Break-ups are the worst, but is it worse for guys or girls?

A guy’s view:

Timeline for getting over a breakup:

You can not skip stages but you can speed through them.

Stage 1 (1 – 3 days):

In this time guys are moping and pretty useless in all aspects of life. The guy is overthinking every action he has done since he has known his now ex. In this time there is no consulting him and all he wants to do is mope.

Stage 2(3 days – 2 weeks):

Now the guy is trying to distract himself from the pain. Gordon Harvey shows his point of view when he says “He’ll do anything he can to distract himself from the pain–listen to loud music, play Nintendo, and sort and resort his CDs. “I washed every piece of clothing I had,” says Larry Lindner, 30, a teacher from Detroit”

Stage 3 (2 weeks – 1 month):

During this time the guy will try to get rid of every trace of his ex. From burning photographs to unfollowing them on all social media. He will continue trying to go out but for shorter periods of time and he will seem a lot sadder all the time. He will insist that he is over his ex and then try to change the subject. During this time he will also just try to start making a sense of normalcy. Start throwing himself into his work or start saying that he always does things that he never does.

Stage 4 (1 month – 3 months):

During this time he will start trying to prove to himself that life is not that bad. He will do more extreme things and start flirting at the bar with new girls. During this time he will likely go into many different relationships that all never last very long. He will just mask the pain he is feeling and likely start going to parties and bars a lot more often.

Stage 5 (3 months to 4 months):

Now the guy’s feeling will have caught up with him. He will start calling his ex just to hear your voice. He will start moping around the house more often and will try to hide it from all of his friends. He will start looking at his ex’s social media all the time. He will start down a cycle of self loathing and punish himself for everything he has ever done wrong during the relationship.

Stage 6 (4 months – 1 year):

Now he is ready to tell his story. He will start telling it to anyone who will listen. He doesn’t care whether you care or not, just that you will listen. He is hoping that you will give new onsite to it that he has not thought of but he will get annoyed if you comment at all about it.

Stage 7 (1 – 2 years):

Finally he will start getting over his ex. He might call while drunk and ask for a second chance. He is very sad and lonely but is slowly getting over his ex. All he needs now is time and he knows it.

Do Guys actually get over relationships faster?

Simple answer is no. Guys actually take longer than girls to get over a relationship because of how we cope with the break-up. Why are the coping mechanisms so different all dependent on the gender?

Be Alright by Dean Lewis

This song shows stage 1 of guys going through a break up. In fact at the very beginning of the song he sings a little about what happened. then he sings about how his friends say “It’s gonna hurt for a bit of time. So bottoms up, let’s forget tonight. You’ll find another.” They are saying how the breakup is going to hurt for some time, notice that they don’t say an amount of time, and the solution is to drink till they black out so they don’t remember that day. Another song that really accentuates this point is Whiskey Glasses by Morgan Wallen.

This is a reality for many guys, the only resort is to start drinking instead of talking about what happened. Most friends don’t try to console the heart broken, they just drink to let time pass and when it has then you won’t hurt any more. While time does heal all wounds, drinking to force time to pass faster is very unhealthy, destroying your liver with liquor.

Break up in a small town

In this song, he went through a break up in a small town (obviously). He says “I swear it’s like I can’t even leave my house” because he is afraid that he will see her and dig up a lot of painful memories.

I personally always hear from my sisters that they can’t go to places that their ex goes to in case they might see them, then they complain that guys don’t have as much feeling because every time they see their ex they seem happy and still go out all the time. But this is simply not true. Men also want to avoid their ex, but society seems to think that guys are not affected by a break up in any way, which is simply untrue. Men are just putting on a facade.

Every Storm by Gary Allan

In this song, Gary Allan says “hold your head up.” In this line, and most of the song, he is saying that to get over heart ache is to keep your head up and let time lessen the pain. the time part is shown in the line that is repeated, “every storm runs out of rain.”

