Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill! Should We Get Revenge on Ex-Lovers?

Have you ever been jilted, treated terribly, or abused by your significant other? How should you handle the post-break-up trauma after escaping from these types of relationships? Do you clean up and move on with your life or do you get back at your ex?

In the words of the immortal bard,

Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind,
And makes it fearful and degenerate;
Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.

In modern English, seek revenge.

I once had a co-worker describe me as the girl with short hair and repressed anger. The hair comment was a low blow because I am rather jealous of women who can grow their hair long because I get split ends past my shoulders. I kicked him in the balls, knocked him down onto a coffee table, and then crunched his balls for a second opinion. He changed his mind about that repressed anger thing.

But he did have a point. Dating me is like trying to give a wolverine a bath. I'm feisty, temperamental, childish, terretorial, and I will turn on you at the drop of a hat if I think you're screwing me over.

Why then would you want to date me? Other than the facts that I am really, really good looking and fuck like a muppet drummer (which is really all men care about), I firmly believe in the gift of freedom and respect to the men I date. They have the right to tend to their own lives and make their own choices and I'm not interested in getting involved in someone else's daily angst. Live your own life. Save yourself.

But this gift isn't unconditional. All I expect in return is that people clean up their lives before getting emotionally involved with me. Bury the memory of your ex-girlfriend. Cure your psychiatric illness. Settle your affairs. I can fit my life into two suitcases: I don't need someone else's baggage.

I've found that people will sacrifice everything to pursue pipedreams or to have their cake and eat her too.

I dated a schizophrenic man. The mentally ill are hardcore examples of social dysfunction that is present in everyone. The mentally ill have impenetrable defense mechanisms where they can act as irresponsibly as they want and never have to make amends because they are sick, clueless as to how much damage they inflict to people stupid enough to love them. I learned how to do a backward bridge like a gymnist putting up with my schizo's problems and when the time came for me to kick him in the balls, he chose to follow the path of his illness rather than put it aside to save our relationship. He left me with nothing but the maudlin culpability of having no one to blame but myself.

When I heard that he had moved on and had began dating someone else, I was furious. My relationship with him cost me my health, my job, and my apartment, and as much as I knew he would simply inflict the same scars on to his new victim, there was an insecure part of me that laid awake painfully wondering if perhaps I was the problem. What if he does find happiness with someone else?

And then I remembered more words from that immortal bard:

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

A person in love doesn't have to qualify that feeling. Neither does a person who contemplates revenge. There is nothing to think about and thinking about the moral implications of revenge becomes a Catch-22 moral trap, sacrificing yourself as a sad mind and fearful degenerate to remain honorable to someone who betrayed you. There is nothing to do but seek revenge and damn yourself, if need be.

My bold schizo boy, in the words of the Frankenstein monster, I will be with you on your wedding night, when the padre proclaims, "speak now or forever hold your peace," I will be standing in the aisle with a taser and hard copies of your dirty secrets. Ah, not just in the movies.

Anything to an extreme is unhealthy but not necessarily the thing in itself. Love can be just as disastrous as revenge if handled badly. 'Tis not the revenge but the mind that enacts it.

A proper revenge is the ultimate high, higher than absinthe and opera, higher than a flapjack and a cigarette at a mom and pop diner three o'clock am in the rain.

I came across a website that was against getting even with your ex. Let me go over what this tofu-sucker had to say because his website looked like something shat out by an automatic writing html program with no common sense or genitalia:

You might regret it in the end. I doubt it. That's what cognitive dissonance is for. Part of revenge is pursuing necessary closure and compensation. You're not seeking revenge out of spite but rather to settle affairs. Is it so wrong to seek compensation? Is it right to deny someone closure or compensation?

You are only prolonging your agony and hurting yourself. I kind of agree with this statement because hanging around in the memorial of an old relationship only continuously stirs up bad feelings. I've had this happen where for maybe a couple years after a bad relationship ended, I kept having to damage control the fallout of that relationship and it stirred up all the old pains. When I finally refocused my mindset from mourning to revenge, I finally smiled again. It gave me a goal in life.

You have other outlets to get over your ex. Like what? Sublimation? Isn't sublimation a psychological term for not getting what you want? It's still a defense mechanism. Stop sublimating and get what you want. To thine own self be true, even if you're a total psycho like I am.

Move on with your life. Wow! That's good advice! Why didn't I think of that? That is such an abusive thing to say to people: "get over it." Obviously something is preventing people from getting over it. Say it, Shakespeare:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

Donald Trump states in his autobiography that when we suffer outrageous misfortunes, that a strong person will recover rather than sulk and whine. I agree. Trump also says to hold a grudge against those people who caused your misfortune and screw them over the minute you can. It's a necessary statement. Why is revenge necessarily contra to moving on? Revenge is moving on.

