Someone Break My Heart PLEASE!!!!!!!

My friend snapchatted in tears a few days ago after a guy called it off with him. He was in a state of shock, filled with anger, his brain running a thousand miles per second. It was his very first real heartbreak.

“I feel like bawling my eyes out in this Walgreens right now,” he said seconds after. “He completely lovebombed you. Fuck him,” our friend followed up in response. And as I tapped through each Snapchat, observing from afar, I thought about the journey ahead of him.

This is it. This is what every single song, movie, and poem tries to crystallize into something tangible. What everyone dreads yet takes the risk of gambling with when getting to know someone romantically and intimately. I could not have been more excited for him. And, selfishly, for me to live vicariously through him.

I love heartbreak. I love being heartbroken. I am heartbroken. I am no stranger to it. It was there when I walked down the same sidewalk, where I kissed someone I no longer speak to underneath a streetlight on the 4th of July. It was there when I revisited a coffee shop for the second time and ordered only one cold brew instead of two. It lives and breathes with me, but in a way that I can only describe as some form of Stockholm Syndrome. I find its evergreen presence comforting.

"Heartbreak is the most human emotion you can experience," reads a 2022 notes app entry on my phone. “I am so deeply unhappy and empty,” documented 10 days later @ 1:32 AM. And just a little over a week after that at 1:36 PM, a Starbucks order: “Grande strawberry acai refresher light ice. Tall cold brew with cream.” That is the dichotomy of the heartbreak experience that no one talks about. The highs and lows and the mundane moments of existence in between. The intensity in tandem with the everyday.

It’s kind of silly to think about – laughable, actually.

The person those entries were about hasn’t crossed my mind in months. But, at the moment, it was potent. It was real to me. Now? I couldn’t even tell you what the color of their eyes were. Isn't that just the most 20-something, melodramatic moment of intensity? Where it feels like both nothing and everything matters? I live, live, live for that.

As a 20-something year old navigating the digital age of dating apps and social media, the possibilities for heartbreak are accessible on every corner of the web. And, in February 2017, digital heartbreak left a stamp on our culture once the term “ghosting” was officially added into the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

A digital heartbreak isn’t a one-size-fits-all. It has a life of its own that exists in the most subtle ways, creeping up and forcing you to take it in when the gut wrenching moment comes. A simple DM turns into a three-year intense, on-and-off journey that leaves you without closure. An ever-changing close friends story list becomes both a roster of potential suitors and a graveyard of fallen soldiers. A “What’s your number?” message on Hinge marks a precursor for the inevitable “fizzle out” that comes with switching forms of communication. And soon, all of these become harsh confrontations of what could’ve been.

Consequently, they become collected stories under one’s belt, used to share and command the choir with at a friend’s apartment late at night.

What even is heartbreak if not worth sharing and relishing in? I’m often met with a confused look when I tell someone, “I love being heartbroken.” To romanticize something as uncomfortable, vulnerable, and painful as heartbreak is warranted grounds for some confusion, yes. But at the same time, isn’t heartbreak just a reminder that you’re alive? A reminder that you can feel?

I think to be heartbroken is to be human. It’s something that can be completely universal yet totally individual. That belongs to you. My tales of heartbreak are not like the heartbreak you’ve experienced (or have yet to experience). But I know what it’s like to have heartbreak strip you of yourself and force you to piece it back together all while without knowing what the picture looks like. And anyone that’s had a painful crush, been in a situationship, gotten ghosted, or had to delete photos of someone in their phone knows what that’s like, too. It’s not the same as my barista’s or as your best friend’s, but in some form of camaraderie, there is a connection between us all.

I smile when I think of those that are in the midst of an experience of their own right now. The Instagram following and stalking, the sad playlists that remain private, the dramatic retelling to their friends of the final texts. Those are their moments that they’ll soon be able to scratch their heads and cringe at one day. Nobody can take that from them, whether they like it or not.

I find myself often thinking about an interlude from Lorde that has been in my Instagram bio for years now:

“It’s kind of funny, I spend almost every minute thinking about love. Being guided, and divided by love…Are we blessed? Or cursed? Do we make love? Or destroy it?”

I texted a friend while writing this article asking him for his favorite heartbreak songs to get me in the “headspace” for it. He responded minutes later with, “I’m so high on molly right now. There is only love.” He was probably seeing colors that don’t exist on a Sunday, but it made me think: Is heartbreak a form of love? Do we make love or destroy it? If love is lost, where does it go?

I don’t have any of that figured out. Nor will I figure it out when I’m lying on my bedroom floor, yearning while “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn plays. But maybe there is only love. I’ll keep putting my heart through trials until I know for sure.

To anyone who has broken my heart, thank you. I think of you and those moments of intensity that followed fondly. And to anyone who will break my heart, thank you. I’m so excited to be alive and tell my friends about it while in tears.