News just in. According to sheleft.me (a website for newly-dumped men, which I'm not linking to for a reason - you really don't want to know), it takes women six days to dump someone – as opposed to men, who take a month to mull over the decision. Three quarters (77 per cent) of women would end things with a brief, frank chat, believing a 'short sharp shock' is less painful than a long, drawn-out process. Most men meanwhile prefer to take their time planning their approach, with 88 per cent believing a 'careful exit strategy' would be less upsetting for their partners.
Speaking as a woman who once chucked a boyfriend of three years less then 12 hours after deciding it wasn’t working, I get this. If a relationship’s not working, what’s the point of agonising over it?
But even I’ll admit that 12 hours might be a little bit too fast. Here's how the six days before your average break up will probably go…
Day one
One day you’ll look at your beloved and out of nowhere, when you’ll least expecting it, you’ll loathe everything about him. It might be the poppy seeds he’s got stuck in his teeth, it might be the fact that he got Bulgaria and Belgium confused while you were watching the Eurovision Song contest, or maybe he’ll turn his head to a certain angle and you’ll suddenly realise why all his friends call him Shrek. You’ll try and suppress this thought as soon as it pops into your head, but it’s pretty much game over. Sorry.
Day two
You wake up feeling optimistic and happy about your relationship – all poppy seeds and lack of basic geographic knowledge forgotten. And then your boyfriend leaves a wet towel on the bathroom floor – as he has done every morning for the last two years. Instead of finding it adorable, you barely get out of the flat without smothering him to death with it. You go to work in a rage and find yourself almost mindlessly signing up to Tinder during your lunch break. You eat dinner in silence while you Whatsapp your best friend and grind your teeth.
**Day three **
Your concerned friend takes you out for a drink, which is a relief because the sound of your boyfriend’s voice has started to set your teeth on edge. You spend 90 minutes listing all the ways you hate him while your friend pours white wine down your throat. You then engage in a brief, sexually-charged Tinder conversation with a man called Mark. He’s about 200% times more attractive than the sort of guys you normally end up with, and you assume this is what life as a single woman would now be like for you – all hot men and furtive, pissed sexting. Mark tries to get you to meet him for a drink, but you bottle it, puke into your own lap on the tube, and then cry as your boyfriend hoses you down in the shower.
**Day four
**Riddled with hangover, guilt and gratitude, you resolve never to leave your boyfriend’s side again. This lasts until half-past four in the afternoon, when he misspells the word aubergine in a text message. You go dizzy with rage.
Day five
You’ve finally resolved to end your relationship, just…. not right this second. For some reason you take your one nice handbag and your passport to work with you and hide them in your office drawer in case things get ugly. You call your mum at lunchtime and tell her you’re planning to do. She gracefully neglects to point out that eight days ago you called up to say your soon-to-be-ex was The One. But she does have a little cry when you tell her you’ll be staying on a friend’s sofa for the forseeable. Once you’ve hung up you feel better than you have done in days.
Day six
It’s D Day. You’re resolved. Now you’ve made your mind up, you don’t really hate your boyfriend any more, but you know you can’t stay with him. You were planning to wait until the evening to talk to him, but you decide that you can’t wait any more and blurt it out while he’s getting dressed for work. Breaking his heart while he’s wearing one sock, a t-shirt and no pants isn’t ideal, but you know it’s for the best. You leave 30% of your stuff behind, shed a little tear, and resolve to stay in touch. At your friend’s house that evening, you change your Facebook status to single, sign up to six online dating sites and spend three hours carefully curating the pictures on your Tinder account. Six weeks and nine unsucessful dates later later you see a picture of your now-ex on Facebook with a girl who looks eerily like you. You throw your phone at the wall.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.