When Love Fails, Go Big or Go Billboard
Ah, this is where we are now in the golden age of performative heartbreak. You can’t just crawl into a dark corner with a bottle of bourbon and your regrets—you have to announce your failure. Publicly. Loudly. Love isn’t truly dead until you’ve rented a giant slab of billboard space and slapped your humiliation on it for the morning commuters. “Hey everyone, look at me! I’m single and properly miserable! Please form a line to judge.”
Who invented this nonsense? Is there a tribunal of smug Instagram sages sitting in judgment, deciding how long we’re supposed to marinate in self-pity before we’re granted permission to move on? And why does everyone have such strong opinions about the “correct” timeline for heartbreak? If you rebound too soon, you’re cold-hearted. If you take your time, you’re a sad sack who can’t let go. No matter what, you’re screwing it up.
And then there’s the grief parade. Oh, they love the grief parade. “Make sure you process your emotions. Grow from this. Reflect on who you are.” Screw that noise. Growth is for houseplants. I won’t journal my way into the Hallmark Channel’s idea of emotional healing. I’m going to move on like a normal, messy human—probably severely, possibly drunk, and almost definitely in ways that make someone roll their eyes. And guess what? That’s fine.
But fine. If the world demands a billboard, if it’s so desperate for me to scream my failure from the rooftops, then sure, I’ll give them a sign. I’ll give them the billboard they’re salivating for. But it won’t be some flowery apology or some sad-ass inspirational quote. No, my billboard will be simple, brutal, and straight to the point. Just plain white, big black letters:
“IT DIDN’T WORK OUT.”
There. That’s your public service announcement. Read it, nod, and move along—just like I’m going to. No groveling. No explanations. No TED Talk about how I’ve grown as a person. Because life’s too goddamn short to waste time putting my failures on display for a world that can’t even figure out how to live its own damn life. Let them clutch their pearls. I’ve got places to be.
-JB-
