How to Avoid Heartbreak - A Poem
Fill your apartment with things that never expire or wilt, like those cheap plastic flowers from your local discount craft store. Make sure to hide the objects you treasure the most (like your great-grandmother’s porcelain tea cups) in a safe place — like that awkwardly high cabinet above your fridge.
Never say I love you first, in fact never say it at all. Instead, adopt a cool and mysterious persona that makes you appear impenetrable. Better yet, invest time and energy into actually becoming impenetrable.
Keep your coolest and most mysterious clothing tucked away in the back of your closet, however. It would be a dire shame to have a puppy excitedly jump on your most expensive pair of trousers and muck up the hem while standing in line for a coffee.
And by no means should you ever adopt a puppy or any animal for that matter. Their unconditional companionship may seem appealing at first, but their short lifespan will continuously remind you of your mortality (what a drag!) - and when your furry companion inevitably perishes they will leave behind an unbelievable emptiness you will never be able to fill again.
Children too are out of the question. Bubbling with life and joy in the beginning years, sure, but before you know it they will turn into adults and move across the country to carve out their own lives.
While you’re at it, you better only surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear and who never stick around after the tea and cake are finished, people who only discuss “safe” topics like the weather and pop culture, topics that will never accidentally activate deeper philosophical questions like - what is the meaning of life?
Get a monotonous job that pays you enough to cover your necessities but also affords you the privilege of hiring someone to help you move apartments when your lease is up - that way you don’t ever have to ask for help (and risk the embarrassment of being denied the request.)
Make sure to stay in your hometown and take the same route to work every day. Avert your eyes when you happen by the newsstand though, world events are infamous for breaking hearts and spirits daily. The same goes for looking a homeless person in the eye. Give him some spare change if you must but never, ever, look him in the eye.
And when you start to feel that inner niggling urging you to try something new, pivot in another direction, book a trip to a far-off land, or accept a dinner invitation from your charming neighbor (the one with an angelic smile), make sure to shut it down immediately. Turn on the TV or grab the nearest screen and open up your favorite app. Scroll until your eyes feel like they might pop out of your head and you've worked up a ravenous appetite. Order some Thai food and when it arrives, eat until the point of feeling uncomfortably full - so full that the gentle nagging you felt deep in your guts moments before can no longer be detected.
Fall asleep on the couch and then do it all over again.
