Breakups are a natural step in the life cycle of romantic relationships – you either break up or you live happily ever after. Well, I lost my happily ever after two months ago, and I have spent those two months trying to get over what was once a beautiful relationship. All that progress was lost, however, when this week, I opened Instagram and saw that my ex has a new girlfriend. It was utterly devastating – but what was even worse was that stan Twitter didn’t create a trending topic out of this betrayal.
Not even my breakup left me feeling this wounded!
When I first saw my ex’s post, I put a pause on the sting of devastation. I figured, “My stans will handle this, they always have my back! They’ll pull receipts on how he knew her while we were dating, and they’ll inform my ex and his new girlfriend of how wicked they are for posting cute pictures while I grieve our lost love. My stans will rally like a hoard of Roman soldiers to protect my wounded heart!”
So, I waited for stan Twitter to ready their thumbs in my defense. Hours passed while I refreshed the picture of my ex and his new girlfriend kissing at the botanic garden and I awaited the thousands of snarky comments underneath. Instead, I found comments from our mutual friends saying things like, “aw!” or “cuties!”
So much for our friends remaining neutral in the breakup.
I rushed to Twitter, expecting to see all the discourse from stan Twitter about how his new girlfriend posted that picture as a personal attack on my love life. There was nothing there. Where were the receipts and all the vitriolic remarks? It dawned on me that no stans were coming to my defense because I am just a regular 24-year-old, not an A-list celebrity in the public eye.
I guess after seeing Selenators defend Selena Gomez from the Hailey Bieber stans, I had just hoped that for me there would be a similar outcome. Alas, I was forgotten, my pain and sorrow meaning nothing to most Twitter users. The truth was that maybe the worst crime my ex committed was being too irrelevant for thousands of people to care when he gets a new girlfriend. It was time for me to move on.
In the end, the greatest heartbreak wasn’t the breakup or even my ex’s new girlfriend, it was the emptiness that comes with not having fans to fight for your honor.
