“Hey, can we go someplace private? We need to talk.”

If my girlfriend told me something like that today, I’d know what was coming. I’d be able to mentally prepare myself for getting dumped a few minutes ahead of schedule. Because those words can only mean one thing: she wants to break up with me.

At the time, though, I wasn’t a wise as I am now. I was just a freshman in college, enjoying my first serious relationship. Ah, so she wants to talk? Great! This’ll be fun. I love talking to her.

Do I need to dwell on the details? We’ve all heard it. It wasn’t me, it was her. We had some great times and she knew I would find somebody new who could give me what I was looking for, and she really, really hoped we could still be friends. She didn’t understand, any more than I did, that getting over a broken heart isn’t easy.

I didn’t quite process all this as it happened. Again, I was young and little naive. Today I can at least see the warning signs that the end is near. But then, it seemed to come out of nowhere. She might as well have told me she was alien and was leaving because she had to report back to her home planet. It sounds a little clichéd, but the feeling was exactly like being punched in the gut. I know it’s called heartbreak or heartache but isn’t really the gut that feels the worst of it? But the pit of my stomach was crying out in pain. How could I get over a broken heart if I couldn’t even get over a broken gut?

This happened twenty minutes before I had to go take a final for one of my classes. The girl wasn’t cruel, by the way. She misheard something I’d said earlier, and thought I was meeting her on the way from the test. When she realized her mistake, she was mortified. But in fact, maybe it was for the best. Thanks to the final, I had something to take my mind off the pain.

It reminded me there were other things in life, and that helped in getting over the heartbreak. It took some getting used to being single again, but soon enough I was back on my feet.

- Chris, 26, Graduate Student

I was in college, in my twenties, and in love. With Noel. She was amazing: smart, funny, confident, and someone else’s. Yep, she had a boyfriend. Still, we became friends, good friends. The kind of college friends who cuddle on the dorm bed as we watched television; obviously, it was becoming “something.”

We were getting closer, she was seeing me more, and her boyfriend, well almost never. Then, one day she said that they’d broken up, and soon we were a couple, and her (ex) boyfriend was now out of sight and our of mind.

Things were great for two years. It was October – I was set to graduate in May. She wasn’t graduating, yet. We had both gone away to college far from home, and upon graduation I intended to return from whence I came, and we had planned, those two long years, for her to follow me. But I quickly learned how fast things change, and how fast heartbreak can come.

One day she came by and told me that she wanted to share an apartment with a male friend of hers. She assured me they were “just friends.” I said, “no way,” that no girl friend of mine was going to live with some dude. That went over well. She left, angry. The next day she came over and said she was moving in with him anyway. She then suggested that we needed to take, wait for it… a break. Yep. She said it. I’ll spare you the details and we’ll just say – the onset and pain that comes when that broken hearted feeling blindsides you.

A couple weeks later I ran into a friend of hers; it happened to be a very attractive friend, one Noel had often expressed jealousy of. I asked her out – what better way to get over a broken heart than to put a new person between you and the old one?

Later that week, Noel stopped by my dorm to pick up some clothes she had left at my place. Knowing she was coming, I strategically hung a picture of me and my new flame where she couldn’t miss it. I saw her eyes flick to it, and watched her visibly flinch. Was that the shadow of jealousy, maybe even regret, that I saw pass her face? I like to think so. And while it still took me some time to get over the broken heart, replaying her flinch in my mind helped the heartache – a lot. Of course, time did the rest.

Sky, 38, teacher

My ex-girlfriend and I had met in college. Call me a late bloomer, but she was my first love. We did everything together and would visit each other when school was out. She was a senior by the time I graduated. That year, we saw each other once in the fall. Halfway through spring semester I hadn’t seen her at all, then I got the phone call. I don’t recall what she said exactly, but it was short and sweet – the typical “I need some time for myself” jargon.

