The Science of Heartbreak

1/29/2006


Is there any right way to end a relationship? A right way to leave someone? A right way to say it’s over? Whether it’s “I can’t do this anymore” or “We should see other people” or “I don’t love you anymore,” they all mean the same thing- goodbye.

We cry, complain, withdraw, and try to convince someone of our feelings for them. We write letters, burn CDs, listen to sad music, and hope the person who left us is doing the same. We pretend we are resilient, better off, but inside a piece of us is missing. Our very soul feels unsettlingly empty.

I’ve always told myself that the dice are loaded against me from day one in a relationship. After all, there’s only one “The One.” This means that, chances are, my flavor of the week is not the man I’m going to marry. Sometimes my little philosophy makes the breakup easier to deal with- mathematically, I knew it was going to happen, right? I’m able to bypass “Go” and collect another scar on my heart, then move right on into Mediterranean Avenue. I usually don’t look back on what I thought was my Park Place, because I know that, mathematically speaking, he probably wasn’t.

Unfortunately for me, as scientific as I am, I cannot avoid heartbreak completely. I can’t rationalize why I feel like I just lost a part of myself. Mediterranean Avenue, though I’ve been through it a million times before, feels so lonely and foreign and, well, cheap. I’d gotten used to the luxury of Park Place, of having someone next to me. Maybe a few windows were broken, but so what? That’s nothing compared to looking out the single window of a one-bedroom apartment alone. The song “sleeping single in a double bed” comes to mind here.

When there are no more tears to cry and no more words to say, what is there left to do? Resuming life alone is close to unbearable. We try new hobbies, or work out maniacally, or maybe read a book or two, but then what? What happens after the initial pain has subsided and all that’s left is a dull, nagging reminder of what used to be in your heart?

We spend our days with our chin up and our heart down; a smile on and our feelings off; acting strong and being weaker than ever. After the breakup, there is no one’s hand to hold, no one to put on speed dial, no one to just be with when a girlfriend simply won’t suffice. And then it hits us- we’re really alone now. We see him with the newer, updated version of us- someone a little smarter, or a little prettier, a little something more than we were. And suddenly, the past months, or years, are supposed to be erased. We suddenly must pretend that we never loved each other at all.

How is it that men can seemingly forget and women pine away for months? Does love just mean more to us? To a woman, loving someone is the most intimate experience- we bare our hearts and spill our life into his hands. We think about it before we say those three loaded words- “I love you.” And when he says it, we assume he means it to the extent that we do. However, after the man that “loves” us leaves us a few too many times, we begin to guard ourselves.

But is it fair to guard your heart in a relationship? Should we go into battle with our shields up, or do we take the risk of an arrow piercing our skin? Is a little blood worth a shot at glory? Blood loss, however, can be fatal- just as breakups seem to be as well. But wounds scab over and scars fade, and while our heart will never be quite the same, the holes someone else dug are eventually filled in. This is a road we will walk down many times, creating a past that is impossible to forget, but one we will someday look back on and realize the beauty of the pain we survived.