Getting in Bed With Kristin: Grief, Anxiety, and the Practicalities of Breakups

Welcome back to another Getting In Bed With Kristin! This week, Kristin talked about that amazing Buffering the Vampire Slayer prom, and answered advice questions about grief, anxiety, the practicalities of breaking up, and oh so much more. You can ask your questions for the next episode, which airs on March 28th and posts right here on Autostraddle dot com on March 29th, in the Facebook livestream, on Twitter with the hashtag #GIBWK, or anonymously in this little box!

55 Questions to Obsessively Ask Yourself After a Lesbian Breakup

by the autostraddle breakup buds collective

Dear friends, within the past year, a large number of Autostraddle writers and friends have experienced breakups of various intensities and complications — so much so that we have an entire Slack channel devoted to the topic. There is no shortage of emotions to process, including so many dark, disturbing questions about the future. Here are some of the things one might ask oneself about your breakup, as brainstormed by various thriving souls who are totally okay at various points over the past month or so. If you are anybody’s ex and you are reading this, whichever question you think is about you is not about you, it’s about somebody else’s ex or actually about a breakup that happened way before we even met you. Okay cool.

1. Which unexpected gender presentation shift should I do first

2. What if they were right about [thing they accused me of being during a really bad fight]

3. Where does “learning what you like in a relationship” begin and “being conditioned to like a thing by your first relationship” end?

4. Do I get a robe and a cigar when my divorce paperwork goes through or do I have to self-supply?

5. Will I ever have sex that good again?

6. Will I ever have sex again?

7. What if I forgot how to do [specific sex act she didn’t like]

8. What if I forgot how to do [sex]

9. Wow, how could I have been so wrong about [the type of sex it turns out I like to have after all]?

10. How many years until The One Who Got Away gets divorced and comes back to me, do you think

11. Would I always feel this empty after a breakup if I had a better relationship with my Mom

12. When’s the cheapest time of year to fly to Portland

13. How do I know when somebody is flirting with me?

14. Is every relationship just a reaction to the relationship before that

15. Am I just stuck in a cycle where each relationship I attempt to overcompensate for mistakes made in the prior relationship, therefore creating new problems I then feel unequipped to deal with due to them being caused by an intentional rather than innate personality shift?

16. What if I was just a single mom and never had to consult with ANYONE about ANYTHING and just raised my kid around a bunch of other queers and relied heavily on my mother for free child care?

17. [After looking at face in mirror] AH WHERE HAS MY WANTON MAIDENHOOD GONE AND WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME, AGING, YOU CRUEL MISTRESS

18. [After looking at face in old photograph] WHY DID SHE ROB ME OF MY HOTTEST YEARS

19. At what point is it inappropriate to still be on a post-breakup casual-sex, drugs and alcohol bender?

20. What if I’m the crazy one?

21. What if we’re all the crazy ones!

22. What if she’s totally sane and it was just me who made her crazy and I’ve been doing everything wrong this whole time (I mean probably not, but)

23. Is this the part where I freeze my eggs?

24. Is everyone else settling or has everyone else somehow found their soulmate while I’ve been dating these fools

25. Will I ever stop talking about this?

26. Will topping more people make up for not being over her?

27. If arranged marriages have the same success rate as love marriages then really what are we all doing here, if you really think about it

28. If we went through everything we went through to be together and it didn’t work out, will anything?

29. Will I ever be out of therapy?

30. Do they miss me

31. When will I stop missing her so much

32. Why am I so much more okay than I thought I would be?

33. Do I want to date someone else because she’s dating someone else or because I genuinely want to be dating someone else?

34. How do I stop from swinging hard in the opposite direction and avoiding those patterns so hard or trying to emotionally correct so much that I stay in situations I shouldn’t?

35. Why am I still in love with this person who left!?

36. How long were we dead before I noticed the silence?

37. Am I truly a non-monogamous person… or did I just not like monogamy with her?

38. Am I truly a monogamous person… or did I just not like non-monogamy with her?

39. How do you know what /is/ real?

40. Can I actually afford to live here?

41. Can I actually afford to move?

42. What if I did actually move here for her even though I said I wasn’t moving here for her…

43. If I end every relationship with a fresh list of everything that’s wrong with me, how long until there’s nothing left to like about me?

44. Should I text her before Pride just to like, talk about what we’re going to do if we run into each other or whatever

45. How do I see what’s happening in any new relationship for what it is without bringing all my baggage along the way?

46. Does anybody have baggage that goes with mine

47. When is it okay to try to be friends with her friends again

48. Do her friends already hate / miss me

49. Is she lying to her friends about me

50. How much Fiona Apple is too much

51. Is it appropriate or childish to say “I’m never dating [ex’s sun sign] ever again”

52. Will I lose all the cool things I’ve re-discovered about myself as a single person if I get into another relationship? How do I not do that?

53. Is she really as happy as she looks on social media or does she feel exactly like I do (bad) despite how happy I am pretending to look on social media

54. Anybody know a good place for a dramatic haircut around here

55. What if I just buy a chunk of land on a south-facing hill and dig a cave and live in that and grow succulents to be my friends and never talk to anyone else ever again? That’s okay right? I think that’s okay. I think that’s the best thing to do, considering.

9 Books That Got Us Through Breakups, We’ll Just Leave Them Right Here For You

She Got Up Off The Couch: And Other Heroic Acts From Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel

Heather Hogan, Senior Editor

Haven Kimmel’s first memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, was a New York Times bestseller and she followed it up with this book, which didn’t receive quite as much attention but was even more hilarious, incisive, and poetic. It’s about Kimmel’s coming of age and how her mom’s decision to get up off the couch and go to college — despite the fact that she had no money, no transportation, no support from her controlling and emotionally abusive husband, and no experience at all in higher education — informed everything about Kimmel’s transition from clumsy kid to gangly teen to successful adult. It’s not really about breakups, but it’s actually all about breakups. It’s infused with hard-won hope. And it includes one of my favorite ever quotes, which feels just exactly correct for a breakup: “I wanted him to retell my whole world to me, everything I’d done and seen, and everything I would ever see or do, so that I could understand, even in reverse, how amazing and gorgeous and fabulous and insane and wretched and perfect, perfect, perfect it all had been and would be.”

Was She Pretty?, Leanne Shapton

Reneice Charles, Staff Writer

This book is always exactly what I need after a break up. It’s not meant to make you feel better at all, there is nothing uplifting or self-helpy about it, it’s just a real as fuck work of literary art about all the thoughts and baggage and bullshit that surround exes and the way we relate to having them, being them, and meeting them. It’s also hilarious in it’s raw honesty and laughter is great medicine for a broken heart. I read this to remind myself that eventually everything I’m feeling and all the unhelpful revenge urges I’m fighting will pass and this person will be neatly added to my ex-files.

Crush, Richard Siken

Alexis, Staff Writer

I think of Richard Siken’s Crush when I think of breakups. It feels like a book where you’re trying to pull yourself to the other side of the breakup but you keep getting your feet quicksanded in nostalgia. (Like, “I couldn’t get the boy to kill me but I wore his jacket for the longest time.” “I’m battling monsters, I’m pulling you out of burning buildings/and you say I’ll give you anything but you never come through”?? “If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand” LIKE LET’S GOOOO!!!) I also think of it because I was introduced to Siken through possibilist’s fanfiction and even though most of them end happily, I still remember the breakups best.

Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel

Alaina, Staff Writer

When I think about the book I’d want to read during a breakup, it would definitely have to be hilarious and I would hope that the characters in it are messier than me and my ex. Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For covers all of those bases. It’s smart and sexy and funny and very messy. And it’s by Alison Bechdel, whose work always feels comforting to me. Sexy lesbians with drama more intense than my own? Sign me up!

Women, Chloe Caldwell

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Staff Writer

Something really cool about Chloe Caldwell’s debut novel Women is that men do not speak in it. Imagine that! Something else that’s cool about Chloe Caldwell’s debut novel Women is that it’ll completely ruin your life in a matter of hours. It’s a quick read, and once you start, you’re fully in it, thrown into the tumultuous tides of young, obsessive love. The two women at the center of the book are nineteen years apart (so hello you Carol heads, this one’s for you). Warning: Their story will wreck you!!!! Women tackles the come down of a relationship as brilliantly as the tense, passionate build-up.

Modern Lovers, Emma Straub

Valerie Anne, Staff Writer

Modern Lovers was easy to read and almost boring in the way it went through the everyday lives of adults that were friends in their youth… but that’s kind of why I loved it? Because it was just so simple but so, so queer. The writing it witty and fun and, as a New Yorker, I love when a book gets the essence of the city right. And I won’t spoil who, if anyone, breaks up in this book, but break-ups are kind of always on the table as the two main couples hit a rough patch in their relationships around the same time.

Abandon Me: Memoirs, Melissa Febos

Carolyn Yates, NSFW Editor and Literary Editor

Melissa Febos’s Abandon Me is the most perfect breakup book to have ever existed. Though exploring her affair with a married woman, her tendency to abandon herself for a partner, her worry in turn that she will be abandoned, Febos learns that the thing she fears most — getting left — is actually part of what she needs to be herself. Here’s how it ends:

”It is true that every love is an angel of the abyss. Every lover is a destroyer. I had to be destroyed to become something else. To become more myself. But this freedom? It is worth it. It is worth everything.”

Bluets, by Maggie Nelson

Riese Bernard, Editor-in-Chief

This book makes me want to write [and by “write” I mean “finish”] a breakup essay. It didn’t make me feel better, but it made me feel less alone, which is a style of hope, maybe. It’s about the color blue but it’s also about love and betrayal and the everlasting agony of not being able to move past a thing despite that thing being undeniably bad for you, and never having been exactly what it seemed to be. It’s meta, I guess, reading a book that is so full of the author’s account of reading books herself, of the concepts that felt specifically poignant or relevant in the wake of her grief. Bluets wants to find beauty, even if it hurts, in pain and indignity. I want to believe that this is true: It must be admitted that hitting the wall or wandering off in the wrong direction or tearing off the blindfold is as much a part of the game as is pinning the tail on the donkey.

Another Country, by James Baldwin

Rachel, Managing Editor

This is slightly cheating because this is also my go-to book for everything and my favorite of all time, but I think there are a lot of good reasons why it was the first thing I reached for after my most recent big breakup. First of all it’s completely devastating, so if you’re looking for something to match how gutted you feel, great news! More than that, though, it’s a book that really deeply understands how and why people love each other, and how fundamentally that’s connected to the ways they hurt each other. Of the several main characters and their complicated emotional entanglements with one another and the various (self) destructive ways they cope with them, at least one is sure to resonate in a way that is excruciating. But also maybe healing in some ways — one of the best things about Baldwin is the deep well of compassion he draws from for everyone in this book, even at their most destructive and unlovable, something that might be useful if you’re in a headspace where it can be difficult to see yourself or your ex as people who may have hurt one another badly but are still worthwhile humans.

You Need Help: Post-Divorce Feelings

Q:

I’ve been divorced for about 5 years. We were together for over 10. Overall I’m about as happy as could be to be divorced. What seemed at the time like it was catastrophic and humiliating turned out to be a real blessing. But I’ve also noticed that I’ve picked up some trust and commitment issues that I don’t think I had pre-marriage and that I’ve held on to some strong feelings of anger and betrayal that very occasionally pop up. We still have to communicate pretty regularly because we share child custody. It’s an amicable situation. But now that I’ve figured out I haven’t let go of some feelings, how do I start to do that? I don’t think my ex needs to be involved in this process — I probably said most things to her at the time that I needed to, and if I didn’t, it doesn’t seem like it would be worth it to drag her back through it because I’m struggling. My instinct is to ignore the feelings and hope they go back away. I’m assuming my instinct is wrong. Ideas? (My health insurance sucks so counseling isn’t really an option this year.)

