(An Ashokan Version)
Edited by: Advaita Singh
Disclaimer: This article is exaggerated for comedic purposes. Any resemblance to real-life characters is purely coincidental.
I have had to break up with one person to date, and let me tell you, it was not a rewarding experience at all. How are we supposed to go up to the person we have spent most of our time with and say that it’s over for good? Only, the story doesn’t end there just yet. There are always two more weeks of them trying to convince us that this is a bad decision when we clearly know it isn’t. In what is evidently an exhausting process, all we want is an easy way out; a method that doesn’t include so much negotiation and emotional labour.
The iconic movie,’How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days?’, starring Kate Hudson and Mathew McConaughey was an exciting watch, but sadly it didn’t really tell us what to do. Call me your messiah because I refuse to see my sisters in pain, so I will tell you how to actually lose a guy in maybe less than ten days. For simplicity, I will roughly divide the different categories of men we find around Ashoka and suggest very specific ways to get away from them.
Let us start with the ‘gym/dude bros’. All you have to do is start hating on Superdry sliders, point out how living in their workout clothes is not as attractive as they think it is and just generally talk about your feelings. These straightforward creatures only understand things in terms of protein, gains, booze and bros. Hopefully, it shouldn’t be tough to get away from them.
Then we have the Economics Majors. They usually coincide with the dudebros, but there are others whose entire personality encompasses their tendency to take physical and conversational space that is not theirs to take. These are difficult nuts to deal with because they cannot hear other people speak over their own vanity. The best possible way to lose the infosys-loving bros would be to give them the silent treatment. As conversationalists who only like talking over other people, they would immediately lose interest in you if you do not give them any.
Next in line, we have the super aesthetic dudes or the film majors. They can understand nuances of the changing emotions of random fictional characters, but they wouldn’t be able to make out your changing feelings for them, so you have to make it very clear. Pick their least favourite movie, fangirl about it, and discuss it at length. If this doesn’t work, try dressing up utterly opposite to their aesthetics for a whole week, and they will only see themselves out, because aesthetics are everything to them.
Then we have the STEM kids. It will be quick and painless when you break the news to them when they are in the middle of solving a sum or writing a code. They would be so immersed in what they’re doing, they won’t really pay attention to what you said, not that they ever do, but anyway, your job will be done.
Next up, we have the poets. They live and breathe Bukowski’s words and so obsessively view you as their muse that they forget you’re a real breathing person as well. So all you need to do is remind them of that, and they would lose interest because they only like interacting with their muse in the realm of poetry, where they can control the conversation from both ends. Getting away from these heartbreak poetry connoisseurs would only do them good because they now would have a new topic to write about.
In the last category, we have the public policy guys — the easiest people to get away from. They take their political ideologies so seriously (on paper) that all you need to do is make a statement opposing their views. These manchilds wouldn’t think twice before cancelling you and your relationship with them. Easy isn’t it?
If I hadn’t implied this already in my article, let me explicitly state it for you: Men are simple; all you need to do is find out what they hate and do that to drive them away. They are so simple that they wouldn’t sit and think about the reason behind why we want to drive them away. It is not that they cannot find out about this; it is just that they don’t find this an important enough cause to spend their limited cognitive resources on. If this weren’t true, I wouldn’t be writing this article in the first place.
Now, since we have established that men are simple beings. We should make their lives easier by telling them that we want to break up with them and why. If they don’t understand our reasons, it is on them, but we must do our job. Apart from comedic purposes, the suggestions mentioned above can help you soften the blow and save you from the post-break-up emotional labour phase because they would be too tired to make you negotiate with them.
For anyone trying to lose a guy, I hope this helps. For the men reading this, I hope you can take a joke.