So you've just split up with the love of your life/summer/week, and you're heart broken. I get it. I've been there. OK, let's be real: I am there, and so are many, many twentysomethings in this world. Heartbreak happens.
For some of us that means pulling on our old sweatpants, queuing up the Netflix and moping for a few weeks.
But for others, being heartbroken leads to a more permanent kind of pathetic existence, where those sweatpants become appropriate bar-going attire and every drink comes with a dash of bitter. We obsess, we drunk dial, we burn effigies. We become exaholics*.
Well now there's an app for that, or more accurately a website aptly named "Exaholics," for those ready to admit they are addicted to their exes and want to start getting sober. The website, which takes itself very seriously, provides users with 12 steps to get over an ex, including a useful count of days since last ex exposure. It also has group forums, live chats and feature articles from professionals. Exaholics are encouraged to make profiles detailing their breakups and their goals for the future, much like giant group therapy online.
I get why some people think the site is weird. Traditional wisdom says overindulging in sad time is not how you properly get over a person. (That is done through bourbon and country music.) It can make people uncomfortable to be so open about emotions, and, yet, the site has more than 3,000 members already. After registering myself -- for research purposes, obviously -- I get why.
The forums are filled with people asking legitimate questions about how to deal with the universal pain of love lost. People ask how to deal with an ex on social media, whether or not they should keep having sex with an ex and why they can't stop thinking about their ex while brushing their teeth. More often than not people don't answer the questions but simply tell users, "You're normal for having these feelings, and I have them, too." That seems to be all most people need to hear, that they are normal and that they are in good company in their loneliness.
In the throes of a break-up, friends get sick of hearing endless high-browed ruminations over PBR about the root causes of the breakup. Just last week, my mom told me to either get over my ex or get under someone else, because in her words, "Eee gads Nik, I'm sick of hearing about it." Our loved ones can only be expected to put up with so much of our navel-gazing griping. But out there in the ether is an entire community of sad sacks who would love to analyze your ex's latest text and give you emotion-affirming key strokes.
To be honest, after 20 minutes on exaholic.com, I realized I'm not a true ex-addict. I don't idolize, routinely stalk or have a nervous breakdown at the thought of loving someone else. I'm more of a social binger of my exes, who wakes up in the morning with a regret-hangover vowing to never date again ... until I do. But I'm comforted knowing that if my next love ends in heartbreak, too, I know I have lonelyTeacher45 or RoseWithThorns to chat with on exaholics.com.
* I want to be clear that I don't believe you can actually be addicted to an ex in the same way you can be addicted to alcohol or cocaine or whatever the new cool addictive drug Miley Cyrus is currently taking. Being addicted to a substance is a chemical addiction, being addicted to a person or thing is a process addiction. They are different in the ways they affect our bodies. Either way though, they both suck, and they both require a crap-ton of work to overcome them.
Niki Fritz is a RedEye special contributor.
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