In my manliest voice, I called my best friend and told him the news. Three years together and she ended it just like that. I was hurt, but the man-rules dictate that you never display emotion. He told me that it may bad for a while, but to give it time and keep busy. He then told me I’d feel much better in three days, he called it the “three-day hump.” I believe this “hump” may better apply to over-eating at Thanksgiving than a break-up.

After we had just broken up we were still linked through a social networking site. Some sleuthing found her getting awfully close to another guy – and here I thought she needed her “alone time”…

I deleted her. In a final act of barbarism, I blocked her as well.

I realize there are many ways to heal a broken heart. Some people write angry letters and never send them. Some find another girl immediately after, called a “rebound.” That night, I nursed my heartache with a few pitchers at a local dive bar.

That night, my friend gave me more advice, which all seemed a lot easier said than done. It was difficult listening to him – he has a new girl every week. The bar doubled as a karaoke lounge and liquor tends to give me, what I call, “Sinatra powers.” Being a true friend, he successfully kept me from singing “My Way,” or any other male empowerment song. I owe him for that.

I do think that girls have it easier. A girl doesn’t have to deal with heartbreak for too long, there will always be a guy or two to keep her busy. I didn’t date for a long time. I haven’t had a serious girlfriend since, nothing that has lasted more than a couple months, anyway.

A few months later, she began calling me. She tried to be friends, then hinted at getting back together. When I declined, she proceeded to curse me out via e-mail, text message, and voice mail. I flexed my man muscle yet again and had her e-mail and phone number blocked. It seems to me that she is no expert in coping with a break up either. But even through all of this, I have no ill-will towards her. I just think she needs some time for herself.

Charles D., 24, Engineer

I recently lost the girl of my dreams but didn’t realize it at the time. We had been going out for almost three years and I know that she was waiting for me to be more serious in our relationship. She often talked about marriage, (something that I always ran from), and children. My inability to commit led to our break up and the biggest heartbreak of my life.

I had taken her out to dinner at one of her favorite spots the night she crushed my world. We had ordered and were drinking a glass of wine when she again approached the subject of marriage. I started to stumble on my words and tried to change the subject.

“See,” she almost yelled at me, “You’re just an idiot that will never have a family because you can’t commit!”

Everyone in the place turned to look at us. I could feel the heat on my face.

“Calm down,” I stammered. That’s when things got really bad.

She stood up and addressed the entire restaurant.

“This guy is a jerk! We have been going out for almost three years. He loves to say that he loves me, and he loves taking me to bed, but he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me!” With that, she stormed out. I felt my heart break the instant that she was out of sight.

I looked around the room and called for the check. I wanted out of there as quickly as possible. The other customers there started throwing advice and telling me that I was a jerk. So now here I was assaulted with my girlfriend’s (newly ex girlfriend) leaving, the looming relationship heartbreak- and public ridicule to boot.

I quickly paid the bill and left. I tried to call her the next day and she told me that I had told her all she needed to know when I let her leave without a word. I tried to explain the embarrassment, but she hung up on me. I sent her flowers to apologize and admit that I was a jerk, but she had the delivery guy bring them to my office with a note telling me that I could stick it.

As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, the waitress from the restaurant sent me a letter telling me that I should have never let my girl leave, and that I had serious commitment issues. She also stated that she got my address from my credit card receipt and that I could call the place and have her fired because women needed to stick together when it came to guys like me.

Allen Reynolds, 25
Broker

Believe it or not, the girl I had the hardest time getting over was never even my girlfriend. Technically speaking. It was someone who, after just a couple dates, let me know that she wasn’t really interested in pursuing anything beyond friendship. But pursue friendship we did, over the course of several years and long-distances…

I put far more resources into that “friendship” than any romantic relationship I’d ever had. I was in love with my friend, and not being able to move it to another level was heartbreaking in itself and it was nearly killing me.

But the idea of ending our friendship — false as it may have been — and not spending time with her, killed me even more.

A long while down the road, I told her I loved her. But I did it by email, because I was a coward — in case you hadn’t already gathered that. I also threw in everything that I thought was wrong between us, in the hope of convincing her that my love was strong enough to make it all right. I was young and in love and not thinking straight, and I shouldn’t have done that.