You’ll end up making yourself look bad. One might argue that the person who jilted you made you look bad already and you are honorbound to save face. Remember the Trojan War: Menelaus had to destroy Troy because the Trojans made him look like a fool and threatened to dethrone his seat of power. You may think, "I don't care what other people think about me": so, you're okay with them laughing at you behind your back? If you don't care what they think about you then why should that stall your revenge? Besides, revenge is best kept anonymous.

Why should you want to get even with a loser in the first place? Good point. Who's the real loser: my schizo boy or me for dating him? I take pleasure in knowing that my ex's will more than likely ruin their future relationships like they did mine with theirs, but every so often I catch word of an ex who is achieving some success. One of my ex's just got into a PhD program and posted pictures of him and his new girlfriend linked to his professional website. That's enough of that. Some people need a good shot-down to remind them that they're not acting right.

Forgive and forget. I forgive people easily. Anyone who apologizes will get my forgiveness. But pardon me, doesn't an apology mean that you'll stop what you're apologizing for? Many apologies are hollow and people return back to their original behavior as soon as the coast is clear. My schizo boy had an acute attack on me and I left. When he came back and apologized and explained the situation, I gave him a second chance. A month later I had to kick him in the balls because he was still schizing out and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it. He left. How sorry was he? When I was in the 12th grade, my boyfriend brutally broke up with me so I set his and his twin brother's lockers on fire (his brother was an accident -- I couldn't tell them apart and burned the wrong locker) and then told him I'd keep going until he apologized. That may sound scary but everyone who knew what was going on gave me a round of applause because they knew the fucker deserved it from more than me. He apologized. I knew he was sorry because I made him sorry.

On Granola World, hearts never get broken. People never cry. Cowboys never cheat on you with other men. All relationships end on peaceful terms with a sense of closure. Here in the real world, relationships end not with common courtesy but simply end however they might fall. Don't you think that you should get closure and compensation from those who have hurt you? When is that going to happen? We have to live in the world as it is rather than the world as it should of be. What's the difference between lack of closure and revenge? Both are wrong. Both happen.

If you are planning your revenge, here are some guidelines:

1. Make your revenge a goal in life, not your life. The best revenge is to move on with your life and be succesful. There will always be insecurity in revenge and make sure that getting even isn't about sating wrathful intentions but about settling your affairs. You might spend a lifetime waiting for a single moment of revenge that will never come. Don't waste your life. Make your revenge a business plan and leave your work at the office.

2. Take a chill pill and take your time. Never seek revenge in a moment of fury. Plan with clarity and detail. Crimes of passions always have bad results. You need to be methodical and enjoy the pleasure of bad thoughts. Give your ex time to forget about you. Give him time to relax. People also gain more assets (to lose) as they grow older; a mortgage, a business, and a marriage. My ex cost me a relationship, my job, and my apartment. I'll gladly wait ten years to return the favor with interest.

3. Keep your anonymity. Why risk retaliation for the pleasant thought of them knowing it's you? It's actually much more staisfying when they don't know. I believe it's called dramatic irony.

4. Keep an eye on your ex. With Google and Facebook and MySpace, there are so many ways of keeping an eye of your ex, most of them creepy, but hey, what can I say? Keep track of what your ex is doing. The more you know, the more opportunities will show up for getting even. My one ex plays guitar at a local cafe. I wonder how well he'd perform if I were to suddenly show up in the audience. Anyone care to join me for some green tea?

5. Plan your battles. Don't go for a flesh wound when you can go for the kill. When I heard one of my ex's was dating again, I was fuming mad. I thought about stepping in and ending that silliness, but I took a step back and am going to wait until the wedding announcement, when it may come. As part of this idea, learn to enact small revenges at the most inopportune time, particularly when people are under high stress or happy. Birthdays, graduation ceremonies, holidays, the beginning or end of a college semester, etc. These are good times to show off small acts of anonymous revenge to add a little extra stress to your ex's life. Revenge can be like a lever: it only takes a little effort to produce immense results. Next time your ex's birthday comes around, play havoc with half a dozen little shows of anonymous affection and then back off until Thanksgiving.

Here is an awesome website that has everything you need to get even: The Avenger.

Wrap it up for me, immortal bard:

Should he make me
Live, like Diana's priest, betwixt cold sheets,
Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,
In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.

Being in Love versus Falling in Love, or Maybe the Art of Banishing

When a new relationship starts, losing yourself is real easy.

