Breakups are hard for everyone involved, whether you're the one doing the breaking up or being broken up with. Even if it's platonic, or you weren't that into each other, it can be awkward or make you feel guilty for ending it. It's uncomfortable and then you have to deal with the repercussions of when/how to move on, if it's appropriate to start dating other people, or simply how long you're allowed to cry into your ice cream and watch romcoms in your pajamas all day.

I conducted ten interviews and all of the following situations are real breakups people have had. Some are funny, some are tragic. But they're accurate representations of what many of us have been through and what we can all relate to. But hey, at least it wasn't you.

1. The Drunken Agreement

“So I dated this guy for a week and he asked me to be his girlfriend when I was drunk and I regretted it the next day. I tried to make it work for a week and hated every second of it. So I decided that we had to break and texted him to come over and talk. He stalled for, like, two days. When he finally came over and rang the doorbell, I hid at the at the top of the stairs and had like a five-minute panic attack, walked outside, and immediately burst into a bit of nervous giggles. I leaned against the door for a minute saying, “Oh God, oh God,” until he finally asked what I wanted to talk about. Then I basically explained how I wasn’t really into a committed relationship right now and that he seemed a lot happier than I was. He spent a while desperately trying to convince me otherwise and then we parted ways.”

2. Not-so-serious, amicable breakup

“I dated a guy for about a month in high school and we weren’t that into each other but hanging out was fun. I eventually realized I wasn’t that into him but held out for a few days because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Then he texted me asking if we could talk after school and I knew what was going to happen. He started the spiel and I interrupted him saying, “You want to break up, too?” He looked both confused and excited and we amicably broke up, me with a grin on my face. I was about to walk away before he asked for a parting hug, which I reluctantly gave. The best part was that when a friend passed by saying that my ‘boyfriend’ was looking for me, I coyly smiled at her and asked, “What boyfriend?” before happily walking off. It sounds weird, but it was the friendliest breakup I’ve ever had.”

3. When friendship goes wrong

“The guy I was dating had his creepy twin texting me because I wouldn’t text him back right away. I gave my phone to my friend and she texted him something to effect of, “go away, I don’t like you anymore, kthanxbai.” It was horrible. I shouldn’t have given her my phone.”

4. The revenge plot

“I dated my boyfriend for three years in high school, but we broke up because he cheated on me. The breakup was hard and he started dating someone else right away and I was super mad. So his friends asked me to go to a party at their house and there they confirmed that he had cheated on me even though he had denied it. We played drinking games and had a lot of fun and then my ex-boyfriend’s best friend’s older brother asked me out. I thought, what a better way to get back at my ex. The problem was that I really didn’t find him attractive but my parents loved him. It was three days in and I was with my mom and my step dad and I told them that I was breaking up with him and they were so sad because my last boyfriend was such a jerk that they thought this new guy walked on water. But honestly, I had no feelings whatsoever, but he was such a nice guy…He came to the house, we walked to the park, we sat on a bench and he started talking about things we were going to do that week. And I said, “This isn’t going to work.” We slowly walked back to the house. I felt terrible. He felt terrible. My parents felt terrible. However, my old ex-boyfriend was super mad. I am a good person, but it felt good.”

5. The never ending breakup

“I had been friends with this guy for 3 years and we finally decided to try this together thing. We started hanging out and did almost every day for a month and when we weren't together we were usually texting. We spent every night at each other’s house. We also drank multiple nights a week, which looking back should have been a red flag. Then one night his ex texted his dad about his drinking and his mom saw the text and called him freaking out. He was super pissed and wanted me to call his ex to tell her to stay out of his life. I didn't want to do that but I told him to just ignore her. He ended up texting her saying "stay out of my life etc." and sent me a screen shot. I really didn't want him talking to her but at that point I figured there were no secrets. This was a Wednesday and I went back home for the weekend and invited him to come with but he had to work. That first night he was worried about how my drive was and even up to Saturday he still was talking to me the entire time. Then Sunday he was really distant which surprised me because we hadn’t seen each other in four days but figured he just had things going on. He was really weird on Monday, too and again I was like whatever. Finally, on Tuesday he was dropping off skates he had fixed for my roommate and was really weird and didn't come into the house so I texted him asking why he was so weird. He sent me a seven-page message about how he was going to get back with his ex. They had talked on Monday because she "begged" him to meet up and then he felt still something so he needed to see this through. I lost it. I was crying and so mad. I didn't talk to him for a month, ignored any texts from him, and then I finally responded to one thinking I could still be friends. We ended up hanging out a little and he apologized saying how the past month was a waste, that he should have been with me, all the stuff I wanted to hear. But he got weird again, so I was over it and we were friends and we went to get beers right before I left town for the summer. We ended up going to his house afterwards to keep drinking and then we were talking and he told me that while we were together for that month he hooked up with this girl at a party because he was super drunk and he and I weren't officially together even though we should have been. I just looked at him, stood up and dumped my can of beer on him and left. He texted me two days after saying "I don't think either one of us handled things in the best way." I said, "I think I handled it just fine actually,” and we haven’t talked since so that is my messiest, worst break up.”