She responded with one of the angriest emails I’ve ever read, and cut off all contact with me. They say you hurt the ones you love most, right? Maybe that proved we actually did have something, but it was gone. After all the connection we had built over all that time… I was very heartbroken and I knew that getting her out of my head and getting over her was going to be impossible.

I was so upset that for about four months, I had no appetite. The broken heart hurt my whole being… I would force myself to eat a tiny salad with lettuce, cottage cheese, and peach slice for lunch. I knew I needed to eat something, and that was all I could stand. At dinner I’d slowly get down about a fifth of whatever the cafeteria was serving, which wasn’t much.

I also went to a counselor about that time, just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, because it seemed crazy to be not be over a girl after that long, who I had never even “gotten serious” with. The counselor assured me I was going to be okay, and shortly after that I was.

The upside? At the end of those few months I’d lost twenty pounds! This was weight I could easily stand to lose. So for all the heartache and emotional pain, I came out in better health in the end. Sometimes it really is better to have loved and lost.

She was a beauty, that Shelly. It even pains me to think right now that she’s my ex girlfriend.

We had been solid since tenth grade. She liked the tortured writer thing I had going on. I was headed to the West Coast to find myself; she was applying to every major university out there she could find. In the end, she settled for a small school. I landed a low paying entry level job at a newspaper close to campus. We were grown-ups, living together and getting on with our lives.

The end of the relationship began when real life set in. Bills and housework and deadlines put a damper on our romantic notions of living in poverty and taking the world by storm. She found out the campus was running over with brainy beauty queens. Suddenly, she was no longer the belle of the ball. She also figured out that tortured writers have terrible mood swings.

One cold night in February the bottom fell out. She was up late with a paper that was giving her grief; an experience she never had in high school. I was in the tiny kitchen of our apartment trying unsuccessfully to come up with an interesting angle on an article about a sanitation workers’ strike. My nerves were on edge. All she wanted to do was talk, and talk some more.

My patience was paper thin. I was a writer, a real-life professional whose career was quickly going down the drain. She was merely a student in a freshman composition class. Her writer’s block could spell only the drama of an average grade. Mine, I succinctly pointed out, could mean the loss of our only source of income; and the end of a promising career in this self-made man.

Somehow, she didn’t appreciate my assessment of her plight.

“As a symbolic gesture to end our relationship she swaggered back into our bedroom and tossed every belonging of mine she could find into a pile in the tub.”

Squeezing the last ounce of her apple scented shampoo on top; she turned the faucet on full blast, gathered her things and walked out of my life. I didn’t discover the mess until citrus scented suds flooded the apartment.

Interestingly, that break up didn’t leave me a broken man. For weeks, the heartbreak and angst drove me to write like a mad man. My career was the better for it, though I doubt that was the effect she planned. The worst part is that, to this day, I cannot bear the smell of apples.

-S.D. Lee, age 36, writer

I should have known the end was coming. Now that I look back, the signs were there: my beloved Amy was about to leave me. It might have been quicker and cleaner if I had acknowledges those damn signs. Hell, maybe I could have even saved the relationship. I was too scared, I think. The first sign was when she invited her sister’s brother-in-law to join us when we went to see “The Break-Up” with Jennifer Aniston. Amy said he was on leave from the Marine Corps, visiting his brother and her sister and was eager to get away from their three little boys for an evening. I could see they were having a great time…Amy and the brother-in-law, I mean. I tried to ignore the way they talked and laughed at each other’s jokes.

Next, Amy started canceling dates or making up reasons she couldn’t see me. I even caught her in an outright lie one time when I ran into her at a restaurant with some of her friends after she had told me she was going to be out of town. I never said anything about it, though. Later, I found myself coping with my broken heart by listing in my mind all the things I should have said: “It’s over, Amy. I can’t be with someone who would lie to me.” I wonder if my wounded heart would have healed much faster if it had gone down that way.

