I have been going through a tough breakup myself over the past month or so, and here are a few of my thoughts:
The sting of rejection can play havoc with your ego. For me, this girl was beautiful, and reasonable company, and she broke up with me - at the age of 28, the only one ever to do so, and the only one I've been with that I've really liked. She has been on my mind a lot, but when I take a step back and analyse my thoughts about her, they are always conversations about her realising she made a mistake, and me telling her dispassionately that I couldn't now take her back. I don't sit and mope about 'the good times', or how special it was - in fact I'm hard pushed to think of anything that really set her apart from the other girls I've been with (apart from the spectacular fucking). Maybe I had to operate at 30% mentally with her rather than the 25% I'm accustomed to with girls - hardly worth pining over. What really stings is the blow to the ego, and the lack of ready replacement. Recognising that this is a matter of ego, rather than a matter of true tragic loss, allows you to address it for what it is.
To that end, whilst you shouldn't base your self-esteem on the opinion of any individual girl, a rejection can be a valuable form of feedback on where you are at currently. I realised that I manifested many of the unattractive behaviours that are so often listed on this forum - the ones we know turn women off - and whatever her shortcomings, I made mistakes that I can learn from and not make next time around. To that end, my future relationships will improve for the experience, whatever the short term pain, and for that I feel I must be grateful.
Beyond that, when viewed at a level of abstraction, what I feel women often offer as an ideal in the mind of a man is a refuge from the relentless hardness of life. This is largely a lie in practice, but we tie ourselves in knots finding ways to keep the lie alive. We lose the girl, but what hurts us most is the loss of an ideal that allows us to believe that life needn't be quite so difficult and unforgiving. In a sense, we use this ideal of woman to give ourselves an excuse to retreat from the world in a relationship, and in a way to become losers in a socially acceptable way. The solution I have found helpful is to try to accept reality in all its unlovely harshness, and to take the opportunity to become tougher, more worldly, and better equipped to realise the life I should like for myself, which without these tests and the knowledge they provide would not be possible. I have a clear idea of where I'm trying to get to, and I try to look at the setbacks and failures as crucial steps - every bit as essential as the successes - along the path to that ideal I'm striving for.
Finally, if that's all a bit vague and wishy washy, I suggest you look at all the men of 35-45 in the world around you who are tied to some girl or another of a similar sort of age - increasingly paunchy dudes, very many of whom are already done, and are on a slow crawl to the grave. Would you settle for that reality simply because you're infatuated with some girl now? If you have eyes to see you can appreciate how easily you could end up one of those guys because you'll settle for a little comfort and respite whilst it lasts (and it rarely lasts, even if the relationship does). When the girl leaves you to enjoy her last few good years, take a look around you at all the men who were not so lucky, who did not get this stark lesson or who couldn't learn from it when they did, and think, 'There but for the grace of God, go I'.
The sting of rejection can play havoc with your ego. For me, this girl was beautiful, and reasonable company, and she broke up with me - at the age of 28, the only one ever to do so, and the only one I've been with that I've really liked. She has been on my mind a lot, but when I take a step back and analyse my thoughts about her, they are always conversations about her realising she made a mistake, and me telling her dispassionately that I couldn't now take her back. I don't sit and mope about 'the good times', or how special it was - in fact I'm hard pushed to think of anything that really set her apart from the other girls I've been with (apart from the spectacular fucking). Maybe I had to operate at 30% mentally with her rather than the 25% I'm accustomed to with girls - hardly worth pining over. What really stings is the blow to the ego, and the lack of ready replacement. Recognising that this is a matter of ego, rather than a matter of true tragic loss, allows you to address it for what it is.
To that end, whilst you shouldn't base your self-esteem on the opinion of any individual girl, a rejection can be a valuable form of feedback on where you are at currently. I realised that I manifested many of the unattractive behaviours that are so often listed on this forum - the ones we know turn women off - and whatever her shortcomings, I made mistakes that I can learn from and not make next time around. To that end, my future relationships will improve for the experience, whatever the short term pain, and for that I feel I must be grateful.
Beyond that, when viewed at a level of abstraction, what I feel women often offer as an ideal in the mind of a man is a refuge from the relentless hardness of life. This is largely a lie in practice, but we tie ourselves in knots finding ways to keep the lie alive. We lose the girl, but what hurts us most is the loss of an ideal that allows us to believe that life needn't be quite so difficult and unforgiving. In a sense, we use this ideal of woman to give ourselves an excuse to retreat from the world in a relationship, and in a way to become losers in a socially acceptable way. The solution I have found helpful is to try to accept reality in all its unlovely harshness, and to take the opportunity to become tougher, more worldly, and better equipped to realise the life I should like for myself, which without these tests and the knowledge they provide would not be possible. I have a clear idea of where I'm trying to get to, and I try to look at the setbacks and failures as crucial steps - every bit as essential as the successes - along the path to that ideal I'm striving for.
Finally, if that's all a bit vague and wishy washy, I suggest you look at all the men of 35-45 in the world around you who are tied to some girl or another of a similar sort of age - increasingly paunchy dudes, very many of whom are already done, and are on a slow crawl to the grave. Would you settle for that reality simply because you're infatuated with some girl now? If you have eyes to see you can appreciate how easily you could end up one of those guys because you'll settle for a little comfort and respite whilst it lasts (and it rarely lasts, even if the relationship does). When the girl leaves you to enjoy her last few good years, take a look around you at all the men who were not so lucky, who did not get this stark lesson or who couldn't learn from it when they did, and think, 'There but for the grace of God, go I'.