How To Write An Email To Your Ex-Girlfriend

This email is perfect. Keep telling yourself that.

Imagine Jay-Z writing a letter to someone who used to pick on him in school. Look at him now. Look at you now. You’re pretty much like Jay-Z.

Know that the email is perfect because you will write it in the way only you can write it—that is, in a thoughtful, emotional, mature kind of way. People would say this is mature, except you do things like this all the time because you’re an adult. This email is how Gandhi would tell someone he hates them. It’s that nice.

In this email, you’re in control, you get what you want, and what you want is to show that you’re over your contemptuous silent phase. You want to let this story end in a good way, you know, to avoid fallout later, when you’re famous? Take it easy. Humility is important in this letter. Barack Obama probably had to write letters like this to all of his ex-girlfriends so they wouldn’t go on Fox News to say what a callous lover he was.

Grammatically, everything goes together. No mistakes. This is the federal government of your emotional psyche. Keep it short, though, because the person you’ve become since the breakup is busy efficiently crushing tasks on a long list that ends in greatness. “#4. Reconcile Ugly Breakup.” Crushed.

Try for emotional honesty, yet convey a new sense of distance. It’s friendly but expresses a protagonist’s hint of distrust. In the novel based on these events, the reader has already taken sides. Ultimately, this email is so mature it makes you want to cry a little bit, or at least give a half-serious, melancholic salute to whoever wrote it.

This email acknowledges that she left you broken on that November morning the way European nations honor massacres that occurred in the 17th century. You are commemorating that sad thing some people remember but no one cares much about now.

Imply that there are some things you’re not saying. This email takes a road so high, you can’t even see it from November, champ.

Envision her reading the email the way people read letters at the end of movies. The sentimentality and swelling violins will bring a satisfying sense of finality to the proceedings. This email is the product of so much thought and effort that it is almost embarrassing.

Now—and this is the hard part—send it and forget her.