Sail Smooth Over Your Past Relationship

Your heart has been recently torn from your chest, stomped on with petty vengeance, snipped into edible strips and then returned to your chest. It's still beating under the hack-job of the break-up, but it's still got a long way to go to reach recovery. It doesn't matter who broke-up with who, or what the circumstances were every romantic loss leaves us a little lost. There's the question of shared friends divvied up like inscribed towels. Some have her initial, some yours. There's the question of accidental meetings. Of how much email or text is too much text. And the memory of the moment when you realized the cleave between you two was final. While doing your wound-lickage, you're probably at a loss of how to recover the fastest, safest and most dashing way and coming out of it better than before. Nope. Not a hope in an over-night, instantaneous hell. There hasn't been a fail-safe relationship invented yet, much less a painless way to put the Dumpty pieces back together again. A lot of people have their own style of getting over love: hiding out like a squatter in their own homes for weeks, or until they run out of food; drinking themselves senseless till they wake in a latrine; sleeping with a harem's-count of nameless, faceless, (hope they were?) beauties; doing a rebound bound until they feel a return to their suave selves; throwing out their aggression on various dating forum or loading themselves with work. They all have their assets and faulty logic.

• Hiding Like a Hermit: The likable part of this is not having to repeat the downfall, over and over again, deal with the puppy dog pitying stares, or have the chance of running into the ex-factor. The bad side is that staying inside your home and head gives you more time to misery mull and less time for necessary distractions.
• Drink, Drank, Drunk: This is one way to forget, on a temporary basis, and has the added bonus of being in the outside world, typically with a good friend to tell your woes to. The downside? How much is too much, and is it worth it to lose your liver to an ex-lover?
• I Sleep Around: An ego-stroke and so much more. So many more. You feel attractive, all sexed up and you're Ultra-Man again. You can get caught up in it though, and catch a few tasteful STDs while you're at it, if you're not thinking with your upper brain.
• Rollicking Rebound: It seems like the perfect time to have the 'perfect' relationship you never had with your ex, to have the intimacy icing and your comfort cake to eat too. The problem with this is that you can't attach to someone else if you're emotionally pre-attached goods. There's also a very good possibility you'll wind up wounding whoever is on the other end of your recovery stick, in the same way you're hurting now.
• Making Jack a Dull Boy: Work is a terrific distraction, and one that should be utilized, at least for the short term hump of heart salvage. You regain your confidence in yourself by throwing yourself into work and being productive. You will, however, still need a social life at some point. Really. Living your work is not living your life.

Whichever endeavor belongs to you (and I hate even saying this, but I have to) the best tonic to an abysmal break-up is: time.