This Valentine’s Day, TOMORROW, PEOPLE, February 14th, at 7:30pm, HBO 2 will premier Debra J. Solomon’s animated short film Getting Over Him in 8 Songs or Less. The film chronicles the period in Solomon’s life just after her husband of 17 years — 17 years! — leaves her. Nearly paralyzed with loss and loneliness, she found herself writing songs. That process became this film: directed, written, sung, narrated, and generally made wonderful by Debra J. Solomon, of whom I am now a huge fan.
While I’m not going currently going through a rough breakup, I’ve been through some so cataclysmic and life-altering I probably still need therapy, and that’s just what Debra’s film gave me. Her songs aren’t so much steps to recovery as earnest expressions of all the painful questions, doubts, and disappointments that one experiences when someone they’ve built their life around suddenly walks away. Solomon doesn’t dwell on her own details, but we certainly feel like we get to know her — and root for her. Her songs are personal and poignant, but their universal themes will speak to any aching heart.
I can’t get away from the feeling that all men are scum after a recent experience, and yet I find myself still thinking about the man concerned. What will snap me out of it other than another man? Should I start Yoga or something?
— D.P.O.W.
Dear D.P.O.W.,
The popularity of Yoga has indeed been blamed for the niceification of New York City. So yeah, it might take the edge off. And if you’re anything like Jeni (above), you might meet someone there.
But let me caution you about something else: no one gets away with the “men are scum” thing here at breakupgirl.net. If you can’t live with ’em, then live without ’em. Everyone get this straight:Â BREAKUPS ARE PIGS.
Girls and horses: match made in hog heaven. All my early fantasies of happiness and adventure featured my strong and loyal steed. We’d gallop across fields, along beaches, or my horse-friend would appear in the schoolyard at recess (you know, because horses always remember the way back), his coat shining like armor, his communications quiet, subtle — intriguing but ultimately knowable. A wild thing whose trust could be won through love and patience.
“We’d provide horses and Parelli Natural Horsemanship foundational instruction for the women to build relationships with those horses. (PNH is perfect because you learn so much about love, communication, relationship give and take, responsibility — and not just as it pertains to horses. Wimmens dig it),” she writes. All that in a supportive environment where women can “discover, or rediscover, their sexuality, their pleasure, their power.”
Somebody give her some seed money! Because sometimes it takes a heckofa lot more than sad country songs to get over a breakup.
Remember that Seinfeld ep wherein Jerry gets shunned by his buildingmates for refusing to engage in the “kiss hello?” Likewise, I have long been made uncomfy by physical gestures of affection absent any underlying, genuine, time-tested personal connection. (In fact, I finally had to make myself stop with the rebound-b.f. crap a few years back, because it was too much new-hands-feel, new-person-smell too soon.)
But am I in the minority? I first heard about cuddle parties — group events featuring PJ-clad guests and consensual, non-sexual hugging, hand-holding, nuzzling, spooning, and so on — about five years ago, and at least according to this report from Philadelphia’s CBS affiliate, they are still going strong. Clearly, they have touched, non-sexually, a nerve.
I dunno. Call me posh, but when I get the need for physical contact, I’d much rather shell out for a massage. Anybody with me? Who’s been to one of these things? Am I just being a prude?
Apparently the heart is more resilient than we all give it credit for. At least that’s according to a new study from Northwestern University.
Eli Finkel, assistant professor of psychology, studied college students over a nine-month period and discovered that on average people who are anticipating what their breakup will be like grossly overestimate their level of distress. He says that is especially true of those who are strongly in love when they make their forecasts.
“So those people are especially wrong,” said Finkel. “They think they are going to be devastated, and they are much less devastated than they thought.”
It turns out, in most cases it only takes a few days for us — men and women alike (the study revealed no difference in sex) — to start focusing on all the bad things that annoyed us about our partners. And in our minds we start exaggerating how terrible those things were. (Like how much he hated your cat. There’s something seriously wrong with a man who can hate a little tiny, sweet kitty THAT much. Seriously. No really, you’re better off without him.)
Though to be fair, the study does go on to say that the same is true of many dreaded human experiences. We anticipate that many things — surgery, a trip to the DMV — will be much worse than they actually are.
No, wait, sorry. The DMV will actually be worse than you imagined.
According to the AFP news agency, men aged 20 to 64 who had divorced or separated were six times more likely to report an episode of depression than those who remained married, according to Statistics Canada. Women, however, were only 3.5 times more likely to have had a bout of depression after a marital breakup than those still in a relationship.
Neither the study nor the news report on it gave any real indication of why this was. What would have been interesting is if they paired these statistics with ones on who initiates divorce and reasons cited for the split. I wonder, for example, if women are initiating the divorces more because of cheating spouses and the like. In which case they are probably six times more likely to be pissed off after divorce than men. Or hey, vice versa.
But do check out that little happy nugget of news at the bottom. Turns out it takes only four years to get over the complete and utter devastation of losing the person you love. Well sheesh, if they can solve that one, now can they tell us how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?
e-mail to a friend in need
Trying to deal on 
Girls and horses: match made in hog heaven. All my 
