Breaking up sucks.

It's kind of an inevitable consequence of Western dating. You'll break up with just about everyone you don't marry, and assuming that you're like most people and take a while to find the person of your dreams, you're going to be in broken-up relationships an awful lot. Either you're the one doing the breaking up or you're being broken up with.

Even if both parties feel the same about the matter (and usually they don't), the one who is actually initiating the breakup usually gets the short end of the stick unless the relationship was simply wholly undesirable. The break-upper has to get up the balls to figure out that long-term it's worth the pain and suckiness of ending something nice, then has to go and injure someone that they've (presumably) taken somewhat of a liking to.

So the point is basically to spend some time to get to know someone and care about them and have them care about you, and then for one of you to hurt the other and have the two of you never speak again. (The whole "let's just be friends" euphemism is only rarely applied.)

What I've found surprising about the breakup process is that the one who is broken up with tends to recover from the whole ordeal much more quickly than the one breaking up with the other. This is because, like a slap, they can feel the sting and then get over it. From their perspective, there is nothing they could have changed; one deals with a breakup like one deals with a tornado. Whereas the slapper, unless wholly unethical, has to deal with the guilt of having ended something nice and hurting the other. Regret strikes only the terminator, since for them, the breakup was not necessarily inevitable - it was their own action that did it!

All-in-all, it's a system that causes quite a bit of pain and callousness. Many people are so injured by the process that they lose sight of (and desire for) the end - a life partner. Many of my friends simply aren't interested in getting married, ever. They like going on dates and sleeping with people, but the idea of getting hitched to one person and fully vesting one's self emotionally just seems like ridiculous wagering.

I haven't lost sight of the goal myself. I imagine giving my wife a huge hug the night of my wedding and being like "I'm so glad it's all worked out! You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to meet you, but it's all worth it now."

In the interim, I'm just going to chill and enjoy myself and try to get myself a nice place to live.