Feelings

A:

Hi Feelings,

First: your feelings are so valid and understandable. Divorce can be so hard. If you didn’t have trust and/or commitment issues after your divorce, that would probably be strange! Any time a relationship doesn’t work out, it’s going to affect the way we feel and approach relationships in the future. Feelings of anger and betrayal are also often par for the course.

But, they aren’t always helpful when we move to future relationships! It’s so important to learn lessons from past loves without them negatively affecting or preventing us from being able to give our all to future loves. How to do that, though, is so difficult, and I guess is the work of being human. Common advice — represented in plenty of pop songs and media — suggests “loving like you’ve never been hurt,” which honestly isn’t super helpful, because our hurt should inform us and help us grow! What would it be like if we never learned any lessons from our past relationships and kept making the same mistakes over and over? Well, it would be terrible.

Ignoring the feelings and hoping they go away is not usually a great option. I agree that your ex probably doesn’t need to be involved, especially since you’ve already talked everything out and said what you need to say. You indicated that insurance-covered therapy is out, but if you can find a sliding-scale therapist or a free/low-cost peer counseling resource, that would be a great option (there’s one in the Bay Area at the Berkeley Free Clinic, for example, and if you live near a major metro area there might be one near you!). Having someone dedicated to listening and helping you process through these feelings can be essential. A trusted friend, who is experienced with either emotional processing or just non-judgmental listening so you can bounce ideas off of them would be a great option, too. Some people not only excel at this, but would be glad to offer their emotional labor to you, sometimes for free (you can always compensate them if you want, though, in whatever way seems to work best for y’all. I usually make food or take my friends out to dinner when they’ve done a lot of emotional labor for me). If therapy is still inaccessible, though, here’s what you can do.

You’re going to have to do some deep dive introspection around your feelings. Journaling some long-form answers to some of these questions could be helpful: Where is your anger coming from? What’s causing it? At whom are you angry? Anger can be a very useful tool and isn’t generally a bad thing to feel, as it can help us to understand ourselves better. Anger and betrayal go hand in hand, usually; we often get angry because of perceived (or actual) injustice or unmet expectations. What did you expect and how weren’t your expectations met? How do you feel you’ve been betrayed?

It may also help to deconstruct some damaging internalized relationship tropes you might have. It’s important to try and figure out what kinds of foundational expectations we have been taught to have about romantic relationships, and to rethink which kinds of trust and commitment are healthy and which are unreasonable. Making a commitment to loving each other forever, for example — an idea suffused throughout our culture, and which is often expected in marriages — is honestly kind of unreasonable. We can commit to always treat someone with dignity, caring, and respect, but we can’t expect someone (or ourselves) to feel a certain way about anything (or anyone) for any particular length of time. Were your unmet expectations related to this kind of unreasonable romantic commitment? Did you trust your ex to do something impossible and feel betrayed when they couldn’t? Is that what’s made you angry? Are you angry at yourself that you couldn’t “keep them” or something along those lines, or some other unreasonable standard you’re holding yourself to?

All of these are just questions to get you started, and guesses about what could be going on; I don’t have enough information from you to offer much in the way of specific ideas. But asking yourself (or getting a therapist to ask you) these kinds of questions, about all of those feelings, is one of the only ways to really get at the heart of them. You might need to rethink some of your expectations around commitment and trust in relationships. And then, if you come to some conclusions, be gentle with and forgiving of yourself, especially if you made some mistakes along the way. And be gentle with and forgiving of your ex.

Those are typically the only ways to let go of feelings — dig deep down and understand what they are and where exactly they’re coming from, potentially look at them in a new light, and say goodbye.

By the way, if you were cheated on, that would be an entirely different reason for feeling betrayal, anger, and commitment issues, but I figure you would have mentioned it if that was part of your situation. Hopefully that’s not the case, and this advice helps!

“Imposters” Is a Perfect Show for Lesbians Who Love Love (And for Lesbians Who Think Love Is a Lie)

From some of the first fairy tales whispered to us by our parents, we’re left with one indelible impression: happily ever after means having someone else with whom to share our lives. Before we can even form the words, before we can even grasp the concept, love becomes the thing that we aspire to most. The characters in those stories change over time — we imagine Princess Charming, most notably — and the scripts grow far more complicated, but that feeling, that desire, to love and be loved, persists. And when you’re queer and the not-so-distant past scandalizes your love, or worse, prohibits it entirely, believing and pursuing love isn’t just about fulfilling that desire, it’s a profound act of resistance.

It’s no wonder that so many of us come to love love… hell, we even gave it its very own day. We commit ourselves to its pursuit and we relish its depictions. We invest ourselves in characters — especially the ones that remind us of ourselves — and hope that they find love. You cheer for the romance. You hope for coupledom. You scorn the person who’d dare come between them. And where those depictions fail, we craft our own, turning subtext into text and longing looks into love.

Imposters is a show about love, sort of. It’s about the different ways in which we fall in love and what that love says about us as individuals. It’s about how love becomes the answer to questions that you never even thought to pose. Imposters shows you love through three prominent lenses and, though you’ll relate more to one than the other, you’ll see part of yourself in all three.

You are not the pizza I ordered.

Ezra Bloom (Rob Heaps) has been chasing the idea of a storybook romance for his entire life and when he finds it in Ava, he clings fast to it. Upon meeting her at a local French restaurant, he’s immediately smitten, drawn in my her beauty, charmed by her accent. For years he dreamt of living in Paris and becoming a writer but those dreams are supplanted by her, as if she was the thing that he’s always wanted. It’s no surprise that he marries her quickly — he loves love almost as much as he loves her — and that, as they ease into their life together, he showers her with daily anniversary gifts. The way that Ezra loves Ava: it’s the stuff we all dream about.

Richard “Richie” Evans (Parker Young) never saw love coming. He’d been an all-county quarterback, he’d become a partner at a car dealership and he had his choice of the local women; he was content. But one day, Alice, a Sarah Lawrence-educated belle of the Upper East Side, comes into the dealership and opens up his world. She shows him a world beyond that which he’s always known and, perhaps more importantly, she convinces him that he belongs in it. Alice crafts a plan for Richard’s future — from the dealership to the US Senate — and he believes her. Richard is his best self with Alice by his side and he falls in love with that fact, as much as he falls for her. They marry just four months after they meet.

Julia “Jules” Langmore (Marianne Rendón) was scared of love. From the moment she knew she preferred the company of women, she’s been scared. But then, she meets CeCe one night at a bar, and she’s just fearless, self-assured and uninhibited — everything Jules wants to be but isn’t — and Jules is drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. Jules can’t stop herself from loving her. Loving CeCe means Jules can’t be scared of any of the other things that’ve held her back her entire life. She can’t be scared of loving another woman or of showcasing her art or of telling her parents that she’s a lesbian anymore because it’s no longer the scariest possibility. Once you’ve tasted love, the scariest thing in the world is the prospect of losing it; everything else pales in comparison.

If this whole “get our money back from our con artist ex-wife” thing doesn’t pan out, we’re thinking of forming a band.

But here’s the thing: we love love — but sometimes it doesn’t love us back. Sometimes we’re meant to love infinitely and other times, it crashes and burns so spectacularly in front of us, we spend years cleaning up the refuse. It’s devastating; if love can transform us into our best selves, heartbreak can reveal our worst impulses.

Imposters is a show about love but ultimately, showcasing that is just a means to an end: you must understand the depth of their love to grasp the extent of their heartbreak. When Ava leaves Ezra, he tries to drown his sorrows, sate his craving for her by trying to get another woman to mimic her accent and, eventually, he tries to kill himself twice (failing both times). When Alice leaves Richie, he copes by sleeping with every woman that’ll give him a passing glance. When CeCe leaves Jules, her fears resurface, she’s forced into therapy and she stops creating new art. Each of them are devastated, individually, but the moment they discover that Ava is Alice and Alice is CeCe, their pain and their quest for vengeance becomes collective.

Ezra, Richie and Jules were never loved. They were conned, lured in by the same tantalizing grifter, Maddie Jonson (Inbar Lavi). She convinced each of them that they were special, got them to marry her and then robbed them of every single dime they had. She leaves them all with a video letter, explaining what’s happened and what they should do next, and a trove of blackmail material, meant to ensure that her marks never report her actions to the police or come searching for her. Alone the contents of their blackmail files might be enough to dissuade any one person from seeking Maddie out, but Ezra, Richie and Jules are stronger together, uniting to get their money back and closure.

Maybe this will make more sense if we’re high.

“You know what all the con books say?” Ezra asks Jules, as they’re comtemplating how this could’ve happened. “For a successful con, you need a willing mark. We wanted every single lie she told us but I have to believe that someday, it’s going to catch up to her.”

As fanciful as its premise is, you never expect Imposters to resonate so much — or, at least, I didn’t — but it does because the themes of love and heartbreak are so universal. Maybe no one’s ever crafted a whole new identity to seduce you into marrying them, but we’ve all been conned in our relationship history, even if we don’t call it that. We’ve all met and fallen for someone only to wake up some days, weeks or months later, to discover that person has become a stranger.

“I don’t understand how someone can make you love them and then walk away like it was nothing,” Jules wonders aloud, echoing sentiments I’ve expressed after a few of my failed relationships. Love is universal and, it turns out, so is heartbreak.

Stepping into Jules’ marriage to CeCe — a quick elopement with none of their friends there to bear witness — feels like revisiting that first love that you have when you’re still in the closet. You’re in a bubble, where nothing else matters but you and her, and you savor every beautiful moment, never anticipating the moment when that bubble will burst. But it does burst, eventually, and you’re left to pick up the pieces, a prospect made all the more maddening by the moments that no one else can confirmed happened.

The only things keeping them apart are their secrets.

And later, when Jules meets Gina (Chastity Dotson), an immediate connection sparks between them. Flirty banter leads to a shared lunch which leads to a shared bed. But when Gina asks Jules for more, Jules can’t say yes, even when saying yes is all she wants to do. That reaction feels familiar because heartbreak doesn’t just leave you questioning who they were, it leaves you questioning yourself and your own judgement. How can you trust your feelings for this new person when the last time you felt like this you were so spectacularly wrong? You might not have had a grifter con you out of everything you had but that feeling, post-heartbreak, is universal.

Imposters is not without its shortcomings, though. In their annual guide on “Where We Are on TV,” GLAAD identifies three harmful tropes that are often used with respect to bisexual characters:

• depictions of bisexual+ characters using sex solely as a means of manipulation or transaction;
• treating a character’s attraction to more than one gender as a temporary plot device;
• depicting bisexual+ characters as inherently untrustworthy or lacking a sense of morality.

Imposters manages to hit all three. While you could chalk some of those tropes to being a side effect of the show’s overall premise, the presentation of Maddie’s sexuality leaves a lot to be desired. Imposters surprises the audience with the revelation that Maddie’s bisexual, using it as a tool to show exactly how villainous she can be, and then never grapples with her sexual identity again. Even when Jules gets her chance to confront Maddie, she doesn’t ask about it — an omission made even more glaring by how easily Jules summons her memories of CeCe.

