by Sarah Nicole
1. Delete him from your life. Cell phone, email contact list, even Facebook. No. Especially Facebook. When you’re obsessively refreshing his profile page, what exactly do you think you’re waiting for? The status update that says “[insert name here] is a bottomless pit of misery without the one true love of his life and is going to throw himself off the nearest tall building unless she takes him back”? Or the photographic proof of him with the spray-tanned bitch you always knew was after him? Either way, stop. It’s the only way you’ll start moving on.

2. Listen to your friends. Yes, they’re required by various laws of sisterhood to tell you the following:

a) “You’re soooo much better off, really.”
a) “Trust me, you are going to love being single in the city.”
c) “Okay, to be honest, none of us ever understood what you saw in him in the first place. And doesn’t he have back hair?”

And yes, they would say all the same things even if you’d just split with Jake Gyllenhaal, but that doesn’t mean they’re not true. Also, ex-bashing is kind of funny, once you give up desperately defending the asshole. I’ll never forget the night my former roommate spent half an hour on Google Image proving that my ex-bf looks exactly like the lovechild of Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote and Jack Black in High Fidelity.

3. Skip the shrink and go to the gym. A workout routine is bourgeois therapy at its best: good for the body, good for the brain. You’ll burn off all the Haagen-Dazs you presumably consumed while watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on an endless loop, and you’ll sweat out your sexual frustration.

4. Resist the urge to rebound with the nearest relatively attractive member of the opposite sex. As tempting as it may be to use a new someone’s affection to repair your pride, it’s also selfish and immature, particularly if you’re not emotionally ready to reciprocate. Besides, the biggest ego boost is realizing you don’t need one.

5. Since you are going to rebound anyway, first ask yourself this: if my former one-and-only saw me walking down the street with my someone-new, would he be instantly consumed with jealous rage and regret? The answer must, of course, be “yes”, because if he’s not totally green, what’s the point? My ex, for example, settled for a girl who is so completely unremarkable (although, you know, nice) that I can’t even muster up a pale shade of pistachio. Sad.

6. Refuse to let maudlin sentimentality ruin every movie you watched together, song you slow-danced to, coffee shop you drove through, whatever. For a while, yes, everything will remind you of him, but the sooner the better you have to start taking back your life. Case, point: The exbf and I went to two Bright Eyes shows together, listened to Cassadaga on long drives in his car and talked about playing “First Day of My Life” at our wedding. For a few weeks after our third-and-final breakup, I thought an entire discography of New Dylanship was forever dead to me. Then I remembered that not only was I the more serious fan of the band, but also, hello! I’ve been in love with Conor Oberst since Lifted, or the Story is in the Soil, which is approximately five times as long as I was in love with the ex. So in one week, I downloaded and listened to every Bright Eyes song ever recorded—about 150, if you want to know. It was immersion therapy, and it worked. Bright Eyes is mine.

7. Throw a breakup party. Invite your bests over for cake and champagne, if only to reward them for listening to your sob stories on repeat. Buy a dress you can’t afford. Make confetti out of his old pictures and love letters. Play relentlessly upbeat disco and have a dance party in your living room. Watch gay porn.

8. Do like Daft Punk and be Human After All. You can follow each of these and every other bullshit self-help step, and some days you’ll still find yourself sad beyond belief. So be sad. Be gutwrenchingly, gorgeously, melodramatically, majorly fucking sad. Lie naked and broken in bed and cry your tired eyes out. Then get up. Get dressed. Reapply mascara. You’re not alright, but you will be.