This is how a heart breaks

Ever want something you didn't -- or couldn't -- have so badly that you could actually feel your heart breaking?

If so, welcome to the club.

Rules, playing fields and landmines

In the world of Waldorf (Santa treated this journalist to the second season of Gossip Girl), the ex who dates first is the one who wins.

But it's not winning when you date someone else or at least give dating someone else a shot and end up realizing that while, yes, you can move on, you don't want to.

All I can think about is what I want and what I'm not getting. I'm not enjoying myself or living in the moment. I'm not sure anymore if I can open up to a new guy. And if I do, what pace should I take?

Guys are scared easily, from my experience, but if you decide to let things unfold naturally, and to open up as you feel comfortable, they want you to open up right away. I don't know.

The thing is all about rules... When there are no rules, the playing field's riddled with landmines and the players, taking their lives into their hands.

I can understand why a player would wish to return to known territory. I mean, it's not exactly in my war plans. Just saying, I can understand why.

Q's Without A's

Are there any guarantees of a relationship's success?

Some relationships start out perfectly -- or as close to perfection as you can imagine (and let's admit, the beginnings of relationships are generally looked upon as having been perfect by the end) -- and end badly. Or even just fade; the fading of a relationship is worse than a bad ending. At least that's how I look at it. When two people let their relationship just dissolve, will they ever have closure? I'm beginning to fear not.

And what does this mean for a new relationship?

This is the sad tune I'm playin'

Here's part of the email I sent to my best friend:

I'm tired of being a fly on the wall at social events. I'm tired of being the girl who cries by the end of the night because she feels SO lonely. I've never been the girl who needed a boyfriend... But I am now. Because the more I'm left alone in my head, the more crazed and unlovable I become. I'm sick. Like I really feel emotionally sick, if that makes any sense.

I'm sorry I'm not really elaborating... I just don't have the ability to put the reasons and feelings into words (beyond these) at the moment...

Yeah I really can't explain further at the moment.

There's a reason I feel this way but does the reason matter?

If there were a breakup manual, a "Dump Him for Dummies," it would probably include a step where you send all of his stuff back to him. It happens in all the movies and my friends always send things back to their boyfriends when relationships end.

What if you aren't so sure it is over? What if you did not want it to end, but you thought you had to to cut your losses? What if you're still in love and you still want him to be the first person to know every single minute detail about your day?

I am sure you guessed it but yes, I am talking about me.

What a happy Thanksgiving it was. I broke up with my boyfriend.

He says he didn't see it coming. I had. For weeks, we had barely been in touch. I was wrapped up in my school work and writing and who knows what he was wrapped up in? He sure wasn't keeping me up to date. I felt like I was doing all the work in our relationship. And it got to the point where I wondered what I had done wrong, why he didn't seem to care anymore.

On Thanksgiving day, I decided I needed to be on my own. I made the choice that felt like the only right choice for me.

And god, was it hard. My mom said to do it like ripping off a Band-aid; quick and relatively painless.

There is no such thing as painless when a relationship comes to an end -- or at least a page break.

For a week now, I have wrestled every day with the urge to call him. Or Facebook him. Or IM him. Something, anything. Preferably to hear his voice.

But I do not know what he wants. As long as we were dating, we said that we would stay friends even if we broke up. Now I think that was just pillow talk, you know, those sweet things that give you hope while you're together but in the end have the same effect as lemon juice in a paper cut. It burns.

This part of my chest, the part where my heart is supposed to be, it burns.

I'm going to send him some of his things this weekend. Maybe, if I can work up the courage to even write a letter, I'll send a letter with the package that explains why I did what I did.

What the letter could not explain -- and what I have yet to figure out -- is whether I really miss him or am just lonely. It isn't that I don't care about him -- I really do love him -- but could the reason this hurts so much just be that without him, I don't know who will get me through this?

But since when does the reason behind the feelings matter more than the feelings themselves?