If you see your wife in a wedding dress but she’s marrying someone else, does it still count as bad luck?

Jules’ lesbianism is, on occasion, used as fodder for Richie’s jokes — an annoyance that will cause you to hate him for the first few episodes — but, ultimately, it’s treated with respect. There’s never a real suggestion that Jules will hook up with Ezra or Richie and the trio have more of a brother/sister vibe. Among the additions to the Imposters‘ cast for its upcoming second season, is Jules’ sister, Poppy Langmore (Rachel Skarsten), so we’ll get to learn more of Jules’ backstory and find out how much of her eccentricities existed, pre-CeCe.

It’s worth noting: Kathy Greenberg serves as consulting producer and writer for Imposters. Though it’s often left out of the story that’s told about The L Word, Greenberg was one of the show’s creators and helped write its first episodes. Watching Imposters, I wondered if Jules is who Jenny Schechter might have been, had Greenberg been allowed to remain with the show.

Bravo will re-air the entire first season of Imposters on Feb. 19 or you can watch it now, streaming on Netflix. The show returns for Season 2 on April 5 at @ 10 PM.

BREAKING: Natalie Barney and Liane de Pougy Break Up Because Amour Is a Lie

In honor of LGBT History Month, and let’s be honest probably well past LGBT History Month, we’re bringing you Vintage Vapid Fluff, written in the style of present-day vapid fluff, but with true stories from history! This one comes to you from 1900, via 2017.

We had a time, didn’t we? We basked in resplendent rays of sapphic sunlight, elated to live in a world where a budding young lesbian could set her sights upon Paris’s most coveted Courtesan and succeed not only in seducing her, but also in somehow managing to embroil her in a long-term relationship that saw itself consummated in several European locations. As my dear friend George put it, “Natalie’s seduction of Liane was remarkable in many ways, not the least of which was the fact that Liane succumbed.” Natalie Clifford Barney, a 23-year old aspiring poet and reasonable violinist from a wealthy family, saw Liane de Pougy performing at the Bal Bullier and decided then and there that she would have Liane for herself.

My friends: she did.

We have been following and covering this story with bated breath.

But for some time now, whispers of the couple’s demise have been building into slow murmurs which we all know eventually become bona fide facts. That’s science for you. Charlotte Stern, a close friend of Natalie’s and let’s be honest probably also a close clam-diver of Natalie’s, told us that Natalie’s father, the profoundly intoxicated Albert Barney, had caught word of his daughter’s latest affair and was so furious that he “pulled her by her hair, which was quite long, onto the sidewalk of avenue Victor-Hugo.” Avenue Victor-Hugo! Ladies, let’s sit down. As journalist Erin Sullivan recently wrote, “I don’t know, the option to calm down is available to everyone.”

Natalie’s promise to Papa that she’d never send Liane another nude was never abided, but it hardly mattered because Liane reportedly turned into a low-key bitch around that time anyhow, thus hastening their inevitable end. She has pulled stunts like “locking Natalie out of her room just to listen to her beg to enter” and “bringing Natalie to a bordello and forcing her to watch Liane f*ck other women,” of which Natalie noted “debauch without joy or beauty sickened me!” Gone are the days of drinking tea naked, going to couturier fittings, finger-banging in carriages, having philosophical discourse, Natalie watching Liane get dressed, horseback riding, “horseback riding,” and lovingly exchanging bat-signal rings from Lalique’s.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard rumors of the couple’s cessation — there was that time Natalie made her whole family go on Easter vacation to Rome so she could possibly end up in the same room as Liane, who was there with her man-of-the-moment, only to learn that Liane had broken the rules of their poly arrangement and was sleeping not only with that guy, but also with that guy’s wife. Natalie reacted by delivering a whorephobic rant and Liane was like, “check your class privilege” and Natalie was like “But I suffer from understanding and loving you!” and Liane was like, “oh for christ’s sake.”

But that was not the end, my friends! The end was still so far away. We will never forget and always be grateful for the ensuing time period, in which the two were spotted doing the horizontal mambo on a houseboat, in an auberge west of London at Maidenhead (my favorite auberge if we’re getting down to brass tacks about it), and a hip hotel on the Thames. Natalie later managed to escape her family vacay in the old fishing village of Dinard to pursue this affair, having her maid rent an airbnb for Liane in Saint Enogat where Natalie could visit her every day. After securing the lightning reservation in anticipation of Liane’s arrival, Natalie pretty much rode her horse and played tennis nonstop for the next three weeks, and when Liane showed up in September, Natalie continued telling her family she was riding her horse and playing tennis nonstop when she was actually having a staycation in Liane’s bed.

I will pour one out every day of my life for Natalie dressing up like a sailor to take Liane out for a romantic rowboat ride that eventually became a musical rowboat ride when Natalie extracted an acoustic guitar from her Lesbian Romance Kit and began playing “American songs” for her lady-love, who sprawled ashore on a bed of flowers while staring at the stars, thinking “this is really gay” and also “can you play ‘Cool for the Summer’?”

When Liane was called back to work with a new client, we prematurely declared their love to be forever over, but what is love if not an endless ride on an unsteady rowboat. Natalie again returned to sex-worker-shaming Liane, to which Liane retorted, “My life is probably less hypocritical, less false, and also less calculating than yours.” Then Natalie was like, “okay, I’m gonna get married so that I’ll be not just wealthy but independently wealthy and then I can save you from the whoring!” and Liane was like “please don’t.”

Hopefully Natalie will grow out of these problematic ideologies.

This past fall, while Liane was in Portugal, Natalie was spotted sulking along secluded pathways, sulking on her porch, sulking in carriages, sulking while horseback riding, sulking while “horseback riding,” sulking while writing French poetry and posting moody selfies to insta while we heard not a single peep from Liane. It was a rough time for Natalie but it was a rougher time for us.

Sources informed us that the working title of Liane de Pougy’s book is “Idylle saphique”

Sources so close to Natalie they may even be Natalie herself informed us that after many months of silence, during which “Liane surely wondered why all her fond correspondence to her one true love Natalie Clifford Barney were not reaching their intended source and instead were vanishing as if they’d never been written at all,” a letter finally did reach Natalie, and it was “full of love soaring across the sky and moonbeams lifting into arms as strong as marble columns!” and then, confusingly, ended with “All that is born must die, Even You and Me, and especially Us!”

Oof.

She didn’t really mean it, the source assured us, as she consequently invited Natalie to spend New Year’s Eve together, starting the new century alone at home in/out of their jammies. Although our source insisted she could divulge no details beyond said invitation, a maid of Liane de Pougy’s revealed exclusively to Autostraddle that in fact, Natalie stayed up all night watching Carol on Netflix waiting for her gal pal to arrive, and, with midnight approaching and no Liane on the horizon, Natalie ventured forth into the cruel world. She threw a fur coat over her nightgown, casually picked up an armload of white roses from the florist, and showed up at de Pougy’s door.

There, she was greeted with unsavory news: Liane was having dinner with Monsieur. The maid, shedding tears of second-hand embarrassment as she relayed the story to us, remembered Natalie then peered into the foyer, saw stacks of luggage, and asked what they were doing there.

“Madame hasn’t told you, Mademoiselle? She and the baron leave tomorrow for Monte Carlo,” the maid informed her. “Poor Mademoiselle!” Natalie, humiliated, rang in the New Year all alone.

But… could Natalie have perhaps made other plans?

Our sources say “Oui.” My friends and close followers of Natalie Clifford Barney’s admirable lesbian exploits, all hope is not lost!

We all know Natalie is capable of holding more than one woman in her heart at one time, and these past months have been no exception. In fact, she was spotted in the company of Violet and Mary Shiletto and their friend, Pauline Tarn, at the Comédie-Française in November. Pauline was apparently immediately taken by the radiant Natalie Barney, and afterwards, once Pauline read a poem to the group in their carriage because of course she did, Natalie was immediately taken by Pauline as well.

We are committed to keeping you abreast of all developments in Natalie’s relationship with Pauline Tarn, aka Renée Vivien. So far it looks like a very healthy stabilizing force for Renée that will undoubtedly be emotionally comfortable for both women and who knows, maybe some strong poetry will come out of it! As always, a tip of the hat to Natalie Clifford Barney, may you continue paying our phone bills.

Source: Wild Heart: Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris, by Suzanne Roridguez

The Real L Word’s Kacy And Cori Break Up, Love Is Both A Lie And Not A Lie At All

As our dying earth spins closer and closer to an inevitable fiery armageddon, the Vapid Fluff department at Autostraddle HQ were devastated late last week to learn of the breakup of Kacy Boccumini and Cori McGinn, stars of the ill-fated reality experiment The Real L Word.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWgU1VGnuFm/

As the only two characters to escape The Real L Word with their reputations intact, Cori and Kacy captured our hearts with their charmingly earnest love story and their difficult, ultimately unsuccessful efforts to start a family together. After eleven years together, the pair appear to have separated amicably.

In a devastatingly sweet Tumblr post, Kacy explained:

We don’t owe anyone an explanation, but it felt irresponsible to pretend as if Cori and I weren’t used as pins to some of your hopes as proof that love does exist and that it’s real. Despite this news, I can tell you whole-heartedly, that if love didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be writing this.  If we hadn’t loved each other for 11 years, we wouldn’t have been able to let each other go when we knew it was causing the other pain.

When you promise to love someone forever, it doesn’t mean you get to keep her.  It means you know they are free and in the world and that knowledge fills you with joy.  Rings are symbols of her existence – a circle of life.  You wear it because you have chosen to be a witness to that life.  That’s all. It’s not a cuff.  It’s not ownership. It’s proof.

I think you all loved and championed us because, no matter what we faced, we faced it together with grace.  We are anything if not consistent.  We have separated as quickly as we joined.  Life is easy to untangle when your foundation is intact.  We’ve done so gracefully, respectfully, as you should do for those you love.

I hope you continue to follow both of us separately, to see what life looks like when you’re brave enough to say the words “I want more” out loud.  If I’ve learned two things in my time on earth it’s this:  life is short and hurting those you love because you’re afraid of being alone is the greatest sin you can commit.

These lovely people deserve much better than to be forever known as reality television stars, and we genuinely wish both of them the absolute best.

Is Love a Lie? Our Staff Weighs In

We (Stef) talk a lot on Autostraddle about whether or not love is a lie. Most often we (Stef) roll it out alongside news of a celebrity breakup, one we were just sure made sense and could never end, and in a weird way it offers some levity to the situation, because it’s the not saying something out loud that makes it true. Or we use it when like, a show we enjoyed got canceled.

We even have a “love is a lie” tag, and if you know anything about our tagging policy, which I don’t know why you would, you know that it’s a very strict tagging policy and you can’t just go making up whatever tag you want and slapping it on an article, which is just another testament to how invested we (Stef) are in this discussion.

Some of us (Stef) have given a hard yes or no on the matter, but I was curious to see where everyone stood. So, as you do around the holidays, I asked everyone on staff point blank: “Is love a lie?” After some initial, “HEY IS EVERYTHING OKAY” feedback, I got their answers. For the record, everything is okay and this is a simple question, and are YOU okay???

I gave them vague guidelines and said it could be as simple as a one word answer or a gritty breakdown, because that’s exactly the kind of rogue woman I am, and guess what? I got one word answers and gritty breakdowns. I also got an answer that compared love to wet cat food. This thing goes a mile a minute.

Also, I realize the graphics on this are confusing, like they should be swapped, and you may even feel discouraged halfway through, but remember the question’s not if love is good or bad, it’s: is love a lie?