Since I am an island, I don't know how other people respond to being in love. Although I admit there's that thrill like being on a roller coaster, I've always felt unbearably anxious, like I was making a life-long investment in something so important that if I were to lose that person, my world would end in one crushing blow.

Earlier in my relationships I was an anxious mess and I am still fighting my breakdown instincts. All sorts of neurotic thoughts would run 'round my head: will he call back? am I making a fool out of myself? what do I do if he...?

I dated a Cancer who was ridiculously slow and passive-aggressive, and even though (or because) I am part Cancer, the Leo in me gets perturbed at how cautious we Cancers are, like a new driver who can't move forward in a busy intersection because she's too busy looking both ways and checking every entry point, and meanwhile the coast is clear and the traffic is backing up. Anyhow, I was worrying about losing my Cancer boy so much that during one office meeting lunch break, they threw me out of the meeting room because I was pacing like a lion in a cage and making the other people stir-crazy. I went into the bathroom, curled up in a dirty corner, and cried. Oh woe was I!

Perhaps women are more susceptible to this type of co-dependent anxiety. Even though we'd like to believe we're in the post-feminist revolution where women are working moms, too many a woman is still raised with the attitude that her identity is dependent upon her ability to maintain an intimate relationship.

When I hear a woman just rattle off about her boyfriend or even mention one in any indiscriminate side-manner, I just flare my right nostril in disgust. Perhaps this is a dark reaction formation of some inner self-hatred and dependency. But I flare both nostrils at working women who throw themselves into an impossibly ironclad corporate working schedule and brush it off by saying, "I don't have the time for a man in my life." A healthy psyche should be able to balance both a family and a job.

Perhaps people don't really know what they want from a relationship? Is love supposed to be forever? That's what I've heard growing up, but I've found it's not healthy to plan your marriage on the first date. Do we just discard a relationship the minute we feel wrong? What is life like under this new 21st-century philosophy: "get a new one"? Are new relationships just about going out and having a good time? Well, isn't that a friendship then? Relationships need to have that thing call sex or passion to them and there lies the emotional danger: the emotional needs of a relationship. What do we need? What do we want?

I still get the anxiety but I tend to Banish these thoughts. The term Banishing originally applies to a ritual that Dr. Strange-type magicians do in order to prevent themselves from getting lost in all the entheogenic craziness with which they're involved. Banishing usually involves something simple and everyday to ground the magician into the real world. When God appears to John Denver's character in Oh, God!, God tells Denver's character to continue shaving: it would make him feel more normal. Shaving, making breakfast, making the bed, taking a walk, breathing deeply, yoga, all of these are Banishing rituals to help the anxious person find their center of control again.

I've been doing a lot of Banishing lately. I had a brief fling with another Aries -- and that's all Aries is good for -- and I had to Banish every morning to deal with his obnoxiously independent and aggressively dysfunctional personality. I'd take my morning walk, make breakfast, do my work, clean up, and by then he would either get in touch with me and continue our relationship for another day or I would simply not care as to whether I heard from him at all.

I wasn't crying on the floor anymore. Another few Aries or perhaps another Cancer and I think I'll finally get ahold of myself.

What are some Banishing modes of thought that have worked well to bring me away from my bathroom melodramas to a more functional state of mind?

1. Presume that all relationships are short term. Don't plan your wedding on the first date. Don't get yourself involved in long term plans. Most relationships will fail. It's not a sign of incompetence on your part but simply the name of the game. Relationships are experimentation and some couples just aren't right. Presume that it won't last. Now you can relax. You don't have the pressure of making it work or last. You don't have to keep it up forever.

2. Presume at the end of each day that you have completely screwed up the relationship and that the relationship is over. Oh well, better luck next time. Don't set yourself up for the possible letdown of "will he call back?" Presume that he won't, like a job interview: you go on one interview and when that is done, you go to another. You don't wait around for them to call back. If the person does get back to you then you have a pleasant surprise. You'll find that after awhile you'll actually find the person annoying because they keep coming back!

3. Never rearrange your schedule to accomodate a date. Chances are that date won't happen and you'll end up with an empty weekend. I can think of at least three cases. I was with my Cancer boy and I kept my Sundays open for him. Then he suddenly disappeared (which Cancers are known to do) and I was left holding my Sundays open for nothing for close to a month. The only reason I stopped waiting was because my family was planning my (then alive) mother's birthday and they said, "hey, Kristen has her Sundays open so we'll schedule the party on a Sunday so she can come." A couple years later, when faced with a choice to date my second Aries boy or to do an open house, I did the open house and right on cue, if I hadn't I would've had another empty Sunday. As a side note, I took a Sunday off afterwards for my Aries boy and we broke up the Wednesday before.

