National Ex-Boyfriend Day: "Pour Yourself a Whiskey Neat and Move On"
As October 30th slowly approaches, we’ve seen an uptick in viewers for our article, "When Is National Ex-Boyfriend Day," and while Google and its built-in A.I. tool will tell you this day doesn’t exist, we’re here to have some fun and say, it does! The idea behind National Ex-Boyfriend Day is to contact your ex and get the closure you need to move on, but is this necessary? No. Women who need to go no-contact or require closure from a relationship are often the women who loved their boyfriend more than he loved her.
Simply put, there’s an old adage that goes: a man has to love his woman more for the relationship to work. We’ve talked about the differences between men and women in relationships, noting that it’s not necessarily fair that the average man can pursue and sweep an attractive woman off her feet in exchange for his resources, while women, on the other hand, have to choose who chooses them.
It’s almost as though, for women, having a physical type is unnecessary as long as he’s able to protect and provide. Women are expected to maintain their beauty throughout the relationship—something largely outside their control—whereas men can choose to be high- or low-income earners simply by pursuing education or advancing in their careers. The playing field is not even, and despite feminist movements, it never will be.
According to Twitter user @ChuGailx, "Men have two things over women, and that’s why they’ll always be ahead. And it’s not their physical strength or their nonexistent logic. It’s audacity and self-preservation. Women need to stop rationalizing, explaining, or justifying their choices. Acknowledge that you made them because, at the time, it made sense to you and move on. Mistakes? Fix them. Regrets? Pour yourself a whiskey neat and move on!"
She goes on to say, "Men will choose themselves every day. Choose yourself too. He wants full custody? Hand that child over to him and buy a plane ticket. He doesn’t want the pregnancy? Know that it’s your child to have. He is now dead. If he wants the child and you don’t, fetus deletus. At the end of the day, it’s your body, your time, and your energy. Pick you, choose you, decide for you! Do what works for you! Be audacious, practice self-preservation, and screw shame, for the love of God!" There’s so much to unpack here, but we couldn’t agree more.
Let’s talk about it.
Those looking forward to National Ex-Boyfriend Day are most likely going no-contact with an ex, but the thing about this practice is that it’s only good or necessary in theory. The average man is not waiting around for a holiday, your birthday, or some other special moment to get back in touch with you once the relationship has ended. The two of you ended things for a reason.
While it’s not uncommon for women to ruminate on past relationships and create scenarios in their minds that did not exist—simply because they want the person they love to be the version of themselves she created—it’s very unhealthy. This is no different from someone who is in a parasocial relationship with a celebrity. When it’s revealed that this celebrity is a piece of shit human, many fans are left devastated and heartbroken. But the truth is, you never really knew them. You knew a version of themselves that they presented to you or the world—deemed acceptable—whereas behind closed doors or once they’ve gotten what they want, they let the mask slip and move on with their lives.
As Chu mentioned, women have to practice the art of self-preservation. But make no mistake, self-preservation is not exclusive to men; women can exhibit these traits too, depending on individual experiences, personality, and context. The problem is that the average woman will leave herself vulnerable for the right man or the man she perceives as such. Men, on the other hand, are not going into relationships, marriages, and even parenthood believing that they need to be more vulnerable.
Traditional masculinity in many cultures promotes self-preservation, which can be interpreted as selfishness and correlates with a man’s need to succeed. Men feel societal pressure to achieve and provide, which means they will climb over and on the backs of anyone in their path during this building stage to advance in their careers, finances, and personal goals. With limited emotional expression, this is seen as a coping mechanism for navigating the world around them—women can adopt this without facing any societal consequences.
In fact, most men prefer women who suppress their emotions, are empathetic, but remain logical. On average, when a man says he has to love the woman more, it means she cannot make him feel like his time and love are obligations that influence her emotions. If he doesn’t text you for four hours, are you going to text him back-to-back and call him multiple times? Do you get anxious, angry, or emotional quickly? If so, then it’s safe to say there is no man who will see a future with you.
Men are wired to protect themselves from emotional harm, and this could mean removing themselves from a relationship before there’s a chance that they could get hurt or refraining from contacting their ex for fear of rejection. Either way, women should consider taking a page from their book in this regard and stop cyberstalking your ex—this leads to their posts triggering emotional anxiety, snowballing into fallouts with friends and loved ones.
N.E.B.D. should be a day of celebration. So, grab your friends, go out for some cocktails, or attend one of our in-town events where you can paint, sip, and burn your ex’s belongings. It’s a day to celebrate your freedom and how far you’ve come in moving forward—taking accountability for your mistakes and bad decision-making. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable with other women because, for most of us, we’re all in the same boat. No one is perfect.
by Danielle Wright