Mey, Trans Editor

Love is absolutely most definitely NOT a lie. For example, I love Stef with the strength of a million vampires.

Laneia, Executive Editor

Real love is like wet cat food, Erin. Is wet cat food a lie? Think about it.

Rachel, Managing Editor

Here’s my take: love is not a lie, it is real and cool, but love as an interpersonal dynamic between two people doesn’t address any issues or problems in a real way, whether they be personal, institutional, or cultural. At best the benefit of interpersonal love is to provide emotional support in addressing those issues, which you can also accomplish with a cat. So the idea of love as a powerful force that conquers all is definitely a lie, unless we’re talking about some larger radical love that forms the engine of a movement, in which case I’m out of my depth.

Kaeyln, Staff Writer

My head says, “Yes,” but my heart says, “No.”

Laura M., Staff Writer

No. Sorry, Stef.

Erin, Staff Writer

Love is a lie. I’m sorry!

Alex, Formally A;ex

First of all HI IS EVERYTHING OKAY, secondly, no. I can get so gritty about this BUT I WONT.

Karly, Social Media

No. Unless it’s between two women on network TV, then yes.

Crystal, HR Director

No.

Carrie, Staff Writer

No, love is not a lie. It is also not magic and takes more work and dedication and understanding and listening than everyone thinks. Not easy, very real.

Stef, Vapid Fluff Editor

Love is a lie and everyone dies alone.

Kayla, Staff Writer

I BELIEVE IN LOVE!!!!!

Alaina, Staff Writer

Nah, love isn’t a lie, I guess BUT IT MIGHT AS WELL BE.

Raquel, Intern

Yes, until I’m in love, and then no.

Nikki, Intern

Is Love A Lie:  Ugh, I was hoping that the deadline for this was done and over with.  When this question was posted, I was in the midst of texting with this really cool person and didn’t want to be like I HATE LOVE & EVERYTHING IS A LIE because I had just told this person about AS, and didn’t want to overwhelm them. My cold-dark love heart Grinchly grew 1.5 sizes in a month just texting with them. It was slowly starting to soften.

It just felt nice and not saying it was love because it was just texting with said person but it felt good. BUT. NOW. TWIST. Idk, it all ended before it even began, so now what? Because dating is the worst and I hate it. WHAT. THE. FUCK. I can’t believe there is something I am against Heather Hogan with and I think I need to journal and really think about it.

I know, I know, but Nikki, you’re the sweetest or insert whatever kind thing you want to say about me. THAT’S APPARENTLY NOT HOW LOVE WORKS EVERYONE. Because you try and you try and you try and you try and you try and you try and trying just becomes fucking exhausting. When it comes to love I think some people are just really fucking lucky.

So, is love a lie? I think when I say love is a lie it’s because I’m just fucking tired. And for me personally, it’s not always easy. I can find 100 people I would love to be friends with and can befriend a lot of people but for me to find someone I would want to start a relationship with is like one in a sea of people. (And good luck if that one person is queer, single, etc) I think that is why I joke love is a lie because it just becomes easier than thinking there is something wrong with me or that I am lesser because of my lack of love finding.

I have now scheduled when to meet new people because I can’t handle constant rejection. So, get rejected wait two months to get back out there, repeat, until death I’m guessing. Don’t even fucking tell me that someone is out there for me because you don’t know. Or at least show me a diagram. Don’t give me hope. I’m happy you found love, really I am. But don’t tell me it’s out there when you don’t know. Maybe I’m not meant for love but that doesn’t make me less. Get me that gay math equation on the amount of gay people out there.

Sometimes the writing about love is that if you’re a good person, love will be waiting for you. It will come to you if you’re deserving of love and that’s where I have to go, wait one fucking minute. So, if I never find love it just means I’m not deserving of it, LIKE COME THE FUCK ON. I know at least through friends of friends a few assholes who always end up finding someone. If you found love congrats, but don’t sit here and tell me to wait for whatever because this isn’t a fairy tale and we all don’t get the ending we want.

Let me be really real right now, I’m normally the person behind the scenes, it’s where I excel. I’m pretty sure everyone here at AS knows me as the person who gets shit done. I like to organize, make awesome spreadsheets, can make graphically pleasing things, can be counted on (usually), but one thing that I never understand because it seems so illogical is love. I can’t put logic on it. Love is not logical and I can’t make a list about it. I’m focused and determined but love is like HAHAHAHA, that’s cute. Excuse me while I fuck you up for a bit. Love either happens or it doesn’t. That isn’t saying that once you are in love that it isn’t hard: it is being vulnerable to someone else, it is opening up your world to another, it is compromise, it is letting the person have the last cookie, it is laughing at each other, it is communication, learning about your partners wants/needs, it is planning together, it is saying sorry when you messed up, it is just being there but like have your own hobbies too. I get that part, like that is logical. Finding love is even harder and makes no fucking sense.

So, is love a lie?  No, it is illogical and that is why I hate it. Luck is illogical. Love is illogical. Love = Luck = Illogical. Please note that if I am lucky and find someone, JUST WAIT 2 SECS for this to all go out the window. Just watch me go from Stef to Heather in like a blink of an eye. (Hi, I love you both.)

Carolyn, NSFW Editor

Sometimes love is a lie you tell yourself and sometimes love is a lie you tell other people and sometimes love is the only thing in the whole world that feels real, that feels right, that feels true. We all still die alone though.

Riese, CEO

If you’d asked me two months ago, I would’ve told you love was the truest most eternal thing of all. I would’ve OPINED. But you asked me just now instead and right now I feel like love is in fact the worst lying motherfucker of all time. Ask me in a few more months and we’ll see if I’ve evolved on the issue. G-d, I hope so.

Sarah, Business & Design Director

If you’re lying about it it’s a lie.

Audrey, Staff Writer

Love fails because as a species we lack imagination. We try to make love make sense, make it tangible, make it pass tests. Love doesn’t give a shit what we expect of it. We are too small for love, but we chase it anyway. Every once in a while we catch it, and even more occasionally we figure out what to do with it. I believe in love, and I believe in God, and I’ll spend the rest of my life figuring out what that means.

Heather, Senior Editor (Y’all know she had to do it)

Two summers ago Stacy and I rescued and socialized a litter of feral kittens. It looks easy typed out like that in a single sentence, but it took hours and hours and weeks and weeks of sitting so still and so quiet on a hardwood floor, not making eye contact, coaxing, coaxing, coaxing them to trust us. And of course it did. They were born in an alley and we tricked them into a trap and took them away from the only home they’d ever known and carted them off to the ASPCA in a giant loud truck and had them neutered and spayed and ear-tipped (just in case it was too late and they couldn’t be socialized and they had to go back to the streets). They were starving and then they were in shock and then they were in surgery and then they were in a strange and terrifying new place.

A few months in, just when they’d all finally started letting us gently pet them without using food as a bribe or a distraction, they got sick. Very sick. The vet told us they had a virus that was almost always fatal to kittens, but we decided to have them treated anyway. To give them a fighting chance. They survived the first night at the emergency hospital, around the clock monitoring and IVs in their little paws. And they survived the second night too. And another.

The problem was they’d stopped eating. None of them would touch a single bite of food, and kittens are almost always hungry; kittens will eat anything. The vet called us and said, medically, the best thing for them would be to stay at the hospital, but science isn’t everything and sometimes you gotta love a kitten into living. We brought them back home in makeshift carriers: Blue Apron delivery boxes with holes cut into the side, and before we even got out of the parking lot, one of the kittens reached his white paw out through the cardboard window. He held my hand the whole way home.

Our rescued kittens were so scared of us for so long. Scared we were monsters who were fattening them up to eat them in a stew. Every baby step was such a victory. They ate with my hand on their food bowl! They put two paws onto my shoe! The day we got home from the hospital, I put out their food and they ate every single kernel, licked that plate clean. They crawled into my lap, all four of them, and went to sleep in a pile. They lived.

Stacy and I have been together six years, during which time she has never once said or done anything to deliberately hurt me. And the same is true for me. We both had childhood trauma that shaped and molded us, and when conflict happened in our relationship, that trauma manifested itself in ways that rubbed each other raw. What she needed and what I needed in the hard moments was the opposite thing and it sent us on some spirals and wrapped us up in some cycles. We cried; lord, we cried. We loved each other. We were so special together. But we couldn’t stop hurting each other in the ways that we protected ourselves.

Several years into our life together, I had my hand on Stacy’s knee while she stared at the floor and I made increasingly desperate eye contact with the therapist sitting in front of us. The therapist said, “Sometimes when we suffer trauma as children, and that trauma is triggered as adults, we react like children because in those moments we feel like children. As helpless. As scared. Without the emotional and physical resources of the adults we actually are, without the perspective of our lived experiences. In these moments, in this spiral, you’re both just terrified girls.” She was right and it changed everything. Stacy and I never get sucked into that spiral anymore. I see her. And she sees me. We reach out and we hold each other close and I can feel it in the now and I can feel it across space and time; me and her and the wounded little kids we once were and always will be.

Maybe people think love is a lie because they think love is the cheat code that lets you play life in God mode. No cliff too steep, no pit too wide, no boss too powerful. But love isn’t like that at all. I mean, it maybe feels like that for a minute, but nabbing a Super Star on level 1-1 doesn’t make you invincible for life. Love isn’t a sackful of healing potions either. Love is more of an amulet you pick up off a slain wizard you were lucky enough to trip over in a haunted forest, the kind that works like: when you’re about to experience a deathblow, the amulet shatters and fills up your health bar juuuust enough for you to get the fuck out of there alive.

The Apostle Paul said love never fails. He was wrong about that. (He was wrong about a lot of things.) Love doesn’t win every battle, but it’s how we fight the darkness and it’s why we fight the darkness. Love is a promise tucked into your armor: a little bit of hope, that talisman against your heart; the whisper of a future.

Love is Not a Lie: 14

Love is a Lie: 3

Love is probably a lie: 3

Year-End Roundup: Celebrity Breakups That Remind Us That Love Is Still A Lie

The year of our lord 2016 was a terrible year, filled with unimaginable horrors on every single level. We lost some of the greatest artists of any generation, saw the American political landscape go up in flames and watched aghast as the world ceased making any sense whatsoever. Throughout this waking nightmare, there’s been some comfort in watching a universal truth proved time and time again: that love is a lie and we are all going to die alone. No one on Earth has proved this more effectively than the queer celebrities we have so earnestly followed on Instagram; we watched their relationships bloom and thrive, only to see them wither and inevitably crumble into dust. Let’s take a look back at all of the breakups that have shaped our world during this year of perpetual sadness.

Hannah Hart & Ingrid Nilsen

These two YouTube darlings charmed the pants off the entire internet with their relationship, which came on the heels of Nilsen’s adorable coming-out video. Hannah had never talked about her relationships publicly before, and Ingrid had never been known to have openly queer relationships, so the whole thing was a milestone for their fans. Sadly, in April, both stars let it slide via Twitter that the union known universally as #Hangrid was no more.

Brittney Griner & Glory Johnson

It hurts to reflect upon these two because their relationship was so tumultuous and often upsetting, culminating in both Johnson and Griner being arrested for domestic assault in 2015. They finalized their divorce in late June, and have both hopefully moved on to healthier relationships.

