How to Handle A Break-Up 101

Key words: Detached. Aloof. Dignity. Self-respect.

Key activities: Flush SIM card down toilet. Avoid alcohol unless SIM card is down toilet. Get busy. Get under someone else. Have a bikini wax, and remember that physical pain will always trump heartbreak in the OUCH! stakes. Have pedicure, and remember there will be others who will suffer your stinky feet (even if you have to pay them). See friends - remember others will love you (you shouldn't have to pay these ones). Keep trap shut about heartbreak to all others bar pedicurist and circle-of-trust friends.

Simple enough measures: if you're a non-rugby-player that is.

It was time to flick pass Rugby to another team. Although I will miss his lovely chest, I will not miss uninspiring sex, boring dates and a bizarre dearth of conversation.

It was gentle enough. I used line #12 in the break-up book of lines: "I don't have the time nor the inclination for a relationship right now, and it is not fair on you. I know you want something more, and I can't give you that."

He took it relatively well. Except for his monstrously lame comment that he "sure would miss the great sex". Please note, I did not add "great" to make myself sound good. He actually said that.

Not for the first time, I thought: WTF?

Having secured his promise to return a pile of CDs I was not willing to give up, I hung up the phone and resumed perving on other men.

I awok Sunday morning to a blaze of numbers which caused my head to ache. (Nothing to do with the tequila). I'm not much of a statistician, but my mobile phone is:

• 46 missed calls
• 12 drunk, slurry, voice mail that indicated his wildly optimistic view that I might be out at a rugby bar and desperate for his cock and if so, "let's catch up"
• 6 incomprehensible text messages (although one seemed to be suggesting we might like to have sex in the intervening period until I am ready for a relationship).

Or don't.

A few more, easily digestible statistics.

• Number of regrets since ending things with Rugby: none.
• Points of clarification: One. I am not that good in bed.