement over time as they realise the full array of new options open to them along with the surge in their self-confidence. Their self-confidence is the key to having their contentment improve over time until they feel comfortable enough within themselves to want to fuck up their next victim's life. As both sexes proceed along the timeline, they find both themselves in a position to enter their next relationship. Anything else is just too soon.
By this stage my friend at least had a smile on her face, but it helped her realise that the path to getting over our man Bloke 4 was going to be a process and not a matter of her listening to someone telling her to cheer up, or from the temporary relief of getting liquored. On top of all my advice, I have offered her my other unique service: I have offered to break into his house and do a shit on his pillow.