Demi Lovato & All Of Us

Listen, OK, I love Demi Lovato too. “Cool For The Summer” was a pivotal moment for modern pop music, and Lovato’s sly acknowledgement of her previous queer experiences gave all of us hope that one day, Demi Lovato would be our girlfriend – nay, the people’s girlfriend. She was a colorful character in No Filter and a frequent character in Trans Editor Mey Rude’s daydreams. Everything was going to plan; she unceremoniously broke up with her longtime boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama, and it seemed that at any moment Demi Lovato would emerge as the bisexual icon we all knew she could be – and then, just as quickly as she’d arrived, she ruined it. In September, Women’s Health reported that, “many in the media speculated that when her hit song “Cool For The Summer” was released last year, she was coming out as bisexual. Demi admits that, yes, her music is fueled by personal experience, but she believes in experimentation, not labels.” While nobody is demanding that Demi label herself or behave as an official representative of the LGBTQ community, her reduction of her experience to “experimentation” was a bummer, and a beautiful dream died that day.

Ruby Rose & Harley Gusman

Honestly, this whirlwind relationship wasn’t much fun to cover, not nearly as important as Rose’s romance with Phoebe Dahl or her current rekindled love with The Veronicas’ Jessica Origliasso. Truly Organic entrepeneur Gusman celebrated the 4th of July with Ruby and Taylor Swift, appeared in a lot of cute Instagrams, and then suddenly and unceremoniously disappeared from our lives. I assume that Ruby probably still drinks a lot of cold-pressed juices, just with someone else.

Queen Latifah & Eboni Nichols

I’m not saying Queen Latifah broke up with her longtime partner this year, but if she had, she would have become an important part of this roundup.

Laura Jane Grace & Beatrice Martin

It was a magical day when Coeur de Pirate’s Beatrice Martin came out as bisexual, and our hearts exploded when it was revealed that Martin was dating punk legend and acclaimed superhero Laura Jane Grace. The pair were inseparable and totally gooey over each other on social media, which was a lot of fun for me as the editor of No Filter but also lovely to watch in general. Things seemed to be all sunshine and roses, until the pair suddenly split (Rolling Stone’s controversial article seemed to suggest that Grace was torn between Martin and her ex-wife) – but not before Grace.. maybe got a tattoo of Beatrice’s name? Nothing gold can stay.

Annie Clark & Cara Delevingne

For ages, I wondered what the hell these two talked about when they were together; Cara had always seemed like a bit of a wild child and a strange match for serene, ethereal guitar goddess Annie Clark. In February, the tabloids were breathlessly reporting that they’d gotten engaged atop the Eiffel Tower, and then suddenly before we knew what had happened, it was over. Cara’s been spotted cavorting around town with Amber Heard, but Annie? Oh, Annie…

Kristen Stewart & Alicia Cargile

Of all the gal pal splits of 2016, this one hurts the most. We were innocents when we met Alicia Cargile, the tender angel whose beachside frolics with Kristen had spurred an entire wave of intense fervor over Stewart’s sexuality. Alicia Cargile became the inspiration for a new verb I invented to describe being a relative unknown dating a celesbian: cargiling. For all of 2015, we accepted the relationship between Cargile and Stewart as an open secret in the queer community, but it wasn’t until this year that Kristen seemed to drop all the fucks she’d ever given about how she’s perceived by the world at large. Late last year, she and Alicia quietly split, and Kristen spent the early part of the year swapping spit all over Paris with Soko. Just as that relationship seemed to be solidifying into something real, they broke up – and next thing we knew, Alicia was back in business, proudly holding her girlfriend’s checkered Vans for her on the red carpet at Cannes. Kristen started talking about Alicia in interviews, calling Alicia her girlfriend for real, discussing her sudden openness about her sexuality, declaring how amazing it felt to be in love and transparent about that love… and then… and then.

Enter Annie Clark.

Look, I didn’t like this either. It’s a universally accepted truth that there’s only so many famous queer women and they’re all going to date one another at one point or another, like a class of rural high school students, but this was just cruel and absurd. I don’t believe in love, especially not for myself, but I have to admit: I truly thought Alicia and Kristen were going to make it. I believed in them, and now I feel betrayed. No matter how cute Annie and Kristen may have looked as they tenderly hold hands at fashion shows and creep around the East Village in perfectly styled slightly matchy outfits, they’ll never give me the same misguided hope that Kristen inspired in me with her relationship with Alicia – and after all of that, it looks like they may have already broken up anyway.

Love is dead. See you in 2017.

20 Single-Serving Recipes, Because Love is a Lie and We All Die Alone

Hello and welcome to this thing we’re doing where we help you figure out what you’re gonna put in your mouth this week. Some of these are recipes we’ve tried, some of these are recipes we’re looking forward to trying, all of them are fucking delicious. Tell us what you want to put in your piehole or suggest your own recipes, and we’ll talk about which things we made, which things we loved, and which things have changed us irreversibly as people. 

Hello would you like to make food just for yourself today? You totally deserve it. Good thing I’ve got these 20 recipes for you, huh!

1. Single Lady Apple Pancake

2. The Perfect Breakfast Sandwich

3. Shrimp Scampi For One

4. Enoki Mushroom Stir Fry

 5. Microwave Macaroni and Cheese in a Mug

6. Single Serving Tortilla Soup

7. Personal Pan Pita Pizza

8. Healthy Apple Crumble

9. Veggie “Sushi” Rolls

10. Quick ‘n Easy Veggie Sausage ‘n Peppers Sandwich

11. Individual Chicken Pot Pies

12. Creamy pork chop with mustard and apples

13. Black Bean, Spinach, Mushroom, and Soy Chorizo Quesadilla

14. Single Lady French Onion Soup

15. Deep Dish Eggplant Parmesan For One

16. Spice-Rubbed Chicken with Israeli Couscous

17. Delicious One Serving Chicken Breast

18. Single Serving Burrito Bowl

19. Egg Fried Rice

20. Eggless Cookie Dough for One

BREAKING: Ruby Rose And Phoebe Dahl Break Up, Love Remains A Lie

If you were busy feeling all warm and fuzzy over all the cute celebrity couples the Internet has had to offer and all the weirdos who got married in 2015, you can knock that shit off right now because Instagram’s golden couple, designer Phoebe Dahl and fictional inmate Ruby Rose have called off their two-year engagement. This is especially devastating considering they recently hosted a garden party in which everybody wore white but nobody got dirty.

NOOOOOOOOOOO

In an exclusive statement to Us Weekly (the preferred breakup method of all lesbians), Dahl said, “After two wonderful years together, Ruby and I have decided to part ways. While we still love each other and support each other in every way, it is our mutual decision to part ways. Our break is not the result of any media speculation, and we want nothing but the best for each other. Thank you for respecting our privacy in this very difficult time.” Her representative added that Dahl has moved out of Rose’s home in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, and that they will no longer be visiting farmers’ markets together, jumping on water slides together or taking pensive, mysterious photographs of one another.

Dahl and Rose announced their engagement in March 2014, following three months of whirlwind dating. Both described their romance as “love at first sight,” and the couple’s combined six million Instagram fans are said to be in deep mourning.

Instagram snuggles in happier times.

To their credit, both Dahl and Rose have been remarkably classy about the entire affair, as seen in the following Twitter exchange:

https://twitter.com/RubyRose/status/676590832498008064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

@RubyRose you have brought me to my best and I will always love you. I can't wait to see what the future brings for us.

— Phoebe Dahl (@FAIRCLOTHSUPPLY) December 15, 2015

If nothing else, this is living proof that mature, loving breakups are possible, at least if you are very rich, famous and good-looking. We here at Gothip Girl HQ wish both parties a peaceful and pleasant 2016.

UPDATED: Love Is [Kinda] A Lie: St Vincent and Cara Delevingne DIDN’T Break Up, But Angel Haze and Ireland Baldwin Are Still Over (Again)

Earlier today, we reported that the romance between modeling/acting/glaring triple threat Cara Delevingne and the actual blazing sun Annie Clark had ended. Since then, we have been corrected by Ms. Delehooha herself via her Twitter:

https://twitter.com/Caradelevingne/status/590968369500717056

With her film debut imminent and her modeling career continuing to skyrocket, Delevingne had been theorized to have ended the relationship due to “work commitments,” one of the most bullshit reasons to end a relationship short of “I just really need to work on myself right now.” Yahoo reports that Delevingne had real, heartfelt emotions for Annie Clark (don’t we all) and that she had been truly gutted to have dumped her. Lucky us, their flame continues to burn bright as they gaze lovingly into each others’ eyes, rubbing their skeletons against one another with great panache. Just last week, they were spotted together at a Burberry event at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, looking fashionable and important, rubbing elbows with Jamie Hince and the Beckham family. Cara wore her best marching band uniform and proudly showed off her eyebrows to the rabid throngs of paparazzi. As we mentioned earlier, the pair had already met each others’ families, and Cara is said to have gotten a small tattoo of the initials AC. The pair have only been linked since about February, so I sincerely hope that tattoo is commemorating Cara’s deep love for Aaron Carter or Alice Cooper or something.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cara Delevingne (@caradelevingne)

As far as we know, Cara Delevingne has been Instagramming pictures of sad quotes and cartoons, one of the oddest coping mechanisms of our time. In our dreams, Annie Clark has been thinking about calling Autostraddle contributing editor Cara Giaimo and inviting her to lunch. The best thing to come out of their brief pairing so far is the birth of my Cara Delevingne paper doll, which I hope to get extensive use out of in the future.

EXCLUSIVE: A jubilant Cara Delevingne celebrates her thriving relationship.

In the meantime, despite having publicly declared themselves gal pals this past Valentine’s Day, it seems that the epic love affair between Ireland Baldwin and Angel Haze has finally come to an end. In a post on their Tumblr, Haze addressed a fan’s questions concerning the death of their relationship, which seemed really sweet and sincere and which I will probably mourn forever despite not actually knowing either of these people in real life. The fan asked, “Do you think you and Ireland will reconcile? Your relationship was so special and gave me hope as an agendered person that true love exists and is possible. That we can thrive and survive in a relationship. I hope so, because she truly made you happy.”

Haze replied, “Ah, im very happy to hear that the love we shared was able to give you hope. The dope thing about love is that because it is abundant and forever and completely unaffected by any malice, it never leaves. Ireland and I will always be friends, she is a light in more ways than anyone can understand right now. Dont lose hope for yourself, though; especially not based off my failures. Wait for the person who will need the love you have, you’ll be fine then.”

They also explained that playing “Candlxs” (their super-gooey ode to Ireland) has been “a bit difficult” but that the breakup shouldn’t affect their ability to play the song in the future. While all of this sounds really healthy, they’ve also been writing short, kinda heavy Tumblr posts here and there that definitely didn’t make me a little bit weepy:

i know that wishing is irrational
they all say i am better off
i know that missing you is natural

i really wish you never left.

i killed it for good.
im sorry.
but i did find some
relief in your eyes tonight.

thank you.

EVERYBODY DIES ALONE.

Never before have two gal pals plucked at my heartstrings in such a particular way, and I can only hope that somewhere out there, Kristen Stewart and Alicia Cargile are spending today in a very friendly way. I hope they are buying matching Best Friends necklaces at Claire’s and making friendship bracelets on Kristen’s couch. They may be all we have left.

Top 17 Most Devastating Breakups in Lesbian Television History

by riese & heather

Yes, it’s time to look back on all the times television kindly informed us that Love is a Lie. We did not include queer couples who broke up because one of them died, as so often happens — such as Pepa and Silvia on Los Hombres De Paco and Tara and Pam on True Blood — because that’s like, a whole ‘nother level of tragic.