The breakup happened on New Year’s Eve. I hate New Year’s Eve. I tried to remember what I had gotten her for Christmas that year. Maybe it was lame and that’s why she broke up with me. It took me about a month to remember. I had gotten her an aerobics tape. Well, that was not all I gave her. But I do think that tape might have been the straw that…you know. She said she wanted the tape. She even wrote it down. We had been watching a movie at my place and the tape was advertised on TV. She wrote it down and said it looked like a good one. When she left the note on my end table I figured it was a hint that I should buy it for her. So I bought it. I gave it to her in a little Christmas stocking with a picture of glittery red shoes from the Wizard of Oz on the front. I put the tape in the stocking along with a heart-shaped necklace with matching earrings I bought at J.C. Penney’s for $99.

I guess my friends got tired of watching me break down after the breakup. My sister gave me the name of a therapist and said I should call her. I did call, but not before I tried to heal my broken heart through a series of dates with girls I met through an on-line dating sight. I thought it helped when some pretty girl told me I was handsome and she could just not understand why Amy had broken up with me. It did make me feel better. There were even a couple girls I thought would turn out to be the one. But none lasted more than 3 or 4 dates.

I saw the therapist just three times and she was brutal. As soon as I sat down on her couch I started crying and she handed me a box of tissues. That was nice. I told her about Amy at our first visit and about the internet dates on the second visit. At our third session, which lasted just 54 minutes, I started out crying, like always. Then, that therapist turned on me.

“Look at you”, she said. “You are a mess. I am not surprised these dates don’t last. Anyone who would be attracted to you the way you are would certainly not be someone you would want to be with a year from now.”

She told me to stop trying to get some woman to fix me and start working to fix myself.

She was probably right. It took five and a half months for my broken heart to heal after that. I spent those months reconnecting with some friends who had shied away from me. I think all the crying and going over the tragedy of my breakup was too much for them. So I swore off talking about Amy or even allowing myself to think about her. I went to movies with Sam, fishing with Aaron, and even took my little nephews to Chuck E Cheese a couple times. When I was ready, I got on line again:

Ronnie Hopgood, looking for a serious relationship. Age: 33 Occupation: Lab Technician Interests: Old movies and new relationships.

Ronnie – 33, Technician

When I met Rebekah, through mutual friends, it was apparent that she stood out from the crowd. I had heard about her from so many of my guy friends long before I laid eyes on her. All of them had, in failed attempts, vied for her attention. Apparently she had a long term, long distance boyfriend that no one had laid eyes on. Once I saw her, I decided I was going to win her over.

Persistence seemed to win over Rebekah. I constantly flirted, complimented and simply paid quite a bit of attention to her. I figured that if her boyfriend was long distance, then she would be starving for a bit of quality attention. After about a month of hard work, and some slight cheating on her part, she and her boyfriend ended up breaking up. I could not have been more thrilled. And all my friends were slightly annoyed that I had some how pulled off what they had determined was impossible.

Our relationship never became official. There were many meals out together, evening’s downtown with friends and plenty of movie watching at my house but she never wanted anything too serious. Unfortunately for me, after putting all this effort into Rebekah, I had gotten hooked. She got scared and some how ended up back with the previous guy.

For a girl I never really had wanted to date in the first place, you would think I would have done a better job avoiding getting attached. It actually ended up being heartbreaking. I knew Rebekah was just getting out of a relationship with someone else and I knew that she was not looking for anything serious from me. Yet, I still became attached to her and I paid for it. The relationship heartbreak was the worst because my friends could not really sympathize after I had stolen her away.

Over the next few days and weeks, I assumed, after seeing that my hard work paid off in the beginning, that I could win her back. I thought our non-relationship had not actually experienced a break up. As heartbreaking as it sounds, I just acted like nothing had changed. I would text her multiple times a day, which she would respond to and I continued to go to parties and bars that I knew she would be at. I focused most of my time and effort on her. Eventually Rebekah told me all the attention was making her uncomfortable and it was smothering her. After a few months, I just let the situation go and actually went out of my way to avoid her, the only way I could get over her. Even today, it still hurts to run into her or to see her out with other guys.

