5 Apps That People Who Just Went Through A Breakup Need
In 2014, coming back into the dating game hot off a fresh breakup means being bombarded with an astonishing amount of options for meeting other sad people. Or, as I’ve learned, meeting genuinely well-adjusted individuals. A daunting number of apps seem to have gathered decent people to populate what used to be a sea of crazies. Tinder, Grouper, How About We, Plenty of Fish, Coffee Meets Bagel—the possibilities! The statistical probability of encountering a normal! When I began to think about a foray back into the dating world, I couldn’t help but Carrie Bradshaw: am I now one of the abnormal sad losers?
At present, the answer is maybe. Which is why I feel that we need a whole new genre of apps geared towards those who still say the phrase “my ex” at least once a day. I can’t create these myself because I’m a simpleton, but best believe that I’ll be cashing in on my equity when they’re developed. I even have a few ideas for possible angel investors. Looking at you, Drake. Here goes.
1) Rebounder. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Some people on Tinder and the like are actually looking for relationships. Other people seek hookups on the more Adult Friend Finder type circuit. But some of us don’t want to be creeped out, hooked up, or even loved. Some people just need a quick rebound, someone to remind them that they aren’t entirely inept or awful or whatever else you think you are because of the emotional terrorism you’ve just endured. Whether this is a dude who watches movies on your couch with you for a month while you cry or a lady who will just sleep next to you, this is just a rebound. It will go nowhere. It’s physical, or emotional, or both, but it sure as hell isn’t lasting. Rebounder knows this, and everyone on Rebounder is on board so that you don’t have to fuck up your friendships or kiss a co-worker at a bar at a work event. After a certain amount of time (one month? Two? God, I don’t know) your account will expire, as it is expected that you will now walk amongst the Rebounded. Congrats. Or not. Either way, goodbye.
2) BetterThan. We can work on the length of this name in beta testing. After every breakup, you are going to hear the phrase “you’re so much better than him/her” ad nauseam, unless you are truly a Spencer Pratt next level piece of shit. Trust that he’s been told that too. Alas, at a certain point, your friends will tire of the struggle and will be far less willing to listen to your saga, much less repeat their lines. BetterThan will never get tired of telling you how great you are. In fact, it will aggregate all of your accomplishments based on your social media profiles and compile them into a list of why you’re better. Even better, if you supply the screenshots of disparaging, annoying, or otherwise unpleasant texts from your ex, BetterThan will compile them and send you one whenever you wish, just to remind you that you “don’t need that” in your life. Unfortunately, this app will not take shots of tequila with you.
3) Netsplits. The Netflix of sad breakup movies. Yeah, I know, there is probably a genre for them already, but it’s named something like “Independent Romantic Comedies Starring Zach Braff” and I don’t have time to seek out my sadness. I need it presented to me in high volume. I want to watch movies in the vein of “Like Crazy” until I’m faking a British accent through my tears. I want to watch horrible romantic comedies where the protagonist’s love interest yells “what, it was all some kind of bet?!” Netsplits shall bring them all to me and categorize them with scary specific subgenres, like “Post Breakup Vacation Comedies,” “Hot Girl Realizes She’s Hot and Runs With It,” and “Unhappy Married Couple Character Studies to Make You Feel Better About Being Single.” While we’re at it, I’m going to need an original Netsplits series that expands the traditional post-breakup transformation montage into a twelve-episode arc. Get Joseph Gordon-Levitt on the horn and tell him (500) Days of Summer is back and painfully longer than ever!
4) SeparateSongs. Working with a name here too, guys. Give me a break. I’m going through some stuff. Pandora can be okay at compiling similar songs and artists, but when it comes to breakup music, it doesn’t have a goddamned clue. Doesn’t it know what I want to listen to when I ask for songs in the key of “Irreplaceable (To The Left)”? No, I do not need to hear Ciara’s “My Goodies.” For fuck’s sake, I do not want to jam out to Sean Paul. Okay, maybe I do. Whatever. SeparateSongs knows the difference between a Beyonce breakup and a Drake tragedy. It knows that you are looking for some real anger when you hit the search bar for “Brand New, Seventy Times Seven.” You need not create a playlist with their initials as the title to sit up in your iTunes and haunt you forever. Rejoice.
5) MoveOn. Okay, so we all need this app, even if we aren’t willing to cop to it. Sometimes we don’t take note of the date as we type a text that says, “you’ll never guess who is on the same side of the country as me!” or, “so, did you hear who has a new girlfriend?” And it gets kind of sad. Even our friends are cringing and telling other people that we’re “still not over it.” Someone kind of needs to tell us when it’s time to get the fuck over it. MoveOn will help you do that, in little baby step phases. In the first phase, this app will block all content from you and your ex’s mutual friends. Don’t need to see that shit. Phase two will nudge you along with alerts: “been three weeks! How many dates have you been on? Drink today? I see you haven’t left your house, it’s sunny, come on!’ You’ll come to resent it’s tone, but you’ll see it’s point. After a while, it becomes comforting. Loving, even. You begin to wonder who is on the other side of that voice, and then you remember that you aren’t the protagonist for Her, and then you’ve scared yourself enough to put down your fucking phone and go out because goddamn, you’re ready to talk to some new people, right?