WHY A BREAKUP IS SO HARD TO GET OVER

Wanna know why your breakup is so hard to get over? Drugs. It's all about drugs, friend. The reason getting dumped feels as if someone gutted you like a Chilean Sea Bass is that, in effect, you're an addict. Not just figuratively, but literally. And worst of all, you're addicted to her. (Ain't life a bitch?)

Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.

How the fucking fuck can this be, you ask? According to—oh, let's call them “researchers”—there are three basic stages of love:

In Stage One, prodded by your old buddy Testosterone—the mind-clouding substance almost solely responsible for the survival of the human species as well as full-nudity strip clubs—you go out cruising around town trying to nail anything in a skirt (preferably female). The first stage can last awhile and will most likely involve lots of masturbation.

Once you've found a girl (one who doesn't run away screaming “Rape!” when you touch her), you're at Stage Two. At this point, you get obsessive and focused on having sex with this girl. You might stop eating and sleeping. Yet, amazingly, you won't care. When you're in love, your brain acts all fucked up like a mental patient (the difference being that you're not out pushing a grocery cart around talking to yourself).

Your brain cranks up your body's own internal production of feel-good sauces: Specifically, Dopamine, which gives about the same rush you get from nicotine (and, to a lesser degree, cocaine). Adrenalin gets your heart racing. And Serotonin, which is similar in effect to Morphine and Opium, just without the cash-siphoning, job-losing, end-up-in-jail downside.

Why love isn't tightly regulated by the FDA is beyond us.

How to Break Your Addiction to a PersonMaybe the Surgeon General hasn't determined it yet, but staying in a bad relationship may be dangerous to your health.

Stage Three is when the attachment between two people is solidified. It's when people in love really cement their emotional bond together. It's the stage that you were in but that, judging from the fact that you got dumped, she wasn't. And while you have shit like Oxytocin and Vasopressin zipping through your arteries building a strong emotional bond to her, she has something more like Tequila Shooters (it's not exactly the same thing).

Fortunately for the love-addicted, withdrawal isn't nearly as brutal as it is for the opium-addicted—you probably won't have to whore out your ass on street corners to get a fix. So cheer up, you could be wiping away someone else's semen, instead of just your own tears.