Happy Singles Awareness Day. This Oh-So-Cold-In-The-Midwest-Remind-Me-Why-I-Choose-To-Live-Here-Again holiday of St. Valentine is, in 2012, perfect for posting on Facebook how wonderful your boo, sweetie, or honey (or whatever other names you have for your significant partner) is. So many of the unattached abuse this day to voice their dissatisfaction with the relationship game, with the opposite sex, with Hallmark, inc, or with the holiday itself.

Admonishing a celebration because of the results of your own life choices… yeah. 

…Sounds like amateur hour.

So let’s use this celebration of love to focus on it’s the most useful aspect: The Breakup.  For the relationship warrior – is that even a thing?  It may not be a thing, in which case, please disregard, and end digression. For the relationship warrior, the breakup is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. Like any good tool, however, it must be applied within the correct context; you have to do it right, and what’s right really depends on the situation. 

In 2010, Marie Claire helpfully published “7 Types of Breakups Ranked by Recovery Time” just in time for Valentine’s Day. While a fine resource for the recovering relationship-a-holic, this does not so much help us when we are attempting to select a specific way to rain despair upon an individual by running their soul through an emotional paper shredder (or, if you prefer, the Wood Chipper). In this spirit, Fatal Downflaw is pleased to present our list for Valentine’s Day 2012:

The 7 Most Harmful Types Of Breakups*

*Ranked In No Particular Fashion

1. The Werewolf Procedure

A.K.A.:  Instant Psychopath, Who Are You And How Did You Get This Number?, Oh Please Just Don’t Hurt Me

Description: It’s time to assume the aspect of the beast (Pick a beast, as long as it’s bloodthirsty, you’re fine) and wreck your significant other’s world. Violence, Slander, Lies and Malice are all fair game. Ruin their credit.  Estrange them from their family and friends. Threaten and blackmail them.  Cost them their job.  Most importantly,this involves a sudden personality change that appears out of nowhere. On Monday, everything is cool. On Tuesday, you’ve wrecked their car and called the police on your soon-to-be-former lover.

Heart Breaker or Breakee:  Either, really.  I most cases, you’re going to be the breakee, having convinced your significant other that you have completely lost your freaking mind. Easily done. HOWEVER If you’ve worked tirelessly to sucker this person into placing you in a deep, emotionally vulnerable place in their life, it’s possible that they’ll refuse to initiate the break-up; they might want to stay with you to get you some professional help or work things out. If you can manage this, pat yourself on the back, you’ve achieved great things, and can now unveil your finishing move, which can be a simple part of the Werewolf Procedure, or for the truly advanced, can be chain-comboed into another one of the breakups on this list.

Your Ex:  Stunned by the sudden shift in personality, horrified by your actions, disgusted by what you have become. And if your execution is correct, still in love with the person they thought they knew.

Pros:

• You’ve given yourself license to act as an id-driven maniac; that can be a good thing… Or at least a fun thing.
• You’re almost certainly severing whatever ties existed between you and your Others’ friends and family.
• If burning bridges is your thing, this is a technique for champions.

Cons:

• If you’ve got an image to maintain, or are ever going to see anyone your ex knows ever again, this is probably not the way to go.
• Improper and/or sloppy execution can result in arrest or worse.
• If you’re going to bolster your rampage with a cocaine binge, this can get expensive.

2. The Curse of the Sad Puppy

A.K.A.: Classic Heartbreak, Everything Will Be Fine

Description: This is the traditional “we need to talk” breakup done right. You’ll drop hints for weeks (or months!) about your dissatisfaction, maybe make some new friends, pick up a new hobby. Become increasingly disappointed with the relationship (and, for advanced users, you’ll want to become increasingly judgmental of your impending ex) and possibly other parts of your life. When you talk about “what’s really wrong “, go off-topic and be vague. Don’t be afraid to pretend to be frustrated when your other just doesn’t understand. Once you’ve worked them into a complete mess of depression and morose anxiety due to their faltering relationship, get sick or feign illness (or take a short trip together or whatever) and restore emotional closeness with them. After a few days of upswing, drop the hammer.

Heart Breaker or Breakee: If they break up with you first, then you’ve over-played your hand; never over-estimate your own command of the relationship. This break up is all about being the heartbreaker.

Your Ex: A sad, anxious wreck, as their own emotional state degrades due to your increasing dissatisfaction with them and the relationship the two of you worked so hard to build.

