Ten things to NOT do when the guy who dumped you gets married…..

For all those heartbroken souls out there, adding to the immense problem of global warming by throwing tear drenched tissues after tear drenched tissues into the endless landfills, overwhelming the universe with your sadness and sorrow, polluting the internet with cheesy memes about your broken hearts, let me tell you, as a five times experienced broken heart to a novice broken heart – your tears do NOT matter. The world doesn’t stop going round and Bangalore traffic doesn’t halt because you got dumped. Don’t let anyone tell you that the guy who dumped you will regret it and it’s his loss. We both know he won’t and it isn’t. Don’t listen to all your friends who tell you this is better and good riddance to bad rubbish. There is never a riddance, good or otherwise of any rubbish. Rubbish is as men do. Rubbish is as men are.

So keeping in mind your safety and your well-being, here is a very simple, very sharp and very easy list of things to NOT do when you get the wedding invitation of the guy who dumped you. I will not be politically inclusive and use mixed pronouns and “/”. I am a man hater and so this precious advice is only for my fellow women. You are scrolling back and thinking “but…she said broken hearts…and I have a ….” No you do not! Men do not have hearts and hence they cannot be broken. So bugger off.

Ahem! So, dear broken hearts, if you have received an email, a whatsapp forward or even a condolence message informing you of the wedding of the guy who dumped you and who you clearly are not over yet, please go through the following instructions carefully. These instructions are curated from the experiences and randomized voluntary trials of over a thousand different women from across the country after a double blind peer review process for approval. If you are dumb and lack the IQ required for normal comprehension of long text content, please save yourself by referring to the detailed infographic accompanying this article.

1. Do not google and/or insta and/or facebook and/or twitter and/or snapchat and/or reddit and/or wordpress and/or (whatever it is you millennials are SMing these days on), the new wife of the guy who dumped you (yes, it’s easier to type ex, but ex is not a good enough title for the son of a bitch, it’s too general, exes can be folks you broke up with or had a mutual break up with or divorced, the target of this very clear instruction set has to also be very clear). She is most likely much more qualified/prettier/nicer/better/sane(r?) than you and you will only end up feeling more insecure and inadequate and end up piling more wet tissues in the landfill. There are all sorts of people in the world. Some will always be better than you and you will always be better than some others. As far as the new wife of the guy that dumped you stands, statistics indicate the former. So save yourself some internet stalking bytes and a lot of heartburn.
2. Do not post a cute picture of you and him with a rant with the latest and meanest curse words on his facebook wall and/or insta post and/or twitter and/or … (you should get this by now). Remember that social media is flooded with your relatives, teachers, bosses, enemies and future guys who will dump you to get married to someone else. And he probably already told his wife and whoever would listen that you’re a crazy bitch. So your precious googled curse vocab will only go waste into the deep dark bellies of the internet, very much like the salad on a fancy dinner table with steak and meat.
3. Do not visit an alcohol shop and go nuts with the captain morgans and johny walkers and royal stags and mcdowells and blender’s prides and sulas. First, your Indian feminine liver and kidneys  have limited filtering capacity and we shouldn’t overwhelm them. Second, alcohol has a mind of it’s own and you will likely end up calling/texting or worse, physically landing at the guy who dumped you and is getting married’s window and throwing stuff at his window as he and his future wife are having a snuggly night, and you might likely get arrested as sleeping neighbours of such guys are not usually empathetic about drunk cursing midnight delinquents, however heartbroken. Third, you will most likely wake up with a headache so bad that, let’s just say, it won’t be worth the momentary lapse of painful memories the night before.
4. Do not spend a penny on a dart board for your room and a print (or five) of the guy who dumped you and is getting married, and glue to make it the bull’s eye. With your abysmal aiming skills, his face will be peckless and the wall with the dart board, in your room, will be spotted after hours of your angry darting practice and you will only end up sleeping with two beaming reminder of your epic failures.
5. Do not bat your eyelids and ask out the next Ola Share person you land up with, on your way to the office. Rebounds, even after due-long-diligence, tend to be disasters. And  ola-share mates are statistically more likely to be miserable one-night standers, more mistakes in your endless list of mistakes. So heed to this instruction set, and do not use ola-share for atleast a week after the wedding, and if it is absolutely unavoidable, use headphones and goggles and avoid all interaction with new needy men.
6. Do not attempt to print the digital repository of your love life and burn it. Photographs in a pile do not catch fire and char, as easily as they show in the movies. Also, it is a fire hazard and not covered by your home insurance. Save paper, save fuel, save the globe. Even in your grief.
7. Do not spend your precious IT salary in Bangalore savings on a “solo globe trotting” tour to create fancy posts in fancy clothes with fancy food at fancy places. The guy who dumped you and is getting married, is getting legally laid now and couldn’t care less. And no, he will not regret dumping you just because you photoshopped a hundred thousand clicks and spent a fortune. Save your money and your social media feed for fighting the right wing propaganda. That way, your life will be less meaningless.
8. Do not start a blog with a fancy name and definitely not “…on the rocks .com” or  “…musings.com” or “…wanderings.com”. Rants from broken hearts again, go into the deep dark bottomless belly of the internet and no one really cares. Any likes you get will be likes of pity and no, he will not read the blog and realize his colossal mistake and cancel his wedding. Get real girl. If words had that power, we wouldn’t have so many writers in the corridors of the Bellandur-Sarjapur high-rises, coding python and java and selling softwares.
9. Do not send a letter highlighting the various vices (like drinking, smoking weed, eating live octopuses and being a Kamasutra fan) of the guy, who dumped you and is getting married, to his to-be in-laws. Indian Postal Service does not work as per your schedule. And who reads letters these days anyways. Again, save tears, save paper, save the globe.
10. Do not dress-up and end up at his wedding with a practiced encore of “Channa mereya”…That crap did not work for a drop dead gorgeous Ranbir Kapoor. So you, my dear regular broken heart, have no chance. Stay home. Stay safe. Save the globe.

**This piece was written as part of writeclub bangalore’s session on Absurdity in writing.