This is showing another problem that is shown towards men constantly and a main reason a way to not let us show our feelings, the very known “man up.” It is saying to hold our feelings in, hide them, do anything to not let someone know you are hurting and show that you are masculine. This idea is a major problem because it is teaching guys to bottle up those emotions and, as nay therapist could tell you, it eventually explodes or eats away at the soul of the person doing it.

What hurts the most by Rascal Flatts

This song is made about getting over a break up a couple months after the split. He talks about having to go throughout his day to day life missing her but has to force a happy face constantly. He shows this when he says “its’s hard to force that smile” showing that he feels that he feels he has to fake a smile constantly.

I have noticed around school and in my day to day life that when a girl cries, there is instantly a support group around her and everyone starts feeling bad for her, but when a guy starts crying people just ignore him and let him cry it out. Then after people talk behind his back saying how he is too emotional. This double standard makes guys never want to show their feelings even when they desperately need help. While the pain of breaking up is very bad, the pain of friends ignoring you is ten times worse.

SOLUTION

We, as human beings, male or female, must understand that life is hard for both sides, not one more than the other, and stop making life worse. Radical feminists need to understand the plight of men and radical sexists need to understand the plight of girls. Both, male and female need to stop saying life is worse for them when life is hard on both sides.

With understanding comes empathy and thus a lack of pushing each other down. Feminism is a fight for equality so why are most people trying to go about it by putting yourselves above the rest of society. In saying whether or not life is harder for males or females is the problem. That’s making one side the underdog, everyone roots for the underdog, and thus making the other side lower than the other. In the fight for equality, do not ask who has it worse but start to understand the plight of both sides.

Both genders have the problem of trying to live up to what society tells them that they have to do. This new feminist movement, while is progress, is having a a bad consequence. It is putting down men when the problem is hurting both genders. The problem is not that life is harder for one gender but that we as a society are being mean and pushing each other down all in the name of equality. That is not equality, it is oppression.

Once both sides have reached an understanding of the others plight then we will stop being mean to each other. The fight against sexism will have stopped because there would be no reason for it to exist. There would be no reason to pay less based on gender if you could just change the pay of everyone instead. On even a business scale, equality is more helpful than not, so the only reason that exists is peoples ignorance.

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Works Cited

Harvey, Gordon. “A guy exposes – how men bury breakup heartache.” Cosmopolitan, vol. 225, no. 4, Oct. 1998, p. 177+. Gale General OneFile, https://link-gale-com.lapr1.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A21215903/ITOF?u=azstatelibdev&sid=ITOF&xid=6b1b78e8. Accessed 6 Mar. 2020.

Hsieh, Carina. “Why do guys get over breakups so much faster than the rest of us?! *Me: goes on post-breakup journey of self-discovery* *Dude: downloads Tinder that night*.” Cosmopolitan, vol. 267, no. 3, Sept. 2019, p. 80+. Gale General OneFile, https://link-gale-com.lapr1.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A597743326/ITOF?u=azstatelibdev&sid=ITOF&xid=48b209bf. Accessed 5 Mar. 2020.

Allan, Gary. “Gary Allan – Every Storm (Runs Out Of Rain) – Lyric Video.” YouTube, 23 Oct. 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ_Bnu_RbQM.Hunt, Sam. “Sam Hunt- Break Up In A Small Town Lyrics.” YouTube, 20 Sept. 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08YgyMjaX3o.Lewis, Dean. “Dean Lewis – Be Alright (Lyrics).” YouTube, 29 Jan. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OymVgai_PVg.

Flatts, Rascal. “Rascal Flatts – What Hurts the Most Lyrics.” YouTube, 30 Mar. 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcM9ElA1VHk.

Hunt, Sam. “Sam Hunt- Break Up In A Small Town Lyrics.” YouTube, 20 Sept. 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08YgyMjaX3o.

Lewis, Dean. “Dean Lewis – Be Alright (Lyrics).” YouTube, 29 Jan. 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OymVgai_PVg.

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