Pros:

• For long-term sadism, this is pretty hard to beat.
• The very real possibility of convincing your Other that everything – seriously, everything – is their fault.
• Likely possibility for future ruination of this individual; easy to part on “good” terms.

Cons:

• Very much a long-term breakup method, can require extensive planning.
• Be careful. Improper and/or sloppy execution can be taken too far with the Sad Puppy breakup. We’re causing irreparable emotion scarring, not forcing suicide.
• Complex, requires significant hands-on manipulation of the soon-to-be-ex.

3. The Lesser of Two Evils

A.K.A.: Rock and a Hard Place, Unstoppable Force vs. Immovable Object, Morton’s Heartbreak

Description: Call it a dilemma, a double bind, Hobson’s Choice – whatever.  A (fictional) inevitable choice is forcing your hand. There will likely lead to extensive conversations between the two of you – this technique can actually be combined with the Sad Puppy, above, to great effect, but it doesn’t have to work that way. You can drop the Lesser of Two Evils in a short, medium, or long-term breakup scenario. This great foreboding choice that is being forced upon you can be serious, or if you’re up to the challenge, complete nonsense.  “We have to choose between being friends and dating, and I can’t lose you as a friend” is a classic, as is “I have to choose between this relationship and my career – you want me to be happy, right?” Actually, the more frivolous the decision, the more devastating it is. “I have to choose between finding myself and being with you” is always a nice stab through the heart. Seriously, you have to go find yourself?  If you say it with enough sincerity – A LOT OF SINCERITY THAT IS – they’ll have no choice but to buy it.  Suckers.

Heart Breaker or Breakee: It should be all you in most scenarios; it’s not impossible that a severe choice, presented correctly, could lead you being the breakee, but then, that’s not inflicting nearly the same amount of damage to the emotional state of your Other. You need to be the breaker here.

Your Ex: How could this have happened? We had a future together…I just don’t understand. *sobbing sounds*

Pros:

• Great for making a sudden, and concrete proclamation that the relationship is over. You can get some heavy blindside points with this one.
• You might be able to retain some sort of connection to further manipulate this person in the future.
• Done correctly, you could leave this one smelling like roses. They’re probably rabid-dog-crazy roses, but they are roses.   …Maybe roses-ish.

Cons:

• Can lead to extensive arguments in some cases about validity of  this “necessary decision”.  Stand firm!
• If you claim that your choice involves moving away and then you fail to follow through, you’ll be placed squarely in the “Psychopath” category by your Ex and your close social circles.
• How are your acting/lying chops? They better be up to par for this one.

4. You Ruined Christmas

A.K.A.: Uncle Joe Hates You, You Insulted My Dead Grandmother, How Dare You, It’s All Your Fault

Description:  “Your Ruined Christmas” is best undertaken with access to a plethora of relationship material, making it most ideal for use after a long-term relationship. Note that the breakup itself can be extremely short-term in length. The concept is simple: Everything that has ever happened since the dawn of recorded time is your Other’s fault. Everything. Always. The advantage of the Ruined Chrismas method is that it allows you bring up disagreements that are several years old. They’ve probably largely forgotten these things, since those issues were resolved, right? Hah. All the time that has passed since these grave transgressions against you allows you the clearance to invent your own details about what they did and how it happened. And if they disagree? They’re wrong, and you should jump to discussing something else they did wrong. Remember that your approach needs to be one of entitlement and righteous indignation. Of course, you could chain combo aspects of this into, for example, the Sad Puppy, to devastating effect.

Heart Breaker or Breakee: It’s all you, do the breaking. They’re responsible for the death of Aunt Ethel, after all. Don’t push too hard and force them to make the breakup call, you lose too much effectiveness that way.

Your Ex:  Probably totally furious and fighting with you. Carry this too far and you can get them locked up for domestic violence.  Ideally, the breakup – because everything is their fault, and nothing they do or say will ever be right for any reason – will be the icing on the birthday cake of hate, frustration and misplaced blame that you have so wonderfully served your other.

Pros:

• Are you a fighter? Do you harbor the sad, pathetic belief that “Screw you” followed by walking away is winning an argument? Step right up.
• No turning back from this one; You’re walking out the door and slamming it.  For good.
• This will give you the opportunity to vent about all the things they’ve done that have legitimately pissed you off.  How great is that?

Cons:

• Probably going to be a lot of anger from your Other as you leverage false claim after false claim against them. There is no scenario in which this does not create significant rage.
• Your “insane” credentials are going to be rock solid if you see this approach all the way through; you’re essentially taking the idea of rewriting history to one of it’s many logical conclusions.
• If you don’t hold your own in direct confrontation well, this probably isn’t for you.

