Getting over a relationship that blossomed in the summer can be difficult. The cache of memories built over escapades in the hot sun are unforgettable–unless you’re black out drunk. Unfortunately, that’s what I happened to be most the time to start my senior year in college.

Lara and I started dating early that summer and decided to keep it going into the school year. What can I say, I was a catch: a drunk that skipped class and slept on the stained couch of a bunch of stoners because I didn’t want to pay rent. However, our relationship progressed and really got serious when I moved into her apartment. I even went as far as telling her that I loved her–while tripping on mushrooms.

But after a few months, things changed. Lara was taking full-time classes, while I was ahead to graduate and only needed a few credits, leaving me plenty of time for extracurricular activities at the bar. This displeased her. One day I opened my email to find a message from her that she was ending the relationship and we were breaking up. Talk about being preemptive, I still had a damn key to her place. And who knew heavily drinking at the age of 22 was relationship ending material? Usually, that isn’t terms for breaking up until kids are involved. We didn’t even own a cat.

I didn’t reply. Instead, I returned to her apartment, set the key down in front of her and left without saying a word. Needless to say, I was back to sleeping on the stoners’ couch. I smoked their weed and drank my beer in hopes to hazily move on past the relationship break up.

Over time it became apparent to me that I did love her, and maybe she was right: the drugs and alcohol were a tad excessive. So, that second semester–my last semester of college–I actually substituted the booze and weed for studying. Surprisingly, the components of human-computer interface design did a much better job of keeping my mind off the break up than whiskey.

But, it was in the bar where it would all continue. I saw her again for the first time since the break up. We drank, we kissed and we have been together ever since. So, I guess the moral of the story is: getting over a relationship doesn’t require alcohol, just to rekindle it.

I didn’t date in high school. I barely had crushes, I didn’t know how. Flirtation was a language I’d never learned, and dating was a completely different country.

It’s no stretch to say that I was kind of a nerd, but I had friends and she was one of them. The Christmas after I graduated high school, she went for it. She kissed me! I asked her to be my girlfriend, she agreed and everything was great.

One week later she called me up and told me she wasn’t ready for a relationship yet, but of course, we could still be friends.

Being just friends meant we could go to dinner, ride our bikes in the park, talk for hours, hold hands, even snuggle together during a movie. It was exactly like dating, except without anything concrete.

Since she was technically my ex girlfriend, I finally told her I needed some space. Getting over an ex can be hard, even harder when you’re still sort-of-not-really dating. She asked why I needed space, so I finally called her out. I told her I still had feelings for her, and I needed to know if she had feelings for me.

She did, but she valued our friendship too much to mess it up with a relationship.

Seriously. getting over her was hard. We stopped talking. The first week was the worst. Every time I was bored I would pick up my phone and then remember that I couldn’t call her. Over the past 2 years she had not only been my best friend, but my only friend.

I dated other people, but always found myself fantasizing about a way to get her back. I would imagine her showing up on my front porch in the rain, begging for me to forgive her. It never happened.

Eventually, we got back in touch online. One day I got an e-mail from her, telling me she still thought of me, and sometimes thought of leaving her boyfriend for me.

I should have been thrilled, but instead I was mad. I thought about how she had jerked me around for years, and how she didn’t really want me, she just wanted me to want her.

After so many years, I see how she and I would have grown apart no matter what. A relationship would have been a disaster, but so was our friendship, so what’s the difference?

Finally getting over her took me six years and we only really dated for a week. I’m sure that must be a world record.

R. Miller, 26, Student

“Jane” and I were attached at the hip the moment we saw each other.

I began to feel heartbreak just within a couple of weeks into the relationship. I had applied for a job out of state prior to meeting her, and as luck would have it, I began to get requests for more information and interviews. Things were going so good for Jane and I that I did not let the thought of leaving deter the natural progression of the relationship. We became closer. She met my children and I met her son. He was a great kid and he captured my heart as she did.

When I was offered the job, I knew I had to accept it. Breaking up with Jane was something that I did not want to do. Even though we had only known each other a couple of months, my feelings for her were strong enough that I asked to her go with me. She declined. It was heartbreaking to hear that although she loved me, she was not willing to give up the stability she had to move with me. I had a choice to make. I made the wrong one.

Jane helped me pack my moving truck. As I pulled the door down on the truck, the tears started to flow. This break up was the hardest I had ever had to bear. There was something about this woman that I did not want to let go of. We listened to a couple of sentimental songs on the radio as we hugged, kissed, and cried our goodbyes.