17 Heartbreaking Queer TV Breakups, In No Particular Order

1. Naomi and Emily, Skins

After Naomi was brave enough to want Emily back but before they rode off into the sunset for their Happily Ever After (because Skins Fire never happened; so say we all), Naomi and Emily had the saddest breakup in British TV history. In the wild, carefree, sexy days of finally just being together, Naomi panicked and cheated on Emily with some random girl on a train. Emily found out about it, of course. It was hard not to find out about it when the train girl got so obsessed with Naomi that she hurled herself off the ledge of a club right in front of them when she realized Naomi had just used her for cheaterpants sex. And so Emily also climbed to the ledge of a building and yelled and cried and told Naomi how special they were and how fragile everything in life is, while Naomi cried and yelled back about how sorry she was. Emily hopped down to the roof and looked at Naomi with saddest sad eyes ever. “You’re always sorry,” she said. And she left her up on that roof all by herself.

(hh)

2. Shane & Carmen, The L Word

Pro tip: don’t leave a girl at the altar. Really, just don’t do it. It’s super-expensive, for starters, all that fuss and no ceremony? Plus, it’s embarrassing for her, and she’s wearing really nice makeup and her hair looks really fantastic and you’re gonna go and make her cry? This is especially devastating when you were all set up to marry THE HOTTEST GIRL TO EVER EXIST IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY and then you um, don’t show up? Show some respect, brah.

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3. Bo and Lauren, Lost Girl

It’s hard out here for a human doctor in a fae world, especially when the love of your life is a magical succubus who insists on saving the world from imminent destruction every week. It makes you tired. That’s what Lauren told Bo when she was explaining that she needed a break. And Bo said okay. She said they could take a break and of course Lauren was tired and they could focus on her for a little while and Bo wasn’t going anywhere and they’d just work on giving Lauren what she needed and they could take one tiny little moment apart and that was all and they loved each other and everything was going to be okay because it was just one small, insignificant, barely-there step back. “It is just a break, right?” Bo said, when she was getting ready to go, but they were both crying their beautiful eyeballs out because they knew it was more than just a break. And the whole time Adaline was crooning “Say Goodbye” in the background and everything was awful and a million angels cried!

(hh)

4. Marissa and Alex, The O.C.

These two had only just begun when they were ripped mercilessly apart because Alex didn’t see a place for herself in Marissa’s life — but neither did Ryan, once, so why couldn’t this work? Well, This was back in Ye Olde Dark Ages. We knew this would be Marissa Cooper’s one and only dalliance into girl-on-girl culture for the duration of the show, ’cause those were the rules of television.

Alex let herself have feelings for Marissa and Marissa seemed to have genuine feelings for Alex but they didn’t last long because, you know, Ryan Atwood. And despite what Julie Cooper told Alex when she was telling Alex about how Marissa was just using her, Ryan Atwood does not look nearly as cute in a white tank top as Alex does. Not nearly!

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5. Helen and Nikki, Bad Girls

Bad Girls is basically Orange Is the New Black, but it aired on British network TV in the 1990s. The first three seasons revolve around Helen Stewart, the Governing Governor of the G-Wing of Larkhall Prison. She was fierce and idealistic and unwilling to compromise her black-and-white morals, until she fell in love with an inmate named Nikki Wade who was in the clink for murdering a man who tried to rape her girlfriend. Their love story was tender and tentative and sweeter than just about anything you’ve ever seen on TV. It was also full of starts and stops, because Helen had real qualms about being Nikki’s lover and her jailor. One night, Nikki broke out of prison — dressed in a blonde wig, looking for all the world like Dusty Springfield! — and showed up at Helen’s house. Helen yelled. She threatened to call the cops. And then she made sweet lesbian love with Nikki right on her couch. She did take Nikki back to prison, though. She sneaked her right back in the front gates. And that’s when broke up with her, because the way they loved each other was making them do foolish, dangerous things. (They got back together, though! In the series three finale! When Nikki finally got out of jail!)

(hh)

6. Alice & Dana, The L Word

We waited for a solid half of Season Two for these two to finally get together, and when they did it was glorious! Well… mostly. I mean, after they got past the “omg we’re finally together!” bliss, it was pretty clear that Alice was the one who cared more, you know? She was the one ready to say I love you and ready to move in first, she was the one made uneasy by the re-appearance of Lara. Anybody who’s ever been the one less in love knows what an anxious, slippery place that is to be. Then we returned for Season Three to discover that they’d broken up and Alice had gone off the rails. Then Dana gets cancer and dies. So.

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7. Emily and Paige, Pretty Little Liars

The first time they broke up, it was only kind of sad. Emily couldn’t be with someone who wouldn’t come out, after all. The second time they broke up, it was much sadder. Emily was furious at Paige for telling the police that Emily’s ex-girlfriend/Paige’s ex-bully had been buried alive and pulled from the grave by a psychic witch and was now in hiding. The third time they broke up, it was the worst. Paige’s parents insisted that she leave Rosewood to go to Stanford for her swimming scholarship before her senior year was over, because her parents caught onto the fact that no teenage girls survive in Rosewood, PA. Emily tried everything to get Paige’s parents to let her stay, but in the end Paige confessed that she wanted to go. She was tired of fighting. This was the beginning of life and if she spent everything she had just trying to stay alive, what would she have left for living? They kissed and hugged and kissed and cried, and Paige got on a plane and flew away.

(hh)

8. Tara and Naomi, True Blood

This wasn’t just Tara breaking up with Naomi, this was Tara realizing that she probably couldn’t ever date anyone, ever, not if she wanted to live. “Everyone who’s ever been with me has ended up dead,” Tara tells the girlfriend who tracked her down and cracked her open. “It’s not a long list, but it’s a bad one to be on.” Naomi tells Tara she is going to regret this and Tara says that she already does. We didn’t know yet that Tara would become a vampire and then find vampire-love (before getting killed, obviously), so this felt like it. That moment when you realize your life is too toxic and dangerous for you to find a space in it for something so precious as love. That rare circumstance when you know the best way to love a person is to ask them to leave you, forever, alone and fighting for your own life. The camera pans out to reveal Tara in front of Merlotte’s, wailing and sobbing and struggling to remain standing, alone.

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9. Rachel and Lisa, House of Cards

Rachel and Lisa’s timid friendship-turned-romance was one of the most surprising things to happen on House of Cards. It’s a show about horrible people doing horrible things to each other to get more power to control more horrible people in horrible ways. So the fact that these two young, broken women who had been used and abused by the system found comfort and love with each other was shockingly sweet. And they only had each other, that’s it! Then Doug Stamper, Frank’s Chief of Staff/main henchman, decided they couldn’t even have that because he was obsessed with Rachel and he didn’t like her loving anyone who wasn’t him. (She never loved him.) He forced Rachel to break up with Lisa, with no explanation, and that’s exactly what she did. Lisa wailed and threw things and begged Rachel to stay, sobbed about how she didn’t understand what had happened or was happening, but Rachel walked away anyway, because she did love Lisa, and it was the only way to keep her safe.

(hh)

10. Bette & Tina, The L Word

Bless us all — but especially the loyal Tibetters — that these two were happily reunited by the end of the show, because their break-ups were brutal. The first breakup was the most painful, and it happened after Tina saw Bette and the carpenter in a departing hand-hold-release that betrayed a thousand other stolen moments. This lead to one of the best and most intense sex scenes in television history — that raw, angry, hate-sex scene that closed out The L Word‘s first season. They both understood the road that had led them there but had higher hopes for each other. Bette can’t swallow the idea of Tina ever leaving her and Tina is so angry about being so hurt and so blindsided. Sometimes you hate how much you love a person and the only thing to do besides kill them is fuck them.

It wasn’t even their only breakup! They broke up again! And it was terrible that time, too, although not QUITE as terrible, it was still terrible.

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11. Cosima and Delphine, Orphan Black

Cosima told Delphine she just wanted to make crazy science with her, and she probably thought that was true. But she was in love and that’s so much more than science. So when she found out Delphine had been working for Dr. Leaky all along, she got on a bus and ran away. And when she got where she was going, heart shattered into one zillion pieces, she also realized she was dying from Clone Lung Failure! Cosima and Delphine finally made up and tag-teamed to take over the world of genetics (and to save Cosima’s life), but Cosima finding out Delphine was her handler was one of the most heartbreaking things to happen in two whole seasons on Orphan Black, and that’s saying something since the main plot of season one was the systematic murder of a whole family of sister-clones.

(hh)

12. Sophie & Sian, Coronation Street

When this went down I wished Sian had just run into traffic instead of running away from the wedding because what went down broke my heart into a million little pieces. Sophie and Sian’s story had been tender and realistic and complicated and, well, long, like, very long, like many years long. They were friends and then they were more than friends and they worked through every Lesbian Relationship Trope in the book, all the way to the chapel. There they were in the front of the church in their big poofy wedding dresses with their pretty hairdos and Sophie’s reading her vows and then her doofus Dad is like, “Hey maybe don’t!” Sian finds out that Sophie kissed another girl and runs out of the church, and Sophie runs after her, and then they make up and decide to get married after all but then Sian — oh fuck, I can’t. I can’t even get into what happens next or I’ll cry and throw up all over again. It’s torture. It’s absolute torture, the whole goshdarn thing.

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13. Brittany and Santana, Glee

Oh, Santana! One does not simply break up with a magical math genius unicorn dancing queen simply because one has an “energy exchange” with some random lesbo in the library! Which is what Brittany tried to tell you! But oh-ho, no! You wouldn’t listen! You broke our hearts and you broke her heart and dumbest of all, Santana Lopez, you broke your own damn heart! You knew she was your lobster! Luckily y’all are married now and honeymooning on Paradise Island with Wonder Woman and her sisters, but we’re never going to hear “The Scientist” without breaking down into wracking sobs because of what you almost destroyed.

(hh)

14. Shane & Cherie, The L Word

Shane’s entire life people told her that she would become a psychopath if she didn’t know how to feel. Her entire life! And she would like to know what’s so great about feeling, Cherie. Because she finally let herself feel — she let herself feel things FOR YOU — and she feels like her heart has been completely ripped out. DO YOU HEAR THAT CHERIE? COMPLETELY RIPPED OUT! She had this insane idea that you and her could be together! Because it felt real! I know, Cherie, I know: it wouldn’t make a difference, right? What difference would it make if you did feel the same way about her? What if that were true? Would you still be able to leave your husband, your child, your houses in Bel-Air and East Hampton and your trips to paris? Your black-tie galas? To run to some rank little love nest with a 25-year-old assistant hairdresser who barely has her foot in the door? Well apparently not, Cherie. Because in this fucking ugly world, that kind of love does not exist.