5. The Secret Nazi Technique

A.K.A.: The Dark Secret, Schindler’s List, Luke I am Your Father

Description: Ideal for any length of relationship; it turns out that you’ve been concealing something horrible, and have completely broken the trust of your about-to-be-an-ex! Say, for example, you cheated on them.

No.

That is greenhorn-caliber and is not what we are talking about here; you can do better. Say you are maybe… a white supremacist. Or actually a woman? Is is possible that you prefer the company of animals? Running from your past reign as the notorious serial killer “The Shopshire Slasher”? Maybe you watch Fox News voluntarily. …No, no one in their right mind would watch Fox News on purpose, that’s too horrible even for the Secret Nazi Technique.  Maybe. The point is that you’re not who you’ve claimed to be for the last 3 weeks/4 months/15 years. The severity of this truth, of course, is such that the relationship is over. This can be genuinely cinematic if done correctly; give it some time and consideration; what filthy piece of your past could you be concealing? What fun!

Heart Breaker or Breakee: You can easily be the breaker; you’ve revealed your true form and are in fact a person who cannot continue in this relationship. The Secret Nazi can be a fun way to go however; make a game out of it! How horrible a secret do you have to reveal to force your lover to break up with you? And if one isn’t enough, you can easily chain-combo more hideous “truths” into the conversation.  What about this example?

“Baby, I’m glad you can accept my anti-Semitism and bestiality fetish… But I need you to know that I’m actually a half-woman half-arachnid creature that is commonly known as the Spider Queen”.

“I… understand, dear.  We’ll get through this – I love you”.

“Oh, really?  Great…  I, uh…Oh yeah, also I vote the evangelical ticket in national elections”.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

Your Ex: Totally confused, possibly disgusted, conceivably seeking legal action or immediate intense psychotherapy, depending on the specifics of your sordid past that have now come to light.

Pros:

• Allows for a lot of creativity. The sky is the freaking limit if you’re using this one.
• Pull this off right and you can make your Other feel completely filthy for spending the last x number of weeks/years/months/decades with you.
• The look on your Other’s face will be freaking priceless.

Cons:

• Depending on the details of your dark secret, you may be alienating significant portions of your social circle when it comes out that you claim to have subsisted entirely on pie hewn cold from the bones of the stillborn for the last eight months.
• Depending on the details of your dark secret, you may be  looking at a life sentence in prison when it comes out that you claim to have subsisted entirely on pie hewn cold from the bones of the stillborn for the last eight months.
• Probably not the best choice if you want to sleep with their friend after the relationship is over, unless their friend shares your hookers-abducted-by-UFOs-and-forced-into-weight-loss-programs fetish.

6. The Headshot

A.K.A.: It’s Not Me – It’s You, You’ll Find Someone That’s Right For You Someday, You’re Such a Great Guy/Girl

Description: Pow Bang Boom. This is the Grand Cannon of breakup moves. The unblockable finisher. Combo it from another technique if you like, but it works just well out of nowhere. The gist is simple: ultimately, you’re going to tell your Other that they’re just not good enough for you. Maybe you were just using them all along to support your own weaknesses. Maybe you were never really that into them to begin with and you loved them with the parts of you that were weak. Is it time to go start a new life and find someone who’s more on your level? Maybe it’s all of the above. Emphasize that this was always going to be the way things happened, and engage in all the history-rewriting necessary to fuel the rationalization that will grind their soul in to the dirt. You really want to save this for a relationship you’ve put a lot of work into building up. Short term, the Head Shot doesn’t live up to it’s name.

There might be talk and discussions that your now-Ex wants to indulge in. If your implementation of this method is detail-oriented and undertaken with an eye toward your Other’s personal failings and inadequacies, their world should be effectively shattered. So go ahead, patronize them when they want to talk it out. Offer vague explanations and never hesitate to rewrite the past to show them how you’re right. If you’re advanced enough, you can even redefine their words in real time. Imagine the look on their faces when you explain to them how what they’re saying actually means something different than they say it does. But it’s OK – you’re morally justified in doing what you need to. After all, at the end of the day, you’re going to believe whatever keeps you safe and happy. A mild reality disconnect and the task of savagely obliterating a person’s trust and emotional state are a small price to pay.

Heart Breaker or Breakee: It’s all you, the breaker. That’s the point.

