Moving on: a special request for a topic

Listen, Bill, there is some sunshine when she's gone. Having said that, I agree with the notion, the feeling, the sentiment and your choice of background music. So what happens when you are on the other side of Paul Simon's advice? What if one of the 50 ways to leave was not yours, but instead your lover's exit strategy?

But, of course, love is a strong sentiment. Fine, you don't love him or her (probably for the best since we are discussing him or her leaving), then what do you do? You miss him or her.

I miss you. Well, not you specifically, but the idea of you. I miss the memories with you. I miss the good times, but I'm not entirely convinced that I miss YOU.

I was asked to write this article about my methodology for moving on and getting over someone. After some consideration, I realized that I have no method. Even the tried-and-true drink-it-off strategy that Tony Starks, Matthew Murdock and so many women on this campus have attempted fails to strike me as a successful method.

The other side of the Westhampton Lake suggested that the best way to move on is to just keep it moving. Haven't we all seen someone upset about his or her significant other go ahead and take Swizz Beatz's advice and get "on to the next one"? When is a random hook-up not satisfying and empowering?

Once, I had a girl leave my bed and I thought as she walked out of the door, "Placeholder." How awful is that? Feel free to judge me if you haven't done something similar. But just because that particular wording may not have crossed your mind doesn't mean you haven't used someone as a placeholder. So, yeah, you "without sin," please put down that stone.

Destruction is always a fun way to deceive yourself into thinking you have moved on. Smash a watermelon with a hammer. Gallagher made it funny, but you can make it cathartic.

But, if you are going to destroy something, I recommend you begin with pictures. No need to put them in the trash bin and light the whole damned thing on fire, but they cannot be staring you in the face. You'd be better off with a Brand New poster on your wall anyways. Who got that joke? If you got it, you know my method.

Did you not get it? Well, because the word is so inaccurately and haphazardly used anyways, allow me to use it in the manner that would make sense to you. If you're going to be "emo" about your poor, broken heart, then a matching poster of an emo band might nicely fill the space on the wall that you've just cleared of so many memories. The punch line for that joke didn't really pay off.

Oh well, just listen to some music. There is my method in its entirety. I can't honestly recommend it to you without some caveats though. Ne-Yo accurately depicts a familiar relationship that people have with music and significant others. But we aren't always "So Sick" of love songs.

The danger in music is the power it has to affect you. Some of my strongest feelings for a certain young woman are only apparent when I listen to one particular band, so I avoid it in my shuffle like the plague. Having said that, I would never delete any of the band's discography. There are too many good thoughts attached to the music to simply throw them away with the bad thoughts.

Wait - I think I've lied to you. Music is not my method. Acceptance, that's my game plan each and every time. I'm beginning to think it is everyone's method. The method is just lost in the madness of individual modes of cognition. How do you accept? That is probably what you are asking me, but I asked first! Take some time to think about your answer. Get back to me on it.

I was always told that you have to take the good with the bad; but, in situations when you are sad and longing for someone who no longer longs for you, I think it's quite the opposite. You must take the bad with the good. Unless your relationship (at whatever degree) was proportionately more bad than good, then you've come out ahead.

Now that you've had some fun, learned some things about yourself and (I hope) gotten some physical satisfaction during your time with him or her, it is time to accept that you were lucky enough to have good times. It is not yet the time to stop having good times.

S/He broke up with you/stopped hooking up with you/removed your relationship status on Facebook. Word. Accept that these things have their time and if you enjoyed most of that time, then you have won in the game of life.

The payoff for relationships is a lot like the payoff from the (board) game of Life. You spin the wheel, someone comes along briefly for the ride and some things happen. Eventually the game (and relationship) is done. That's it.

I hope you are playing with someone who will make the ride enjoyable while it lasts. If you had a blast, then you have no reason to be sad when it's finished. It's time for another go-round when you are ready.

Don't placehold; not with a temporary person, not with the numerous pictures you never looked at so much before because s/he was still around, not with the hundreds of thousands of songs that all remind you of how sad you are without him or her and not with any drug (alcohol and sex included).

Accept that you had a good time, that you are older and wiser for it and that it is done. Just hurry the hell up so I don't have to hear about it anymore.