I settled into my new job and life. Jane and I talked less and less. It was heartbreaking for me to hear her voice so I think I just avoided it. Eventually our communication dwindled down to a few friendly emails here and there. We both started dating other people.

Jane is happily married now with three children. I never have found anyone to fill the hole in my heart that she left. I recently talked to her. I finally got to tell her that choosing my job over her was the worst decision of my life and I will forever have to live with the heartbreak that I have caused myself. I wonder if she feels the same.

“Michael”, 40. A radio personality

One of the things about getting dumped is that when it happens a second time around with the same girl, it can be more than just a bit heart-wrenching. When she tells you that she doesn’t want to see you anymore over the phone, it can be twice as bad, and when you’ve just spent a college binge weekend experimenting with controlled substances her news can throw a monkey wrench straight through the carefully laid out scientific blueprints floating around your cranium.

What really helped me get over my ex was not the fact that I was totally too wrecked to comprehend what was going on. While intoxication did take a large portion of the sting (and my potential to react to it) out of the equation…

Tamiqua, (which is not her real name) and I had dated for longer than I was able to readily erase from my memory banks. For a long term solution, I had no choice but to take the hard road to surviving a break up, and for those of you out there in similar situations, I’m afraid your fate is similar.

When you’ve developed feelings for another human being, and cultivated your reaction to those feelings through habitual association and intimate contact with them, the only way to let them go is to wait it out. Once destiny separated Tamiqua and I, the inevitable progression of time, which I spent tackling the hefty goal of chatting up every woman at my university, made us eventually forget those deep associations. Emotions, positive or negative, build with experiences, and moods often attract similar dispositions.

If you’re having trouble getting over her, it’s not because she was that important to you, but rather because if you’re not actively trying by thinking about someone(s) else, then you’re not trying correctly. That may sound harsh, but what you should aim for in all aspects and stages of relationship development/destruction is similar to the old maxim “work smarter, not harder.” if you constantly need to do hard work to maintain your communication at a comfortable level, it usually means the relationship isn’t that much fun anymore, so let your attention wander, just be honest with yourself about it. When your direction splits from hers, take it as a blessing, as Tamiqua went on to birth beautiful babies with the next cat she met.

“Brickbeard” 26, Buccaneer fan

I should have known in the beginning that the relationship was going to end badly. After all, I watched her go through a lot of guys – including my best friend. But as I watched her, I fell in love with her. I thought I could change her. After all, through all this, she fell in love with me, too, or so I thought.

We lasted an amazing couple of years before she started cheating on me . . . that I know of! We were on a double date at the drive-in with one of her girlfriends and this other guy. I got out of the car to get popcorn and pop at the stand, and I saw the other girl going into the bathroom as I was heading back to the car. As I was approaching the car, I noticed nobody was in the front seat. I figured my girl was in the bathroom with her friend. Until I got closer. Turns out she was in the backseat with her buddy’s boyfriend! And they were going at it pretty heavy.

So, I tossed her and her high-fashion pumps and webbed toes out the door. I regretted it as soon as the door closed behind her. I thought we’d be together forever. I even thought about buying the engagement ring.

It felt like there was this crushing weight on my heart. I spent four days in bed, just thinking about her. Pathetic, I know. I just knew deep down that I was never getting over her.

Over the next year I moped around. I avoided all the places she liked – I even avoided eating the foods she loved. Every thought I had dealt with how to get her back. I had girls hitting on me, but I was too depressed to even try to find someone else. Nobody was going to replace my ex girlfriend. My buddies were giving me advice about getting over an ex – even my mom was trying to help by giving me magazine articles. But there was no getting over her. I just needed time.

It’s been a few years since my ex girlfriend. But even after this time, that event still bugs me. So, my new girlfriend takes the opportunity to poke fun at the ex whenever she sees fit. What a great one I have now!

Steve
Construction Worker, 28

Summer

To say that we had some fun together would be an unforgivable understatement. Emily and I had a frigging blast. She was wild and spontaneous but had a thriving inner life, while I was hunkering over Camus with an untapped longing for action. We complimented each other in nearly every way and got into a terrific amount of trouble with our families, with the law and with each other. It was young love, neurotic and complete. She was the only person I saw when she was in the room.

Fall

Things began to take a turn for the worse when it became clear that I, well, I thought that this was going to be forever and she didn’t. Within a short period of time, it was clear that it was going to take a lot of effort to sort out our differences, and Emily made the decision to call it quits over a 2am phone call. I managed to make it through the call pretty well, and it wasn’t until I hung the phone hit the receiver that the dam broke.