6. Elementary love

“I was just a young pup in grade school. This was my first girlfriend ever. We weren’t that serious…because we were in grade school. However, we shared a special moment in her bedroom. She insisted that the door stay open because he mother wouldn’t let her shut it. We kissed. After that magical moment, days later, she broke up with me. She said that I was a bad kisser because I didn’t know how to kiss. I just licked her teeth.”

7. Caught in a vacuum romance

“So I dated this girl for close to four years. She lost her stepfather and did the whole ‘I just can’t be with anyone’ thing. I was really into her but I just let it go. Well, for the few days following that I was in somewhat of a whiskey fueled binge with my best friend. Two nights after she broke up with me, my buddy came over we were going to go to a bar. But he had some drugs so we did half of it and we were going to do the rest after we got back. Before we left, I got all paranoid, so I hid the rest of it in the extension hose of a vacuum and off we went. We came back to my apartment and I couldn’t get it out. My buddy was getting super pissed so I decided to destroy the vacuum cleaner. We go outside and I’m swinging the vacuum against the apartment wall and my ex walks around the corner. Vacuum cleaner parts are all over, my buddy is on his knees sifting through the parts. She asked what I was doing, close to tears. So I told her that I was looking for the bag of drugs I hid in the vacuum cleaner and she walked off. It was one of the most awkward moments of my life.”

8. Better as friends

"I dated a guy when I was a teenager, and it was the first guy I had ever actually dated and he was so in love with me (and still is, for that matter). One day in late October, I just decided that we shouldn't be together anymore. I was super distant and we only talked a few times and he was pretty aware that I was growing uninterested. I was horrified of the idea of confrontation, so I stayed quiet about it instead of actually saying that I had grown uninterested. So, on Halloween, he knew that was the last chance he had to "win me back," (although, in truth, I was already out by then). He took me for a scavenger hunt kind of thing and we went to all the places in our town that meant something to us, like where our first date was, where we had first confessed our love for one another, etc.. By the end of it, I was so over it and just wanted to hang out with my friend who I had previously talked to and we agreed to hang out that night. I was growing weary because he was holding me up and I hate keeping people waiting for me. Eventually, we finished the scavenger hunt and I just remember he hugged me and then I left. We didn't actually break up that night. We didn't talk for two weeks after and he eventually texted me and was like, alright, I guess you want to break up. I replied with yeah and that was then end of it. We didn't talk for 6 months until I reached out and apologized. We decided to continue to be friends. We were friends for like two years until he confessed to me that he wanted to marry me. He said that he knew I wanted to do things and explore my options, and that he was more than willing to let me do that and that he wanted me to come back to him when I was ready and at that point, we could get married and have kids. And I was like whoa, dude. No, I'm not interested. He couldn't understand why and that ended up being the last time we talked for a while. I didn't want him to be lead on or anything, so I felt we should have a "break" from our friendship for a while. I didn't know if we would ever talk again. About two years after that, I decided that I would reach out and see how he was doing. We ended up picking up right where we left off and our friendship resumed.He did, however, mention that during our time not talking, he thought about me often and that if I wanted to, he still wanted to be with me. I once again told him no. He wasn't upset about it, he just wanted to make sure that I knew. But now we're friends. I'm aware that he's still in love with me, because he pretty much told me he was, but I can't reciprocate. Nevertheless, we work as friends."

9. The cheating sub-leaser

“I dated this guy for a year. He was subleasing from me over the summer and he cheated on me with a 16-year-old in my room, in my own bed. So I came home and broke up with him. He ripped up two of my sweatshirts and keyed my car. When I threatened to call the police after he admitted to doing those things, he was willing to negotiate the damages. Eventually, my ex ended up getting a ticket for destroying my property. Now I stalk him on Facebook with a new profile to see if he’s still insane. It makes me feel good about myself.”

10. Out of state, out of his mind

“I was dating this guy when I was living in Oregon. I didn’t know very many people and it was my birthday so I asked to spend it with him. It turns out that he got invited to a party and wanted to go to that instead. I was obviously upset and he got mad at me for it. It was so stupid. He ended up going to the party and showed up on my doorstep on my birthday, drunk and high, bragging about the girl he had just slept with. I rolled my eyes and walked away. We broke up shortly after.”

11. Sophomore heartbreak

“So I was dating this girl my sophomore year of college, we started dating in February. We dated for like five or six months and it was starting to be summer time, so naturally I started drinking more and she was hanging out with her friends. We realized that we disliked being with each other and talked about it for a while. We gave it another week and tried to figure out why we weren’t connecting like we used to. Nothing really made sense and we would just bicker and yell for no good reason. We tried to reconnect, walked around the town, got dinner, talked, but every sentence was still forced, the level of connection was forced and wasn’t happening. Eventually there was one point where we just snapped and started yelling to each other in the middle of the street (we had been drinking). It was one of those “Are we really gonna talk about this now?” moments. And then we got back and we just kind of looked at each other and we knew this moment was going to happen. The weirdest, saddest part about the whole story was that we didn’t know why. We decided to break up. She cried, I shed a few tears. She left. I stood up for a second, went out on my porch and started chugging vodka. We tried to make it better again for three months. And then we just decided to never talk to each other again. That’s it.”

There you have it. Did any of these sound like breakups you've been through? I know I thought some were funny, but others made it kind of hurt all over again. Regardless, whether you're still upset or so over it, you're never alone. Just make sure to surround yourself with friends, have fun, and most importantly, do what makes you happy.