 | arbitersofcomplaint Aug 28 | Extremely Unhelpful Breakup Advice
by Alice Wilson - If possible, break up with someone whilst on holiday in Europe. If you are already European, sorry. The idea is to go somewhere nicer, warmer, foreigner, and better than wherever you live. To be honest, it doesn't really have to be much better, it just has to be different. It just has to be anywhere other than the place that screams their name back at you from every street corner.
- It really is key that you break up with them while you are on holiday. You will have been thinking about this break up for a while, probably years if you are very honest with yourself. Breaking up with them whilst they are at home (grey, dull, pedestrian) whilst you are on holiday (sunny, glamourous, main character) will help you to feel like your life isn't falling apart and that you are not devastated, how could you be, you're eating fresh prawns / sauerkraut / gelato. You have a tan. Tanned people eating gelato are not devastated.
- Breaking up with someone whilst you are on holiday means that you can cry at will; on the tram, in Billa, admiring an original Klimt, and there is no chance that you will bump into anyone you know. The ability to cry at will with minimal shame and self-consciousness is a great gift and one that only years of therapy and self-acceptance or a holiday can provide. One of those is significantly cheaper and easier than the other.
- Experiment with the time honoured ritual of pretending that if you look different you might feel different; wear weird clothes, do your hair in a new style, get an unwise piercing. Your holiday gives you a grace period to do all of these things which bellow I WISH I WAS SOMEONE ELSE before you have to return to your regular life.
- Go on walks so long that you think you may die. You can walk everywhere in Europe and it is all lovely and architectural and renaissance and art nouveau and all sorts of other things that you won't notice. Scraping the edge of death from something as mundane as walking doesn't feel dangerous but it does make your body thrum with hot pain and this is a welcome distraction from the asphyxiation of heartbreak. That was a lie; nothing is a distraction only an addition, but it is somehow welcome nevertheless.
- Go to weird arty things in cramped theatres so that you can feel like an interesting person.
- Drink too much coffee. It somehow makes time feel like it is passing faster. Big plus.
- If you can be better looking and more successful than your ex, that also helps a lot. Just do what you can. The European tan and your new opinions on avant garde theatre will help in this regard.
- This is uncharacteristically good advice but do use whatever vestige of humanity you have left to do kind things for your friends if you have any. Send them flowers, write someone a letter, send them a message telling them how great/tall/spicy they are. Breakups turn people into abhorrently myopic, self-pitying creatures. The entire spectacle is grotesque. Avoid becoming obsessed with your own suffering where possible.
- Do not think about them and what they are doing and who they are doing it with. This is impossible so I recommend that whenever thoughts of them appear you should divert your attention to whatever is immediately in front of you and give it your full consideration. I have spent 80% of my break up holiday closely examining bin lids, fern leaves, cigarette butts, etc. Really do try to meet with success in this activity because otherwise you may have a panic attack in a sandwich shop and have to try and explain in German to the people calling you an ambulance because they think you are having a heart attack that actually you're just allergic to bananas (you're not) and there must have been one in the smoothie you just had (you didn't).
- Try and stay on holiday for as long as possible.
- In summary; have money and be good looking and don't feel your feelings for at least the next 18 months. If you feel that this advice is unhelpful please refer back to the title.
Alice Wilson is a PhD researcher at the University of York writing about women who build their own tiny houses. Her work has appeared in Ruminate Magazine, the Apple Valley Review, ZinDaily, and Livina Press. Her flash fiction features in the Sonder Press Best Small Fiction 2022 anthology. Photo by Cottonbro Studio. | | | |  | You can also reply to this email to leave a comment. | | | | |
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