We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love. -Sigmund Freud

Lately, I've been feeling like the separation of a couple has become something of an epidemic. The term coined "break-up" is something that we have all struggled with at one point or another. Unless you marry your high school sweetheart and have never broken up, no one is immune to the misery inflicted by the dreaded aforementioned "break-up". In my experience, what puzzled me the most was why it didn't work out. It could just be the psych major (or the crazy) in me but I would constantly ask myself all these questions that quite honestly, had no answers. How do you put effort into something you apparently never cared about? What does his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend/best female friend turned casual girlfriend have that I don't? How come my crazy, which he once found so charming, is no longer appealing? And the most painful and aggravating of them all: Why would he say all those things to me if he didn't mean them? (Truth be told: Probably because he's a pathological liar. But that could just be the insolent brutes that I know.)

I never knew, until that moment, how bad it could hurt to lose something that you never really had. -The Wonder Years

Although I hate to admit it, I'm a sucker for a guy with charm. Those seemingly sweet nothings whispered under the polluted moonlight are solely responsible for the demise of all my long since forgotten broken relationships. For me, it's all about delivery. You could be a huge tool but say something generic like, "You've got great eyes," and I instantly fall into this charm induced coma. I have many times fallen prey to those alluring lines. (If you ask me, it's got to be some kind of voo doo.) And I know I'm not the only one.

However, I have since learned how to better assess these smooth talking Casanovas. In recent years, I have trained myself to smell their deliciously scented Burberry cologne from fifty feet away. That's fair enough running distance, no?

But here's the thing: Why do men do this? I mean, why bother to enchant someone if nothing is going to come out of it? Why spend the time when you can save it to leave your future wife rapt by your nonsense? Or is it just that things have changed and the feelings you may have once had have since dissipated? These are the things that would literally keep me up at night. These are the things I lost weight over. And it seems to me like the proverbial men never did. They always appeared unfazed and I don't understand it. Men can be so deceptively complex and it makes me crazy, friends!

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

And vice versa, Dr. King. I'm one of those classy broads who always tries to maintain a friendship with those lost flames. (Most of the non-crazy ones, anyway.) Some come easily but depending on the severity of the break-up, it's not so elementary. I'm more especially troubled when I was friends with the spiteful swain before I dated him. Did they just wake up one day and decide they were deleting me from their life (but quite surprisingly, NOT their social networking system. All the better to stalk me with...)? And what in their twisted man brain makes them believe that's fair? I always wanted to call these boys and say, "Let's talk about why we're not talking..." You're right. That's crazy talk.

But does that even matter? [Let's have a quick sidebar:] Because it doesn't matter what's REALLY happened. After a sour break-up, the man just says, "Dude. Turns out that girl was crazy." And all of his idiot friends believe him! [End sidebar.]

The saddest thing in the world is loving someone who used to love you. -Anonymous

It just boggles my brain. In those cases where you wake up to find that he's just not that into you, what's the ailment? Why doesn't it work out? How do you go from Jen and Brad to Brynn and Phil Hartman? (Okay sorry, bad joke.) And how do you do so LITERALLY overnight? It's so sad to me and I'll never understand.

This thought brings me to yet another break-up bullet: What of those couples who subject themselves to the same torture over and over again? (Think: Heidi and Spencer. Zack and Kelly. My mom's friend Kathie and her husband.) You guys know the people I'm talking about. Those absolutely tireless couples that break-up every other day? I really, really hate that. How can you so easily throw your relationship around like a cheap Frisbee? Once or twice, I can understand but literally, over and over again ad nauseum? Why, friends?

The heart was made to be broken. -Oscar Wilde

I'm closely acquainted with someone who has been made to endure this. Repeatedly. Said couple has been doing this dance for something like three years. At one moment, they're hot and heavy. Then the next, my homegirl's boyfriend tells her that he needs to find himself or focus on himself or some nonsense. She respects him, gives him his allegedly needed space until one day, he realizes what a TOOL he's being and how miserable he is without her. And hook, line and sinker, they're back together until he pulls this schlock again. And again.

I don't understand the male psyche. And I'm going to be a mental health professional! What hope is there for the world?

Although it sounds super simplex, I've found this theory to be true: In the words of my African husband, "If it didn't work the first time, what makes you think things will be any different the second, tenth, or twentieth?" And despite those loaded, hounding questions keeping you up at night, people don't change. Like Albert Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results."

And so, Moral of the Crazy: For this I have no solution to offer you. I've loved and I've lost and sometimes things just don't work out. For reasons unbeknownst to me, there comes a time when things just end. Without sense or reason. And we crazy ones are left to decipher and over analyze until we wake up one day and stop caring. Take care, friends.

The reason you haven't felt love is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me... to sell nylons. -Don Draper, Mad Men

Just to offer comfort, I've compiled a break-up song list for your listening pleasure. Because I have great musical taste. (Taste in men, not so much. Current husband excluded.) And beside booze and crying to my sister, music is the only thing that ever made me feel better. They are in no particular order because they are all equally great.

Break-Up Song List:

 

Lost- Little Big Town
Karma- Joss Stone

The Love We Had (Stays on my Mind)- Joss Stone
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart- Al Green
I'm So Tired of Being Alone- Al Green
... actually, anything Al Green
Wake Up Alone- Amy Winehouse
You Lost Me- Christina Aguilera
Whiskey Lullaby- Brad Paisley & Alison Krauss
Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me- Elton John
Killling Me Too- Sister Hazel

Tennessee- The Wreckers

Crazy People- The Wreckers
On Bended Knee- Boyz II Men
It's Over- John Legend
Everybody Knows- John Legend
... anything semi blues/Motown/R&B.

You're welcome.