People love shooting this from the hip as soon as they hear any mention of a break-up.



‘Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all.

But what most people don’t know – I didn’t til I read about it a couple of years ago – is it’s from a poem by Tennyson called In Memoriam, in memory of his best friend who died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage, and was written over the course of 17 years as ‘a meditation on hope after great loss’.

I don’t know any of this, wikipedia does.

And so the point is, when someone throws that curveball at you after a break-up in a bid to make you feel better, they may be meaning well, but they’re speaking out of their derrière. Because Tennyson was referring to death, not to parting company with someone. And that’s what’s messed up about break-ups, is that although it is like a bereavement, others don’t attribute that value to it, because that person is still around. And simultaneously, because that other person is still around, perhaps walking the streets of the same city as you, it makes it all the more difficult to digest the idea that they are lost to you. Like when Amy Winehouse sang ‘we only said goodbye with words.’


In one of the great romantic comedies High Fidelity, John Cusack’s character lists the 5 things he misses most about his ex-girlfriend.

Top 5 things I miss about Laura

1. Sense of humour. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she’s got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs. She laughs with her entire body.


2. She’s got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She’s loyal and honest, and she doesn’t even take it out on people when she’s having a bad day. That’s character.


3. I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It’s a mystery of human chemistry and I don’t understand it, some people, as far as your senses are concerned, just feel like.. home.


4. I really dig how she walks around. It’s like she doesn’t care how she looks or what she projects and it’s not that she doesn’t care.. it’s just, she’s not affected I guess, and that gives her grace.


5. She does this thing in bed when she can’t get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times… it just kills me.

Oh breakups you blow.