Breakups suck. Sometimes even if we want to have a healthy outlook towards it, it’s difficult. The feeling when a person precious to us becomes a stranger hits us hard. While we’d like to go through a series of emotions to adequately process the event, we’re unable to. 

Why? 

Because society in general has come to look at men as creatures that never get hurt. After all, ‘Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota Na?’ 

Here are a few ways heartbreaks affect us as we’re expected to stay quiet and deal with it:

We take heartbreaks personally. And why wouldn’t we since the only person we opened up to doesn’t exist in our lives anymore, leaving us alone and hurting. Even though we have friends and family to share feelings with, it’s not the same as your ex. No one knows you as well as they did. Choosing instead to wallow by ourselves in the hopes that the feelings would run their course.

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Because we’re expected to be stoic and emotionless freaks, we resort to numbing all our emotions. Does it do any good? Not in the long run, no. I realized that the longer I numbed myself, the angrier I was coming out of the entire experience. Unfortunately, this anger spills over into other aspects of our lives, and over time we don't even realize how it becomes a crutch for us. 

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Emotions? What are emotions? As men, how dare we wallow and feel shitty about a breakup? Society has some utterly trash expectations from men, and this one is definitely up there with the rest. We need to be given space to process our honest feelings because most of the time we don’t even know how we’re feeling. 

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Everything reminds us of them and we’re constantly triggered by thoughts of them. Back in the day we could just delete their number and let time fade away their memories. Now? Even after having broken up, our social media algorithms refuse to cooperate, pushing our ex’s content down our throats. The only way we see us not going absolutely bonkers is by burning all bridges. 

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While reeling from a bad breakup, we tend to hide all our emotions, trying to put up a brave front for everyone. However, in those moments when we’re alone and truly by ourselves, we find ourselves shedding tears without even realizing it - a few frozen moments of grief and sorrow, before we go back to the regularly scheduled numbness. Later in life I realized that this was happening due to a certain emotional lag we develop. 

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Letting go of people who mean a lot to us can be one of the most frustrating and confusing experiences in our lives. But why are our emotions given the step motherly treatment? Twadda Kutta Tommy? Sadda Kutta Kutta?  

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