In Continuum.

This is what happens in a break up. First, you have to pick the method, or rather, the channel. Face to face would be fine, unless your boyfriend is an alcoholic who has a history of beating you for no apparent reason. Face to face is usually a form of respect to your partner I suppose, to show the person that you actually have the guts and the respect for him to convey your thoughts to him. Phone is probably the closest choice next, although not nearly as personal. You only get the voice, but at least the break up is in real time, and you don't really have to worry about how you look as your mascara trickles down your face. It's quick and it is efficient, all you have to do is to pick the appropriate last line and the appropriate time to hang up. Not half as sincere or as personal, but it works. Next would probably be anything that doesn't happen in real time. MSN conversation or texting. Seriously, you don't even get that audio feed with MSN conversation, you are just receiving a whole bunch of words from someone on the other side of the computer. Texting is horrible, because the word limit forces the other person to give you a summarized version of why he or she wants to break up with you, how unethical is that? It's cold, it's not right to text "It's not working out, please move out of my house". 

Of course, there's that disappearing act thing, which is really the worst of the worst. It doesn't get any worse than just disappearing from a person's life without saying a word. Being cold and heartless with your words is bad, but at least we still get some form of explanation. Vanishing is a horrible way to break up with someone, and it is both childish and irresponsible. But people do it anyway, people don't feel like they want to explain themselves at times. Of course, most of the time, we still have to consider the context. If that girl deserved it, then slap her with a simple text message and be done with it. Something like "It's over, bitch" would be more than appropriate I suppose, and you move on from there whether she likes it or not. Anyway, that is the first step in any break up, to choose how you want to break up with a person. But of course, we aren't exactly interested in the initiator most of the time, victims tend to go through a lot more than the initiator, because being dumped isn't exactly the best feeling in the world. Sure, dumping someone doesn't feel nice either, but least you've had more time to process and digest the thought, whereas your partner has only so long to accept it as fact. Always better to dump than be dumped, remember that.

Second stage of a break up, from the perspective of the victim: denial and depression. It is not happening, I must be dreaming, he still loves me, I can't go on without him. Words like that are commonplace in the minds of someone who's just broken up, it's pretty normal. You don't want to admit that the person who loved you a month ago isn't going to love you a month from now, and depression sets in when you find that old Christmas Card tucked away at the back of your drawer. It happens, and that is kind of how it occurs. This is the worst part of a break up, and it usually lasts for a very long time before it proceeds to the third symptom: anger. Anger comes when you are no longer in denial and depression. It's easy, because you rationalize with yourself that you don't want to be the victim any longer, and you want to be the aggressor. So you are frustrated and infuriated with everything and anything your current ex does, and you want to take revenge, or to completely destroy his or her life in any way possible. Burn up the giant teddy bear that he sent you, or to spray paint his front door and paste posters around his neighborhood to tell everybody that he has a three inch penis. It could happen, it's all a part of anger. 

After anger, comes acceptance. It's easy to get over someone when you are angry, although no one ever really gets over somebody else. We all try to decrease our misery, we never eradicate them from our lives. We are still going to feel the pinch, but it is going to matter much less because you have toughened up. You start to accept that he is gone, that he isn't there any longer, and this is really when you start to build up your life from scratch. Some people may take a whole year to do that, while I know of others who has taken much less, two weeks? Maybe three, who cares. I suppose it depends on your level of involvement, and the deeper you are the later acceptance comes. But it comes, it always does. Unless you decide to take the stupid way out and kill yourself by launching your body off the side of the balcony - that'd be moronic. Anyway, so we have denial and depression, one. Anger comes next, and then we have acceptance. The first stage sucks, it really does. It sucks your life out, and you feel like an empty vessel, stuck in the middle of the ocean with a busted engine and no compass. You are disorientated, and this is the part of the break up that most people are going to have thoughts about throwing themselves off cliffs, cutting themselves in bath tubs, or just taking a stroll across the MRT track. 

But, this part sucks a whole lot more: the questions. The moment somebody close to you finds out about the break up, they are going to flock to you like vultures on rotten meat. They'd like to find out what happened, how it happened, why it happened, when it happened, and then every little detail in between. You tell the story to your sister, to your mother, to your father, your best friend, your other best friend, then those people tell even more people, and they also come to ask you about what happened, how it happened, why it happened, when it happened. It is bad enough when you have to repeat your story over and over again, it's worse when these people start to tell you what you have to do for the next couple of weeks or month. Go watch a movie, go out shopping, drink yourself silly, go to a pub, meet more people, hang out with friends, be alone for a while, pick up a new hobby, work harder at school, go for long walks, listen to sad music, go for a jog - everything. But seriously, don't you just get sick and tired of these people telling you what to do when you break up? They treat you like some hopeless idiot who doesn't know what to do during a break up. Yeah, be alone, go shopping, get my mind off things, I get that. Oh wait, I think I have tried all those things, and don't tell me to "get over it", because it doesn't come with a snap of my fingers. 

These people are irritating, they really are. Of course, they do it mostly out of care and concern, but it is still frustrating to know that some people just do not understand that sometimes, you really only need to listen. You know, to hear and comprehend, to not use your mouth and just your ears? Something like that, people don't get it most of the time. They want you to know what they think of the situation, they want you to follow what they want you to do, as if they are some love doctor who knows everything. In truth, their relationship is probably as messed up as yours, they are probably in a worse situation. They just want to know that you have broken up to make their pathetic little lives better, to think that their love relationship is still very much alive. People love to hear about other people's failures, to know that someone else has failed where you are still hanging on to dear life. No one likes to hear someone else say "We are so deeply in love, and we are going to remain this way forever and ever!" It doesn't just sound hopeless wistful, it also sounds incredibly retarded. People love to hear about failures, and they treat your break up like some prime time drama serial. Seriously, your break up is your business, nobody should be telling you what to do unless you ask for it. 

Hearing is easy, listening is hard. You know, that's what they tell you in life, right? I believe that we all need a terrible break up in life to treasure the real relationships a little more. And during those break ups, it is difficult to find someone who listens instead of someone who speaks. Everybody wants to have a piece of the cake, everybody wants to have a share. They love you, they really love you. But when you are so out of love from this one person, the overwhelming love from everybody else can cause you to suffocate too. It was probably not out of malicious intents of course, but sometimes too much concern can become overly irritating, and perhaps pretentious too. You probably know what to do anyway, everybody knows what to do. You break up, you move on, there are people everywhere. It's not the end of the world, it just takes a little time to get over things. Especially when it isn't the first time you have broken up, I'm sure we more or less know what to do with our broken hearts anyway. We don't need ten people to tell us what to do, we already know. We just need time to set things into motion, we need to accept that things are no longer. So the next time these vultures intend to swoop in on you, you have all the right to ask them to fuck off. Because really, the breaking of your heart is your own business, it shouldn't be the topic of someone else's discussion or pose as their midnight entertainment.