1. Try to avoid it. If it’s you doing the breaking-up, I guess that’s your call. If it’s his decision, do everything you can to make sure he really, like, actually wants to be not dating you anymore. Because maybe he’s just confused or something. The best way to do this is to be really sexy (read: cry, sniffle into his t-shirt, whine). Make him smile with some bitter self-deprecating joke, and then say, “HEY! I can still make you smile! Why don’t we just stay together, because clearly we should be together, we smiley people, because smiling” with eyeliner smeared all over your face.
  2. Text everyone you know. Cry while you’re texting them, because hey, why not. You have friends, and friends are fantastic to have when you are feeling sad. Go to the diner at seven in the morning with your insomniac friend because you can’t sleep either. Eat fried eggs and white toast, because it tastes better than wheat toast goddamn it. Hash it out. All of it. Realize that you aren’t totally alone in the world.
  3. Figure out why it happened. Maybe he cheated on you. Maybe you poisoned his dog. It is possible that some really obvious thing happened that just requires that you break up. There are pros and cons to this – on one hand, there is no ambiguity, but on the other hand, one of you is either really mean or really crazy. Maybe (and this is more common), you’re just not right for each other, and you both know it, and one of you wants to stop trying. This is harder, because most of the time, the other person doesn’t want to stop trying, because for a little while things like relationships are really nice, even if you know they’re going to end at some point (because you really are wrong for each other, in the end, you know).
  4. Make it his problem. If the two of you weren’t right together, it’s because you’re too perfect and he’s too flawed. Obviously. You are the perfect person, and your ideal partner is compatibly perfect, and this ex of yours lacked some crucially important quality that you require in your perfect partner (examples: reliability, emotional responsiveness, ability to deal with it when you break down crying which you are totally entitled to because you are perfect and flawless, tolerance of you poisoning his pets once in a while because it’s not that big a deal). Remember, everything in moderation. He’s not so bad (unless he cheated on you or something like that, in which case, fuck him). He’s good at a lot of things. Being right for you is just not a thing he’s good at. He’s actually kind of bad at it.
  5. Get distracted. Dye your hair and go on a diet and get drunk. Take up arts and crafts. Secretly hope that he exiles himself to another country (this is often known as “studying abroad” and it is God’s gift to ex girlfriends). Find a rebound. Buy a sex toy for one. Try to pretend that you don’t still have like, five of his shirts that you don’t want to give back because they’re soft, damn it, but you don’t want to see the name of his stupid home city on them. Wherever he’s from is stupid. You don’t care though because you’re totally distracted.
  6. Get over it. Um, I can’t help you with that one, but good luck and keep me posted.