I’ve never been able to relate to people who describe crying after a break up as a cathartic process. Maybe it’s because I keep things bottled up, but crying is a violent and angry process for me that I find difficult to deal with.

The next day, it was incredible just how dull the world outside suddenly appeared. It might be melodramatic, but it was true; a world without her seemed pointless and empty.

Winter

PostEmilypartem depression came on with a rush of emotions that I had never felt before, and I was immediately hooked. In the aftermath of a breakup, no one wants to hear that time heals all wounds because your pain is the only thing you have left from your love. Instead of thinking and doing the things that I knew would make me feel better, I became obsessed with my sorrow and wallowed in it shamelessly. 80′s torch songs were resurrected from ancient playlists as I commiserated with Phil Collins over candlelight and boxed wine. I tortured myself endlessly with the indie pop songs that we use to cruise and make love to as messages from well meaning friends went unreturned. In other words, I became ridiculous.

Spring

I don’t clearly remember the first time that I realized that I had gone through an entire day without thinking about Emily, but I’m certain that it is was in the spring. New life was emerging from the ground as the world turned green, and there was this unfamiliar freshness to things that took some time to get used to. In a matter of weeks, I found myself in my favorite record store buying new albums that I had never listened to with Emily and was able to think that she might have dug a particular track without feeling any sense of loss. It took some time and some awkward false efforts, but I started getting myself back out there. Those phone calls from friends got returned, and, slowly, time did heal those wounds while allowing me to still cherish my time together with her.

Anon.

I don’t think I will ever forget my worst break up. Back in the day I worked full-time to pay for college. I was dirt poor, but had huge dreams. However, the parents of the girl I was in a relationship with had even bigger dreams for their little princess. Unfortunately, I was crazy about this girl. She was very much out of my league, but very much into me. Her parents were millionaires and she was terribly shallow, but I didn’t see that. Now, while those two things do not always necessarily go hand in hand; in this case, they did.

A major contention with her parents was my motorcycle, and for this reason I guess they considered me a “bad boy”. Me? I was the guy who got picked on in high school and just wanted to make something of myself. We persevered though, declaring our undying love for one another; until one really bad day.

Her parents called me and asked me to come over and meet a few close friends of the family. Her parents hated me so, and  although my radar was going ballistic, I went. I tried to get in touch with my girl, but she couldn’t be reached. I got there and her parents ushered me in. There on the couch was my girlfriend with this blond guy with pecks, legs and arms like tree trunks. Turns out, her parents had been working that angle for a while. Needless to say, he had her out with him soon after that. She never even bothered to formally break it off with me. I was crushed over the relationship break up.

What ensued in the next two weeks was not pretty, and this is in no way intended to be taken as advice to anyone who has had a recent break up. I can only say what worked for me.

After the break up, in a nutshell, booze. I drowned myself in anything that wouldn’t drink me first. I didn’t go to school and was fired from my job. I wouldn’t shower, nor would I climb out of my boxers.

I became “King of the Crooners” by night and “King of the Losers” by day. My friends had finally seen enough. They started circling the wagons after one too many sad Karaoke songs. After three months I rejoined the living. Without them I may have never gotten over the break up.

Jared D, 41,  writer

Have you heard the old Neil Sedaka song, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”? Allmusic.com describes it has “two minutes and sixteen seconds of pure pop magic”; an assessment I was in complete agreement with until it happened to me. The heartbreak of losing the girl of my dreams turned an otherwise enjoyable song into the melodramatic theme of my twenty-something tragedy.

I’m still not sure why it happened. We had it all, I thought. Sunday nights at the pizza shop, hours-long conversations on the couch, hopes and dreams for the future. I never saw the breakup coming; much like the tree that jumped in front of me just days after I got my driver’s license.

I guess the biggest heartbreak of that relationship was the way it ended. My girl decided to tell me in the parking lot after my brother’s wedding reception. What joy! Apparently she decided I was “too good” for her and as she spoke, her words fell on my stunned ears with all the grace of a sumo wrestler performing Swan Lake. Opening the door and exiting my truck she struck the final blow to my broken heart with the words, “I still love you.”

Then she was gone…..

In the days following I was convinced my sweetheart would come back. After all, I let her go just like that stupid poem says. But as the days turned into months I discovered there’s something even more heartbreaking than losing your girl – the realization she’s not returning. When it finally hit me I kissed Neil Sedaka goodbye, figuratively speaking of course, and decided to embrace the attitude of Clint Eastwood’s “Heartbreak Ridge.”