Andrew Henderson, 28, Systems Engineer

I first met Erin about fifteen years ago through mutual friends. We’d always had a great platonic relationship, but then a few years ago an evening of beers and karaoke ended with our first kiss, and began our tumultuous romance.

We began our romantic relationship very intensely, moving in together within just a couple of months. Thanksgiving of that year, I asked Erin to marry me, and she joyfully agreed. We lived together in relative bliss for a while, planning our wedding and enjoying domesticity.

Unfortunately, after several months of this, things began to change. My mother became very ill, and I began to withdraw from Erin. Perhaps because of this, she fell back in to bad habits of drinking too much, which led to depression and increased frustration on my part. We tried going to couples’ counseling, but even with that we were becoming progressively more miserable. Basically we kept fighting and getting back together, back and forth.

In retrospect, what I did next was unthinkable. One night in July, Erin made dinner as usual and we watched some television. Before we retired, I asked her if she wanted to go see a movie the next day. She replied that she would love to, looking happy and hopeful. We set off the next afternoon, and I informed her I had to stop at her mother’s house to pick something up. This wasn’t unusual — we went over there all the time. When we arrived at her mother’s house, we both went inside, and Erin went to use the bathroom while I ostensibly looked something up in the phone book.

When she came out, I told her it was over, that she couldn’t come back to the house, and I didn’t want to talk about it. I drove away as she stood in the doorway, stunned and frozen. Looking back at that now I can only imagine how heartbroken she was… At the time though I was totally numb to it.

After that day, the only times I saw or spoke to Erin were when she called about her things and came to pick them up. I refused to talk to her otherwise; refused to ever discuss what had happened between us.

Once the dust settled I realized what I had done. It took me a long time to move on and get over her after that, and really I don’t know why I committed such a cowardly act. I regret it to this day. For the longest time I blamed my actions on the effects of my mother’s failing health or Erin’s drinking and depression, but truthfully, I think was just scared and I chose to take it out on her by breaking up. I hope someday she’ll find a way to forgive me.

Mark R. – 34, graphic designer

Men come in as many different molds as women. Some are sensitive, thoughtful and attentive lovers. Some are callous, selfish and inattentive. I like to think I’m a balanced blend of the two, leaning perhaps toward the former. My past, though, was a different story.

I met Suzanne in high school. We were almost stereotypical students, she the shy, insecure girl, me the arrogant, confident athlete. We were actually good together. We spent a lot of our time laughing, which is usually an indicator of a good relationship. Maybe if we’d met later in life or if we hadn’t dated each other exclusively so young, things would have turned out better.

Secure in my relationship with Suzanne, I didn’t believe I could actually do anything that would hurt her. After all, if she didn’t know, it didn’t matter. Over the six years we were together, I fooled around with some other girls. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but as someone once commented, it only takes one kiss to be unfaithful.

The beginning of the end was when Suzanne found out about my infidelities. She was surprised and truly heartbroken by what I had done. I hadn’t treated her as well overall as I should have. Because of that, Suzie had distanced herself a bit from me, but not enough to be unscathed by the cheating. When I realized what I had done to her, it hit me in the chest like a truck.

Of course when she left and it really settled in that  I was getting dumped because I screwed up thats when I felt horrible. I couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving me because I’d been so monstrous to her. I begged and cajoled and finally convinced her to give me another chance. I had no idea it was too late. During our brief time ‘back together,’ Suzie went out with other guys. Any feelings of love or commitment she had for me had been ground to dust by the way I had treated her.

The final breakup came and when the heartbreak settled in it was more than I could bear. I sat in my apartment and wished I would cease to exist. I was forced to face the person I was and I didn’t like him very well, which made spending all that time alone unbearable and getting over the broken heart seemed impossible.

While I was starting to get over the break up I spent a lot of time berating myself and wondering how Suzie had tolerated me all those years. I had no answer to that question. I only knew that I would no longer be that guy. The new me had arrived.

Jess, 39 – engineer