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15. Willow & Tara, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It’s nearly impossible to write about Willow and Tara breaking up because it makes you think about Willow and Tara getting back together, which makes you think about Tara getting shot in the literal heart and dying in Willow’s arms, which was the worst thing to ever happen, period. Tara didn’t even want to break up with Willow! They were thinking about taking Dawn from Sunnydale and moving away to start their own family! They were in love forever! But dang Willow got too addicted to magic, and when Tara called her out on it, Willow tried TWO DIFFERENT TIMES to magic Tara’s brain into forgetting they’d talked about it. So Tara had to step back and move out of the Summers’ house where she and Willow had been raising Dawn. They finally did get back together because they loved each other too much to stay apart (and Willow dialed back the magic), and one second it was, “Can you just be kissing me now?” And the next second, Tara was dead. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

(hh)

16. Callie and Arizona, Grey’s Anatomy

Callie and Arizona’s breakup was almost unbearable to watch because it was way too true to life. That thing where you know a relationship is over and that both of you will be so much better off in the long run if you’ll just walk away, but you love the other person too much to ever walk away. So you spend months (or even years) bleeding all over the place and wounding each other more and more and patching up flesh wounds with Band-Aids, even though you’re a literal surgeon and you know better. And then the moment when one person summons the courage to say, “I can’t imagine my life without you, but I will be miserable forever if I keep trying to live my life with you.” GOD. It’s like a knife in the face of your soul watching Callie and Arizona rip each other up and finally say goodbye.

(hh)

17. Emily and Maya, Pretty Little Liars

Maya St. Germain was Emily’s first love. Well, her first love who loved her back. Okay, her first love who loved her back, openly. Maya gave Emily the courage to come out of the closet loudly and proudly. She helped Emily relax. She made Emily really, truly happy (when Emily wasn’t being tortured by her omnipotent cyber stalker/terrorist). But Pam Fields couldn’t handle the fact that her daughter was gay, so she rifled through Maya’s backpack and found a couple of joints stashed in an Altoids can and had Maya shipped away to drug camp. The night Maya left, she and Emily shared a romantic, heart-wrenching, candlelit goodbye. In retrospect, it’s even sadder because it’s at drug camp where Maya would meet her fake cousin who would end up murdering her and burying her in Alison’s grave in Spencer’s backyard.

(hh)

Love Is A Lie: Angel Haze And Ireland Baldwin Break Up

Just a few short days, nay hours ago, I presented to you Angel Haze’s first sneak peek at the first track off her upcoming EP, In The Winter Of Wet Years (ed: that’s what she said). It was a gooey, heartfelt ode to her forever-snugglebunny, acclaimed tall person Ireland Baldwin. Those two have been absolutely gross all over the internet for the better part of a year, brandishing matching tattoos and proudly declaring their love to anybody who’d listen. They skipped hand-in-hand through Silverlake, enjoying delectable frozen desserts with their adorable rescue dog. They were even spotted wearing intriguing matching rings. It’s been really intense, and really precious.

Nothing is real.

Proving once and for all that there is no such thing as love, Angel Haze tweeted (and then promptly deleted) the following late Tuesday night:

How does anyone react? Well, first of all:

Hope you enjoy your Valentine’s Day, because happiness is fleeting and every single one of us is going to die alone.

OK, what do we do? Do we call her? Do we give her some space? Do we show up at her apartment with a box of tissues and a case of wine? One time after I got dumped, Geekery Editor Ali sent me an edible arrangement and it sorta helped…? Is it going to be weird if we’re still friends with Ireland? Is everything OK?

Ireland Baldwin’s personal online presence has all but disappeared in recent months; in fact the only way I’ve had any idea what she’s been up to has been through her girlfriend’s adoring iPhone lens. Her twitter has recently been reborn as an account that meticulously discusses acne medications in Japanese, and her Instagram appears to be gone.

The tweet’s deletion can mean several things:

1) They’re getting back together! Everything’s gonna be OK!
2) Angel decided that posting so publicly about her breakup was immature and unbecoming, as if there was any other way to behave on the internet.
3) Mercury is in retrograde and everything is fucked.
4) It isn’t real it wasn’t real nothing is real lalalalalala 

This morning, Haze tweeted the following:

Oh, muffin.

If you are reading this, darling, I highly recommend reading through the best breakup advice you’ll ever get. Beyond that, the only remedy for a broken heart that I’ve found that works involves pizza, the most recent Sharon van Etten record, Waiting to Exhale on DVD and several bottles of cheap red wine. If you wanna talk, I’m  here to listen.

Let Angela and Whitney guide you on this emotional journey.

Evan Rachel Wood And Kate Moennig Break Up, Earth Implodes, Sadness Ensues

feature images via Getty

In mid-October, we breathlessly reported that the glorious romantic union of fictional Lothario Kate Moennig and Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual was a real thing happening in our lives. We were delighted to learn that two very goodlooking, very famous human beings were maybe/definitely kissing each other on the regular. How innocent we were then! So young and full of promise! It is with our deepest regrets that we inform you that according to trustworthy sources at Us Magazine, our favourite power-couple of 2014 may have gone their separate ways. We never even got to give them a catchy name!

Although the two had been reportedly text-flirting since February of 2013, it seems that the relationship itself was only a couple of months or maybe even weeks old – a great deal of anticipation for a relationship that burned too brightly, and could not last. You were too pure for this world, Kate and Evan. The world just wasn’t ready.

A forlorn Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual has been tweeting very sad things, the modern equivalent of leaving a bunch of heart-wrenching Fiona Apple lyrics in your AIM away message.

…all the time, to keep you off my mind!

— Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood) October 27, 2014

ok excuse me everyone, 2001 throwback song of the day ‘gone’ #nsync — Evan Rachel Wood (@evanrachelwood) November 3, 2014

Kate Moennig has tweeted a lot about television shows she’s been watching.

To be fair, the only solid evidence we have of this (dreamy) affair is their singular appearance at a Los Angeles gala last month – beyond that, their relationship remains a complete mystery. The two were rarely photographed together, never spotted gazing lovingly into each others’ eyes over a $30 kale salad, never adopted a rescue cat together. A solid 99.9% of their relationship happened inside my own imagination.

Like the relationship itself, the reasons for the break-up have been very private. At this time, there is no reason to suspect that Moennig left Wood at the altar at a picturesque ski resort in British Columbia, paid for by a very rich British woman the couple barely knew. A source tells Us that the split may only be a break, which fills our hearts with hope for the future.

Commenters on said Us Magazine article made sure to remind Evan Rachel Wood that she only just divorced her husband (determined ballet dancer Jamie Bell) this past spring, and that probably she isn’t really bisexual anyway. Those people are all gross.

In these trying times, dear reader, we hope that both Moennig and Wood are taking excellent care of themselves, not watching each others’ movies obsessively and crying in the shower (which is what I’d be doing/am doing, whatever). Evan, if you want to get brunch and talk about your feelings, I’m around all week and I’ll even buy you a mimosa. It’s good to get out of the house, girl. We’re all here for you.

…Oh girl.

Top 5 Movies to Watch Before You Break Up with Someone

We’re celebrating Autostraddle’s Fifth Birthday all month long by publishing a bunch of Top Fives. This is one of them!

It’s very possible that watching these movies will cause you to question every relationship you’ve ever been in. Maybe it will make you realize how lucky you are to be in your current relationship. Or maybe it will make you realize you should have been out the fucking door months ago. It’s not an easy thing to do but breaking up should be a decision, not a reaction and sometimes you need a little perspective to help you make the right choice. What better way to gain some of that than by watching movies meant to manipulate you emotionally? A lot of people are weary of this method as films often romanticize relationships but I find that this approach only reinforces what you already know deep down. Plus, most of these have endings that I’ll call emotionally complex.

Celeste and Jesse Forever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQoH1IGRB3w

Celeste and Jesse Forever is a 2012 romcom starring Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg. They play a pair of best friends that married young but are driven apart by Jesse’s unwillingness to grow up. I think this movie, more than others on this list, is about regret and acceptance. It also features Emma Roberts who’s always a delight.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSgSe2GzDc

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 romantic science fiction film that more than anything else should teach you never to try and win a breakup. It stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as a former couple that erases their memories of each other. I honestly think that before you commit to a relationship with someone, you should ask them what the “okay” in this movie means to them. It doesn’t have to determine whether you should be in a relationship with them or anything but you should know where they stand on this scene going in.

Take This Waltz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUQTNY5yaVk

Take This Waltz is a 2011 comedy drama for which Michelle Williams deserves every award in the world. It also stars Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman (and also Luke Kirby but who cares). This film is basically about a woman with a bad case of chronic melancholia that tries to fill her happiness gap with other people instead of realizing her lack of fulfillment has more do to with what’s going on with her than what’s happening in her relationship. It’s terrifying because I think it shows how completely oblivious one party can be that their relationship is in crisis.

Click

Usually I remember where I was when I saw a movie. Who I was with. What we talked about after. Sometimes I mix up the details but there are always details. Except for Click (2006). I don’t remember any of that. I don’t even remember what this movie was about. If you tried to make me watch it again, I’d probably run because it’s uncomfortable thinking about how sad it made me. It was a different kind of sadness that what other movies cause. One that just sat there. Maybe because it was an Adam Sandler film so it snuck up on me. Maybe I was just GOING THROUGH A THING (because when am I not, send help). I’m assuming that if it made me that sad, there has to be a lesson about life and love in there.

The Notebook

What can I say about The Notebook (2004) that hasn’t already been said? Probably a lot because I’m extremely unique and my voice is missing from most conversations. The Notebook is based on a Nicholas Sparks novel which is something you say when you want people to roll their eyes. I’ve never read one of his books so that’s just something I’ve picked up on in my day to day interactions with annoying people. I guess to me this one is about how some people are all, “this relationship was different, nothing will ever compare, etc. etc.” and everyone else is like, “calm down, you’ll be fine, that’s what you think now but eventually you’ll find someone you feel as strongly about again” and how those people could be VERY WRONG. So maybe you’ll break up with the love of your life for whatever reason and they’ll be gone and you’ll just sit with that forever I guess. Oh, it stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.

Header Image by Rory Midhani

Top 10 Special Weirdo Things I’ve Done Since My Very First Break Up

Hey so, breakups are the worst, am I right? Yeah, I just had one. My very first, in fact. I’m coping magnificently.

1. Put three Michael Kors watches in my Amazon Wishlist

This makes absolutely no sense. I couldn’t get Michael Kors if I was fuckin’ Michael Kors. There’s probably something to analyze here about my changing relationship to the passing of time and the significance of me desperately wanting to posses something material which would give me a physical feeling of being able to control time but really… look how shiny and pretty it is!

(via Amazon.com)

2. Resisted the urge to post Tegan and Sara lyrics to my Twitter

Which is really hard to do because I’ve had the Tegan and Sara lyrics I would post to Twitter after a break up picked out before Twitter was even a thing. Before I was even dating a person for that matter. Am I four years ago?

3. Thought really seriously about shaving my head

Top of the pros list: I talk out loud  so much about this already that it would feel relieving to finally do it and probably would make things less annoying for the people who have to hear my monthly loud pondering.

Top of the cons list: Everyone would ask, “Did you finally do it because of the break up?”

The internal debate rages on.

P.S. “I want to shave my head and lie in bed all day long,” is the hardest Tegan and Sara lyric not to post.

4. Held lengthy conversations with my pillow at night

I’m telling you this primarily as self-motivation to stop. It’s such a good listener though.

5. Sat in my car listening to a police scanner app for an hour for no particular reason

I listened with interest to LAPD Citywide Dispatch for a while because it was so busy. That was until I remembered that “busy” was bad and then I went back to my own boring city. I learned a lot of police code though! And I only listened to my ex’s city for about a minute, I promise.

Wow I just realized that “ex” is a new word to get used to typing.

(via sonicdrivein.com)

6. Ate A Sonic Red Velvet Molten Cake Sundae

As America’s drive-in, Sonic only wants to let You Do You. Your car, your rules! You get to feel like you’re being good because you’re getting out of your house, even though you’re basically just transferring yourself from your house to a vessel not unlike a portable version of your house. For a limited time, they have this red velvet molten cake sundae thing! It’s red velvet cake filled with hot fudge, topped with an ice cream sundae with whipped cream and a cherry PLUS some kind of weird cheesecake goo. I love you, weird cheesecake goo.

