Asks my friend.
Me: Do you really want to get over him?

pause

Her: Yes.
Me: Then yes, delete.

I take one course of action to get over someone and thus far it has been 100% effective.
But I need to qualify that I have not been married with children.

The Rumi, aka Don’t Look Back, method:
1) Delete from contacts
2) Delete all text history
3) Delete or hide them from FB (and all other social media you share)
4) DO NOT respond to non-essential, emotional bullshit solicitations (i.e. requisite conversations about unjoining finances are an unfortunate necessity but responding to explanatory emails about his/her feelings blah, blah, absolutely not).

Too harsh?  What, like love-hurt isn’t?

Because this is what I know when it’s over but I’m not over them:
It fucking hurts.
The sorrow, the anger, the goddamn grief.

For instance, after a long-term relationship ended, my ex of not even a week was already dating someone, a specific someone they started talking to prior to our breakup.  That felt awesome: decade long relationship, one-week turnaround.  And a few weeks later, when their new someone came to our still-shared house to spend a lovely weekend with ex (because that new burgeoning love period is brimming over with so much damn infatuation), as my dumb luck would have it, I got to hear new someone be given a fat fucking orgasm by ex…goddammit y’all.

I thought I was doing so well.  I processed through writing as decade-long memories flooded me, Dylan on repeat in the background, and spent priceless time with invaluable friends who listened to me, quietly sat with me or simply joined me for a whiskey, give or take an occasional cry.

I thought I was getting a handle on the can’t-hardly-breathe stage and moving towards taking it week by week.

A few more weeks pass, my ex has left the state to live with said someone and I am told that they plan on getting married within a month.

Wow.

There’s an annoying last step that completes my method:
5) Time.

Sweet, slow, tortuous, curious thing, time passing.