How to Get over a Breakup?

[pepharytheworm]

Cars are not a good analogy. <snip>

If he told us the exact circumstance you still could give the wrong advice. The way I see it is we give advice from our own experiences and he can decide what would best help him in his given situation, your thinking to much that we are telling him what to do and that he might actually do everything we say.

Um, that's exactly like getting car repair advice.

My point is there is a right answer to fixing the car. Relationships there isn't necessarily a right or wrong, just what works. Even if he is 12 what if drinking does helps him, just because its illegal doesn't mean its wrong it means most people in that given society deem it wrong. Anyway this is all subjective to each his own. By the way I don't condone underage drinking, if the kid could control his alcohol consumtion I have no problem but that goes for anyone really. But I regress.... here's a smiley to show where still internet buds.

[Jrecee]

Life as we know it is experienced entirely through emotions. Bad emotions suck. Don't give yourself time to think. Don't go to bed until you're so tired that there's no way you can stay awake, otherwise you'll lay in bed dwelling on it, and experience "shitty emotions".

Finding someone else is the best way to get over someone, time will do it but it'll take longer. Hell, even if you don't know anyone to get involved in a relationship with immediately, just find someone to like. Notice all the good things this person does compared to all the bad things the ex did.

Stay busy; work, post on the forum, play videogames, watch movies (action movies with lots of explosions preferably, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is a very bad movie to watch when you want to get over someone).

[MrPopo]

Since my advice was discouraging serious relationships completely, I didn't need to know the details. I would have said the same thing either way.

Maybe we could make a sticky called "Inazuma's Rules for Life" and then whenever someone posts one of these "life" threads Luke can go "We already have a thread for that!" and link to the sticky.

[Luke]

My point is there is a right answer to fixing the car.<snip> But I regress.... here's a smiley to show where still internet buds.

I get ya buddy, and I get your point. My point is just that even there is almost always a right way to fix a car, people who don't know about cars will still give you their advice.

I see your smiley and raise you a super smiley.

Since my advice was discouraging serious relationships completely, I didn't need to know the details. I would have said the same thing either way.

Maybe we could make a sticky called "Inazuma's Rules for Life" and then whenever someone posts one of these "life" threads Luke can go "We already have a thread for that!" and link to the sticky.

I want to hold you.

Close to me.

[dedalusdedalus]

We all have our own ways of dealing with breakups. But, he's not necessarily getting empathy. To empathize with someone you have to go through what the other one has. We don't know what "Beak" has been through besides he dumped a girl. We can only sympathize, since we don't know his circumstances. I've never grown personally through others sympathy. Empathy, on the other hand, can teach you how to grow.

And to stress my point we know nothing about the guy, 5 pages. no response.

I don't think we need very many facts to empathize, or at least not as many facts as your theory of empathy seems to require.

From the very bare facts with which OP has supplied us, we know that he dumped someone was involved with for 3 years ("three year anniversary") and that it's causing him some amount of emotional distress ("everything I have reminds me of her").

Even if these aren't the exact same circumstances under which anyone else has experienced a breakup, one can at least put oneself in the OP's shoes, even if it's on as vague and universal a level as "I can no longer experience the company of a person I romantically cared about in the same way that I used to experience it."

But anyway, regardless of whether it was sympathy or empathy, the OP's purpose in soliciting breakup advice was to garner empathy/sympathy, and the rest of us expressed that by giving advice that the OP won't follow anyway.

So Luke, no offense, I could have completely misread the tone of your comments. But I thought it was a bit insensitive that you criticized the rest of this thread for leaping to give advice even though "we know nothing about the situation."

[Luke]

I don't think we need very many facts to empathize, or at least not as many facts as your theory of empathy seems to require.

From the very bare facts with which OP has supplied us, we know that he dumped someone he dated for 3 years ("three year anniversary") and that it's causing him some amount of emotional distress ("everything I have reminds me of her").

Even if these aren't the exact same circumstances under which anyone else has experienced a breakup, one can at least put oneself in the OP's shoes, even if it's on as vague and universal a level as "I can no longer experience the company of a person I romantically cared about in the same way that I used to experience it."

But anyway, regardless of whether it was sympathy or empathy, the OP's purpose in soliciting breakup advice was to garner empathy/sympathy, and the rest of us expressed that by giving advice that the OP won't follow anyway.

Not my theory, that's just the definition of the difference between sympathy and empathy. You empathize when you went through nearly the exact same thing. I can empathize with a friend who has lost their Grandfather to Alzheimer's. I can only sympathize with a friend who has lost their Grandfather who hanged himself because of Alzheimer's. (That would be really sad).

Anyway, no biggie. My standpoint is that people who seek advice are the ones most likely to use advice.

[Veno]

I don't really think her sitting on another guy's lap makes her a whore. I mean, maybe there's something I'm missing here, but doing something as meaningless as sitting on someone's lap is really nothing more than a confidence boost. But then, I've never been a remotely jealous person. I can listen to a girlfriend talk about all the guys (and even girls for one of them) that she wants to and not be upset -- so long as I know that they love me, value me above the others, and stay loyal to me (I hate phrasing it that way, it makes them sound like dogs) it doesn't phase me. I don't know, are you sure it's so bad? What's keeping you from trying your chances with her when she's done with this last guy?

Well, didn't think anyone would want the rest of the details, thought I'd just stop at the lap sitting, but it's also how intimate she gets with other guys. Sitting on their laps, holding their hands, among other things. Maybe I'm also just the jealous kind of guy that doesn't like the girl to be really intimate with 4 different guys at once.
It also kind of makes me feel used. She likes another guy, yet she still gives me some intimacy as if she still wants me to ask her out.

[dedalusdedalus]

Luke, thanks for discussing with me. I think we've reached a point where our disagreements are theoretical.

I see the difference between sympathy and empathy, but we're disagreeing over just how much "common experience" is needed for empathy--whether you need to have experienced "nearly the same exact thing" or merely need to understand what the other person is feeling through analogy.

[Capcomwarrior]

Thanks for this thread

Beak probably just said screw it and got back with her - that's why he/she hasn't been back.

[puke_face]

Thanks for this thread

Beak probably just said screw it and got back with her - that's why he/she hasn't been back.

Lawl, I was thinking the same since he hasn't been back since the first post.