4. Don't take an available date just because you desperately need to spend time with someone. I've had a couple dates where I just needed to spend time with my guy but it just wasn't a good idea. One time my Cancer guy was having some serious problems and suggested we rearrange our date. I said, no, no, I can do it. Big mistake! You ever see a Cancer and a Leo (with Cancer tendencies) fight?! It would have been better to have postponed the date...

5. Keep dates simple. My Aries boy loved video games, particularly Crash Bandicoot so for his birthday I was making plans to rent out a hotel room, rent a large screen tv and play station from Wal-Mart (renting from Wal-Mart means buying the stuff and then returning it later) and then throwing a party. It would've cost me close to $2000 and a lot of work. That party never happened, thank God, and never will, thank God. If you go in with this type of mentality, you'll get burned out and stressed and possibly stood up.

6. Plan dates for yourself and then include your companion. I may be old-fashioned but I used to believe that dating meant actually going out and doing stuff, but my past couple experiences have involved a couple weeks scheduling the date and then having a lame date then never seeing the person again. The dates are lame because too many people plan dates simply for the purpose of going out and seeing someone rather than for entertaining themselves. It's like being hungry for tacos and eating burritos. No matter how many burritos you eat, you get fat but never filled because you wanted a taco! If I'm dating someone, I want to go out and do stuff -- stuff that I normally don't spend the time to do outside of a relationship because when I'm single I tend to sacrifice my social life for making money. A new relationships makes me refocus on having fun but I never actually do what I wanted to do. I wanted to check out this type of Portuguese restaurant called a churrascaria which is like a meat market with reportedly symbiotically excellent service. When am I going to get to go to one, Aries boy! Instead, I take that list and do it with or without him. If he happens to be available then he can come along. It's a good time to re-evaluate my life's experiences.

If you're thinking that I'm playing games, yeah, I probably am. Playing games is a part of life. Successful people learn how to play the game instead of complaining about the game. People who say they don't want to play games anymore are usually the first to get hit by this stupid statement. My sister almost lost my brother-in-law because she told him that she didn't want to play anymore games, so he proposed very early in their relationship and she ran away from him!

If you want to troll me and call me insecure, you'd probably be right. But I've found that "insecure" is a word that abusive people use to blame the victim. What, I'm suspicious of you because I keep seeing you with this blushing grin on your face txting people? I must be insecure thinking you're cheating on me. What, I don't like the idea of an open relationship where you can go around and screw other women? I must be insecure. What, I don't want to dress up like a French maid and have a lesbian tickle my fancy while you video tape it? I must be insecure.

I like bad guys, I admit, and whenever I think I've met someone different, it ends up being another big ol' mess. I need to keep my distance from these guys until I see their intent. My first Cancer boy was a bad deal. My second Cancer boy was a bad deal. My third Cancer boy was the moodiest bastard I'd ever dated and pulled away whenever I started respecting him, but I have to give him credit for being a good man. The first two I needed to Banish to protect myself, the third, to save my relationship.

And yes, there's always the chance of me driving them away. But I've found it's the opposite: these Banishing thoughts will give you your own life and people actually admire an independent person.

I actually don't mind falling in love. It's hitting the bottom that really hurts.

Long Term Plans in Dating

Never, ever make the suggestion that you are in a relationship for the long run. Guys can be like Gremlins -- no matter how much they beg and scream, never, ever feed them after midnight -- guys (yes, and us ladies, too) will try all sorts of ways to trick you into revealing long term plans. The dirtiest trick is when they trick you into a comfort zone where you think that they too are making long term plans but they're not: they're just pretending in order to trick you into revealing yourself.

I got caught at least twice that I remember. The first time he said, "we'll have time to talk about that [the personal topic of our conversation] later" and boom, the minute I thought he was a stayer he was gone like silver spoons. Another time one guy started prompting me into getting more involved in planning our dates so I rattled off a list of about a dozen things I wanted to do. The next day his schedule suddenly became really tight: "We can't go out on Fridays and Saturdays anymore." Translation: he was sleeping with someone else. I made the situation even more claustrophobic with him by responding to his "we can't go out on Fridays and Saturdays anymore" by saying "yeah, I'll think about that."

Why are long term plans bad in a relationship? Because people need desperately to feel free in their relationships. Once they get that feeling that the casual enjoyment that they're having for free with no obligations is going to start costing them, then they feel trapped. It's fight or flight and they run.

What are the solutions:

1. Never, ever reveal long term plans, no matter how safe it seems.

2. Take each date one at a time and never suggest the possibility of another date until after an obligatory waiting period.

3. Don't rush things. Instead of forcing him or her into a relationship, become a need in their life so that they give you what you want rather than you having to ask for it. That's a topic for another blog.