Your Ex: Demoralized, depressed, defeated. You win. If you’ve done the legwork, you combine this with aspects of different techniques presented here. The more closeness you’ve created, the more damage you’re going to do. Have you been artificially drawing your Other nearer to you like we’ve discussed in other Wood Chipper columns?  If so, the damage you can wreak here is nothing short of legendary. Seal the deal by talking about how they’ll meet someone that’s right for them someday; what could conceivably be more insulting than inferring that someday, maybe they’ll be good enough for someone else with lower standards? Probably nothing. Act like you’ll be friends in the future and talk about how much they mean to you for extra credit. 

Pros:

• Simple yet effective; you’re not so much burning a bridge as bombing it with nukes.
• If you’re thinking of relocating geographically, the resulting social backlash should be all the impetus you need!
• You’re going to have a notch on your belt that you can talk about until the day you die.

Cons:

• How centered are you? If you’re like most human beings on the planet and the thought of rewriting the past and present – in real time – is something that you equivocate with ethical bankruptcy, then the Headshot is not for you.
• Your neurosis of protective self-concern will need to be incredibly strong to rationalize crushing another human being like this.  Man up.
• Looking at yourself in the mirror after using this technique is now something that you have to come to terms with.

7. The Gatling Gun

A.K.A.: The Repeat Offender, Giga Drill Breaker, Eight Drunken Immortals, Both Barrels

Description:  We’ve already covered the ultimate technique, so – wait, what, the Headshot isn’t enough for you? Geez Louise, tough crowd. There *is* technically a way to increase the power of the Headshot by a hundredfold; as a bonus, this method allows for easy addition of any and all of the techniques above. What’s better that kicking an old lady down the steps? Kicking her down the steps over and over again. The old lady in question, of course, is the relationship that you’re going to end. Over and over again. This is long-term only, and you want to space out the breakups every few months. Every 3-4 months is likely the most effective.  ccasionally allow your Other a false sense of security and leave things steady for 5 or 6 months. The following breakup will be *way* more traumatic, particularly if it’s the Head Shot.  If you can keep this going for more than a year, you’re a very special individual, and should probably be training death camp guards or pursuing some other appropriate career choice.

Heart breaker or Breakee: Switch it up for fun if you like, it’s like a massive ice cream sundae; there are so many flavors, and you have the opportunity to try them all. Break up with them two or three times, then manipulate them into breaking up with you. Come crawling back and then break up with them twice as hard and twice as often. In the end, of course, you’ll use the Head Shot; it’s important to be the breaker in the final interaction.

Your Ex: Likely Dead. On the inside, at least. Probably not too happy about life, given, you know, the circumstances. (But don’t worry, they’ll get over it and some day they’ll meet someone that’s right for them, etc. etc. *insert smiley emoticon here*) It’s assumed that your callousness is going to prevent you from being able to actually care about what you’ve done to another person; your justification and rationalization defense mechanisms should kick in and make everything OK anyway. The best part is that if you’ve gotten this far, it’s possible – maybe even probable – that you view yourself as a self-sacrificing victim, which makes rationalization that much easier! Be selfish for once!  All your past martyrdom justifies it! The sky’s the limit when re-shaping your perception of reality to fit what makes you comfortable and safe!

Pros:

• You’ve achieved something that most people simply don’t have it in them to execute.
• You finally got rid of that pesky conscience!
• You’re going to be a freaking LEGEND.  Seriously, go through with this and you’re the true Fist of the North Star, none can stand before you.

Cons:

• To say that most people are incapable of pulling this off is something of an understatement.
• Going forward, you’re going to have an awfully difficult time convincing other human beings that you’re one of them.
• If the Head Shot is the pinnacle of ethical bankruptcy, then in using the Head Shot as part of the Gatling Gun, you’ve truly achieved something wonderful and unique. This is humankind’s great work; that you’re using it to prop up your own self confidence problems is perfunctory, but an achievement in and of itself.

There we have it.  If you’re not using one of these techniques to end your relationship, step up your game, because it doesn’t get any more devastating than what is presented here.

In closing: No Happy Couples were harmed in the making of this column. Any similarities to any real persons alive or dead are purely coincidental; if you believe otherwise, get over yourself. Also: Happy Lover’s Day, Lovers.

Next Time: Taking back the word “trifling”.  …and then some!

Wood Chipper: It Doesn’t Matter What You Thi...

Ask A Jackass: Quarantine

Ask a Jackass: Grinderman

Ask A Jackass: Indian Word for Bad Hunter

Share/Bookmark