News-Record.com

I can only shake my head now at how completely I fell apart after what looks like such a short and low-intensity relationship. We dated from Thanksgiving to the end of our freshman year of college and I think we got together because our other dorm-floor friends thought we had a similar sense of humor.

We did what I think a lot of college freshmen do -- at least we had a lot of company: we drank a lot, played a lot of video games, astounded ourselves with our reflections on life, ate at the dining hall.

Around spring break, he started hanging out with another girl on our dorm floor. For a while our friends sort of pretended there was nothing going on, the three of us even hung out sometimes.

Then it was over and I fell completely apart.

I missed classes because I couldn't stop crying. I got something like rug-burn under my eyes from scrubbing away tears so often. I moped around campus inflicting my grief on everyone and I nurtured a furious hatred of this tiny, short blond girl for stealing my man.

Then we all went away for the summer and the next year we lived in different dorms and life pretty much went on.

I have better strategies now for dealing with break-ups. What are yours?