7. Did you know that when you mix one type of cheap wine with another type of cheap wine it still tastes exactly like wine?

Which is to say “it tastes delicious.”

I feel obligated here to tell you that I’ve got my stuff under control and that this actually happened on a fun, stress-relieving night with a best friend where we drank those tiny single-serving bottles of Sutter Home, ate Cheez-Its and watched stupid stuff on YouTube. And then I fell asleep in her bathroom for a minute. Under control.

8. Not told my mom yet

Nope.

(Lara Jane Grace via Josh Sisk for Rolling Stone, The Prancing Elites via Prancing Elites on Facebook, Andrea Gibson via Nebraska Writers on fuckyeahandreagibson.tumblr.com)

9. Managed To Go To Three Large Events Containing A Great Deal Of Other People Whose Hearts Probably Didn’t Hurt As Bad as Mine, Or Maybe They Did, I Don’t Know

Somehow, the very weekend after the break up, my city was descended upon by three fantastic shows all out of nowhere, as if sent expressly to distract me from thinking too much. I couldn’t think about my own feelings when Against Me!, the Prancing Elites, and Andrea Gibson all rolled up in my city for three magical days of queer visibility and expression!

Special note: jk y’all lolz. Of course I thought about my feelings when Laura Jane Grace belted “if she wants to dance and drink all night, well there’s no one that can stop her.” Of course I thought about my feelings when Andrea Gibson opened her mouth to say anything. Of course I thought about my feelings when the Prancing Elites pranced. Those last ones were purely happy feelings. They were so beautiful. By the end of the weekend I was feelings fatigued.

Hoarding all the good advice (via miriadna.com

10. Reread lots of things on Autostraddle Dot Com about Break-Ups

The only weird thing about this is that I read all of these things a long time ago, knowing that they would be there for me if I ever needed them, and now suddenly that time has arrived. This is weird and comforting all at once. I feel like a squirrel that buried nuts filled with brilliant advice and now it’s an emotional winter so I get to dig them up and eat them. Advice nuts like: the gut-wrenching yet encouraging Lifespan of a Lesbian Heartbreak, the brilliantly community-built Break Up Open Thread, the tremendously tasty 37 Delicious Things That Become Infinitely More Delicious After A Breakup and the ever-important Best Break-Up Advice You’ll Ever Get.

So fellow weirdos, what kinds of nonsensical post-break up behaviors have you gotten yourselves into? Especially the stuff you did after a first break up. I am open to suggestions here. Is the pillow thing normal? Unearth your advice nuts.

Study Says Journaling Your Breakup Won’t Make It Hurt Less, Causes Dismay

Dear Journal,

I just read about a new study at the University of Arizona that aimed to measure the success of journaling one’s feelings as a coping mechanism following a breakup. As The Atlantic reported, the researchers hypothesized that “focusing creative word vomit into narrative form could help patients with the highest tendency to ruminate about the past to pull themselves together and move on following divorce.” Journal, you of all people should know that I have a tendency to ruminate, so clearly I was very interested in the findings of this study.

For three days in a row, ninety recently divorced/separated people wrote in a journal for twenty minutes a day. While some were asked to simply log their daily activities, others were told to “really let go” and dive into their deepest feelings, and the rest were asked to craft a structured narrative of their failed marriage.

via surfingwithdreads on weheartit

When the researchers followed up eight months later, they were shocked at the results: “The participants who were the most ruminative, and who ‘were judged to be actively engaged in the search for meaning,’ made the least progress in dealing with their emotions when instructed to express their emotions through writing.” The participants who simply logged their daily activities made the most emotional progress, according to the scales used in the study.

The lead author of the study, psychological scientist David Sbarra, had this to say about their findings:

“If you’re someone who tends to be totally in your head and go over and over what happened and why it happened, you need to get out of your head and just start thinking about how you’re going to put your life back together and organize your time. Some people might naively call this avoidance, but it’s not avoidance. It is just re-engagement in life, and the control writing asks people to engage in this process.”

Wait, that’s me! I am totally in my head going over and over what happened and why it happened, not just about breakups but about basically everything that occurs. Do the findings of this study apply to everything that ends, like a job or a friendship or a dream? How am I supposed to “re-engage in life” before I’ve fully processed?! Writing about feelings is re-engaging with life. I mean, what is life if not a series of feelings?

Confession: I have several journals that exist for the sole purpose of processing breakups. They are hidden in my room collecting dust because I’ve been going steady with my boo for a few years, but there are still so many other things to ruminate about. If I were to simply keep a daily log like the people in this study who were supposedly the most emotionally successful, I just don’t know what I would do with my feelings. Would they dry up like tiny feeling raisins in the sun? I’ve been told that if we don’t acknowledge our feelings, we act them out.

The thing is, Journal, even if I’m not using your pages to ruminate within, I can’t not ruminate. I have to take these feelings somewhere; they are just so enormous and consuming. If I don’t tell you about them, I will incessantly gchat my friends who have grownup jobs and thus better things to do than reassure me for the millionth time about how that one thing I said that one time actually wasn’t a big deal and no one hates me/cares. Also, I feel like journaling doesn’t have to literally be in a journal. I have a few dozen drafts to various people sitting in my email that I’ll never send but were super cathartic to write. Is this study implying that rather than spending time writing about my feelings, I should go to the grocery store? I just really don’t think that would make me feel better. I hate the grocery store.

The study weighed the emotional recovery of the participants using scales that measured “response to a traumatic event, depressive mood disturbances, and ‘loss and rediscovery of self.'” Sometimes, though, after something like a breakup, the point is that maybe you can’t rediscover yourself. Maybe you have to make a new self out of the ashes of the relationship, which is different from getting back in touch with the old pre-relationship you. The study also had a lot of pre-determined assumptions, like that eight months should be enough time to get over a failed relationship. What if the relationship lasted ten years and your heart is a hot broken mess? What if rather than trying to “get over” a relationship, someone’s goal was to integrate the loss into their daily life and grow from it?

Basically, my eyebrows are raised way, way up about all this. As you can see, Journal, I’m even having to process my feelings about what it means to process feelings. The  writer of Atlantic’s report on the study concluded, “In other words, indulging your angst only prolongs your suffering.” Maybe it’s because I’m on the first day of my period (ugh kill me), but exploring my “angst” has never felt indulgent; it has felt completely necessary. I don’t want to simply “get over” the people I’ve lost, I want to learn as much as I can from the experience and take those learnings with me into other relationships.

Thanks for listening, Journal.

-GK

Where Does the Good Go: A Break Up Open Thread

Reader Leah, who recently parted ways with her gf, suggested we have an open thread about break ups. Our number one feeling was, and is: OH GIRL. LET’S. So I began drafting this article to publish on Friday (because Friday is Open Thread Day, you a-holes), but then you guys WOULD NOT DROP IT in the comments, so here we are! Having an open thread on a Thursday, which is just insane. I hope you’re happy.

this girl represents how you probably feel

Breaking up is a rock-hard motherf*cker, and, unless you’ve wielded your big gay hammer and built a fence around your heart, you’ve probably gone through at least one. THEY ARE SAD. I’m sad just thinking about it. And even if you initiated the split, breaking up feels like failing and falling and sighing and screaming and sewing your mouth shut. Time becomes something you just can’t trust anymore, even though time is the only thing that’ll actually help. But you can’t see that right away, because you feel! so! hopeless! IT IS INCREDIBLY SAD!

We think of ourselves as your friends, so in addition to this gorgeously formatted open thread, we have a variety of healing activities for you:

49 Anti-Love Songs to blast at top volume while you journal.
8 Nerdy Ways to Mend Your Broken Heart for when you need an escape.
Top Ten ’90s Movies for sisterly bonding and remembering fonder times.
The L Word Top Ten (Okay 15) Best Sex Scenes because you’ve earned it.
Scrapbook of Memories because KITTENS.

We also have this email which our editor Riese got from her best friend after a break-up in 2003 which made her very upset. She found it very helpful and we agree that this should help you feel better too, so just read it.

To: Riese From: Krista
Subject: Re: depression party of one
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003

dearest ris,

even though sometimes the world seems about six sizes too small for our pain, the amazing shit is that no matter how deep purple the bruise is, no matter how dark and overwhelming and miserable and worthless it all seems, the world will get a fraction of an inch bigger every day. really, every fucking day. And you won’t notice it for a long time until suddenly, one day, it’s only five times too small for your pain and then four and then the world will just keep getting larger and larger in comparison to your shattered heart and eventually it will be able to hold it and then it will outgrow it. And your pain will be just a speck in your world.

It is supposed to be feel like the end of the world right now. That my dearest beautiful ris, is how you know that it was worth it. that is why it was one of the relationships that shook your core, and after which you will never be the same. The world is supposed to feel as though it is ending and you are supposed to know only in the most dormant recesses of the backmost corner of your soul that it will not be like this forever. You are supposed to feel acutely and lucidly that everything is over that your purpose in life is worthless and that not even cheesy pasta and molly ringwald movies are going to make you smile, and you are supposed to know opaquely and elusively and abstractly that everything is not over and that your purpose in life is so much huger than you could ever imagine and is still saturated with value and that you will eat pesto and read Stephen Dunn and live in Manhattan and have stacks of waffles at corner diners with girlfriends and you will will will will will will will will love again.

I did not think that I was going to be able to ever breathe without shaking again, let alone successfully love and fuck again. That is what you are supposed to think. I cried hysterically for months. I wept so much I had stewardesses on planes ask me if I needed oxygen, I had waitresses refuse to serve me, I had strangers approach me with offers of help. Then I stopped. Then i started again and stopped again and started again and then stopped for good.

Everybody feels heartbreak ris but people like you who are so completely in tune with the human condition and so acutely aware of the pulse of emotion are going to feel it much worse. It sucks. It’s black and shitty and worse than LA traffic and infomercials and little yippy dogs and bad poetry all combined. It is just truly horrible.

You have to get out. You have to travel Ris as much as you possibly can. You have to not talk to [redacted] for a while. You have to spend time with people you know and love as much as [redacted] does. You have to do shit. Every day. Do something. Anything. Each From Different Heights ris. it will pale and it will heal but it takes time.

I love ris, and between my love and jesus’s love and a world full of trashy magazines and chicken fingers, I promise you will survive, and with more grace than you can now imagine and that you will have more gift and vision because of it.

love,
k

Moral: sometimes someone can crack open something that feels very safe and make you unreasonably vulnerable: you will live to tell the tale of this shock.

We brought Mean Girls, Amelie and Goonies, quesadilla supplies, old magazines for collaging and this stuffed monkey from Ohio! Do you feel better yet? Well there’s also wine. How do you feel now? It’s time to share your break up stories!

+ How did you cope?
+ Have any advice for others?
+ What amazing and lovely things did your friends do for you?
+ We’ve just made quesadillas the new break up food, in place of ‘ice cream eaten directly out of the carton.’ How do you feel about that?
+Have you tried reclaiming songs that were ruined by past relationships? It’s fun.

This open thread trumps last week’s because this time, no one gets to bitch about scientific studies SO LIVE IT UP! Hey, have you never commented before? I just want you to know that it’s cool if you do now. No pressure, obvs. You just never know when your story will help someone else. I MEAN I’M JUST SAYIN’. Love you.