 I'm in the midst of a brutal breakup. And while I'm listening to Adele on repeat and feeling devastated, my friends keep seeing my ex out and saying he seems like nothing happened. Is he an a**? Or do breakups just hit genders differently? Here's some free therapy. I don't love when we kind of simplify it into men are this way, women are this way. I don't think it's that women feel more. I think it's that men are taught either not to or they're not allowed to, right? Or to not show it. I think there's so many ways that men may be really hurting, but there's a very like, man up, suck it up. Just get back out there. The best way to get over someone is to get in. Get under someone? I hear my male clients actually say things that allude to the fact that they can fall in love a lot more easily with a lot more women. And I think when women fall in love, we have done a lot of like, is this someone I could see myself building a life with? What I feel like happens quite often with single clients is that when women are on dating apps and they're sort of scrolling through, like I've heard women say things like, I mean, he's cute, but he's on a skateboard. And I could never be with a man who's on a skateboard, right? And I'm like, you don't know if you think about him, girl. Like you see him in a picture with a skateboard. That could mean so many different things. What about a fish? I mean, I don't know how you feel about the fish. There's a lot of pictures of fish. Yes. A lot of times there's a lot invested with women in the story I've told myself about where this is going to go, what this relationship is going to become. But I will say, I think quite often women fall in love with men's potential. And that can be something that is a little bit to our detriment sometimes. So the way I see it, if a woman is falling in love with someone's potential, she's not present. She's more likely to maybe dismiss a potential red flag because, but I can see how it might be better if he is better or if it gets better. I know I can speak from experience here. I had a relationship that was very short-lived that had a lot of projection going on. There was a lot of me being in love with his potential or what I saw us potentially being. And when I realized that that's what I was doing and I wasn't really paying attention to the one in front of me, I felt embarrassed. I remember in the beginning being a little upset almost as if I had been duped. That was the word that I used. But I had to really sit with myself and say, but did I do that to myself? Because this person's always been who this person is. They never promised me anything different. They never showed up any differently than how they are right now, right? And I was trying to mold it and fit it into something that it never was. It ended and I was devastated. And then he showed up with another girl maybe two weeks after we had stopped dating and I was, I mean, talk about devastation times 10. And I think some of the grieving that has to be done in that is grieving the loss of the potential, grieving the loss of what you thought that relationship might be. And that for me was really helpful in getting through that. We can sometimes see the big picture of who this person is. And this is something I've learned about men. Men will really pull away from a woman if your career path and your level of success is somehow surpassing where he feels like he is or maybe the family dynamic, the cultural heritage is not in alignment with what he sees for himself. They can like you so much and will still pull away from the relationship because again, structurally, it doesn't make sense in their head. Whereas we as women sometimes will be like, I'm in love with this person. I feel a deep connection. All of that stuff doesn't matter to me. But is this who this person wants to be? Yes, that is like, that's the holy grail of questions. Yes. Are these changes they are interested in making? And if not, then I'm gonna be in the space of attempting to pull this person by the ear to where I feel like they need to be. And one, that's exhausting. But two, that's not fair. This is that person's life. And I don't know that that's our job. Another thing I think I hear all the time in this like breakup conversation is this like desire or this need for closure to move on. I don't know what your thoughts are, but I don't believe closure is actually a thing. Second bet. I don't believe in closure even a little bit. I think that closure is one of those things that keeps us stuck in dynamics that actually are really again, shifting us away from the personal responsibility of looking inward and saying, what did this relationship have to teach me about me? And if I could like encourage people to do one thing more than anything else, it would be to stop seeking closure and really understand that the closure that you're seeking is an invitation for you to bring the focus back to yourself.