It was time to adapt; time to rise above my pathetic love life and secure the elusive objective of true love. I trained. I learned. I cleaned up my apartment.

And then one day there she was…sitting across the room in a pale-yellow prairie skirt and tastefully matching blouse, her blond locks cascading down to her shoulders. It was time to go into action. I reached down deep to pull up all my training, and a breath mint too, and headed her way. You can fill in the rest.

Matt Gerwitz, 44, pastor and free-lance writer

It was one of the most beautiful Sunday mornings I could remember, as she stood before me vulnerable, emotionally wracked and helplessly pleading. My eyes are empty as I search for a reason to get her back. She demands to why I don’t want to fight for her. She is beautiful in her short shorts, rumpled tee shirt, and hair that still smells like morning.

More than ever, I want to reach out and hold her. I want to hold on until forgetfulness sets in and everything is right with us again. Alas, my phone rings and I insist that I must answer it. She stares and glares, confused as to why she has pushed me into a corner and I won’t push back.

We were in love just a month ago. Although we had been together for five years, our relationship still had the new car smell. Yet, underneath that smell, there was some old food under the seat. Something that is rotten and forgotten. That’s why I stayed out too late. That’s why she returned my calls an hour later than she should have. I thought she could do better. She knew that she could. For a longtime, we told each other that love was enough until it was all we had. Then we said the words and realized there was an ocean between us. Then I kissed another girl.

Of course, that kiss did not lead to our breaking up. We were already a bunch of frayed nerves, disingenuousness, and anger. No, the kiss confirmed that she really could do better.

A drunken mishap, with a girl that could never measure up to my ex girlfriend, told me everything that I needed to know about myself. My clumsy pawing and feigned regret told me one thing. My dishonesty told me everything else.

I became colder and more distant. I was convinced that she would see what was obvious and do what was necessary. She called me and challenged me. I was evasive…. She said we should end it and I weakly agreed. I would get over the broken heart. So, what the hell is she doing here this morning, Sunday morning, wondering why I won’t fight for us? I am silent. It is better this way. You can do better than me. She leaves in a rush. The girl in my bathroom slinks out, gets dressed, kisses me on my forehead, and leaves.

I disgust myself.

Louis Meadowbank, 30, self-employed

Perhaps the worst breakup I ever had the misfortune to go through was in the summer between my junior and senior years at college. My girlfriend was a year older than I was and had already graduated and lived five states away, which put some stress on the relationship. But we were still together, really more out of sheer obstinance and the safety that comes from a boring daily ritual — the telephone call. It would typically resemble something like this:

Me: So how was your day?

Her: Fine. How was yours?

Me: OK.

Her: Well, I have to get ready for dinner. Bye.

Well, I was studying to be an archaeologist at the time, and this summer was going to get my feet wet on my first expedition. So I signed onto a dig on one of the Greek islands. The town I was staying in didn’t have internet. Heck, it barely had a payphone. When you think of one-horse towns from spaghetti Westerns, upgrade the scenery to the mid 1980s and you’d have a good picture of the place. Needless to say, with the technological gap and the time difference, the daily phone calls went away.

To be honest, there was also this girl I met… Well, there might have been three girls. One of them even needed help on how to get over her ex girlfriend. Sometimes it’s nice to work in a profession where women get daily exercise digging in the dirt, thereby ensuring a relatively low fatty-to-hot girl ratio. In America, we’ve become so used to the obesity epidemic that we forget how large of a percentage of the female population is attractve when you only have to subtract out the fuglies. And even the fuglies have their moments when they’re pouring you that 22nd shot of raki, which is Greek moonshine that’s usually made in a sink or a toilet bowl, judging by the taste. But I digress.

Breaking up was definitely in my future. After a couple months and three girls, I go back home to talk to my girlfriend. I was still young and naive, so I figured I’d tell her the whole sordid story and break up with her. That’s what happens when you have a conscience that’s weak enough to let you do what you want, but strong enough to make you feel guilty about it later.

Unfortunately, she broke up with me first. She’d cheated on me while I was gone — several times. Even though I had done the same thing, I was devastated.

I suddenly didn’t know how I’d get over a broken heart. I spent the next year trying to simultaneously get her back and get over a broken heart. I’ll spare you the nasty details, but I was unsuccessful on the first count, but did discover one of life’s great truths. I was able to get over my ex girlfriend by getting under someone else. That’s the best way to survive a break up. And as a word of parting advice, based upon my experience, Swedish girls are better in the sack, but Norwegians are better cuddlers.

Pyrrhus, 25, archaeologist