Apps have introduced to our lives the potential for limitless new connections. It was inevitable that one would be created to help us sever them.
Break-Up Boss proposes a “new app-roach to break-ups” – a kinder, more proactive path through heartbreak than the traditional trifecta of tears, television and time.
There’s still wallowing. It’s just guided wallowing, with a “feel wheel” breaking down your current mood (“WTF just happened”; “I hate them”; “It’s really over”) into short, bloggish posts, equal parts instruction and motivation.
Another feature mimics a blank iMessage window. “There’s no way we’re letting you send a text to your ex. But a fake one so you can get all your rage/upset/misery out? You bet.”
An “Advice SOS!” button generates pearls of wisdom from Marilyn Monroe, Oscar Wilde, Deepak Chopra and, er, Alexander Graham Bell. Turning on “Pep-Peps” sends them through as push notifications, dispensing daily reminders that “no one is unkind unless he or she is in pain” and “life is about so, so much more than relationships”.
That latter one interrupted a peaceful spell of productivity at work. The abrupt alert that life is about “so, so much more than relationships” from an app I downloaded to help me get over my former relationship, in a moment I was not thinking about it, was perhaps counterproductive. I advise turning Pep–Peps off.
Break-Up Boss is one of the many brainchilds of Zoë Foster Blake, an Australian author and entrepreneur who wrote a dating and relationships advice column in Cosmopolitan magazine for seven years.
That conversational, intimate tone is a cornerstone of her aspirational-relatable “personal brand”, which is very publicly intertwined with that of her husband, radio and television personality Hamish Blake. Friends for years, they began dating after they wrote a book together titled Textbook Romance, on “how to find the guy, make him fall wildly in love with you, and keep it that way” – so it’s hard to second-guess her advice.
Break-Up Boss was born of Foster Blake’s plan for a follow-up on how to move on when the textbook romance goes off-script. But, she reasoned, who has the attention span to read a book these days? Especially not “heartbroken kittycats”.
They’re not only “ALWAYS on their phone”, but “need someone tough but loving in their head constantly, gently bullying them into full and meaningful grieving, and holding them back from contacting the ex, as well as acting with grace, and applying the stitches properly so they heal thoroughly”.
Using the app is less exhausting than that makes it sound. Foster Blake essentially acts as your “break-up coach”, on call 24/7 to provide counselling on tap – and, retailing in the app store for a one-off payment of A$10 (about £6), a hell of a lot cheaper. (10% of every sale is donated to an Australian family violence response centre.)
Though the ex is discussed in deliberately gender-neutral terms, there is no doubt who the imagined user is. The language, design, even colour could not be more keenly “millennial woman” – even down to the “text to ex” feature mimicking an iMessage field (but in pink), appealing to iPhone users over Android.
Its target demographic may be narrow, but I’m squarely among it: straight, newly single, in my mid-20s, with (maybe too much) disposable income, and a little bit basic on the inside. And you know what? I really liked this app. Foster Blake’s advice was good – at least as good as that of my most sensible, compassionate friends, and actually better than a counsellor I saw once, who suggested I take up “knitting scarves for homeless men” as an outlet for anxiety about a failing relationship.
But the best thing about Break-Up Boss is that it dispenses help on demand – removing the need to, you know, actually ask for it. I try to limit how much I lean on my friends after a relationship ends because I am conscious that break-ups are boring, as much for those going through them as for their support network.
I didn’t want to talk about it. I was feeling it.
Using the app for a few minutes every day or so felt like I was doing something conscious and deliberate and productive, like waking up and meditating or doing an abs exercise. Best of all, I didn’t have to burden a friend with my sad-sack self, nor spend $220 an hour on a counsellor who would tell me to take up knitting.
I didn’t expect to like the app. The fact I did made me think about why.
Recovering from a break-up is about finding a new vision of the future through “self-care”, and doing your best to feel (and, when necessary, manage) your feelings in the meantime. For many reasons, these are not domains men typically feel comfortable in.
Writer Emma Lindsay touched on this in a post she published on Medium at the end of last year, in which she argued that men were over-dependent on women – either their partners, or their friends, or female family members – to help them manage their own emotions.
Compared to women, she said men lacked “emotional awareness” and self-regulation.
“The only men I know who go to therapy are either gay or in a very bad place. Straight men don’t go therapy for a tune up, like I do, or many of my female friends do … Most men in my social circle manage their emotions with alcohol, drugs, work, women, or some combination of the above. Several of them say ‘maybe I should go to therapy’, but very few of them actually do.”
Unsurprisingly, the piece went viral, with some readers so infuriated by Lindsay’s assertion that she felt moved to introduce some caveats post-publication, pointing to research that showed that women are better at coming to terms with the end of a relationship, despite being hit harder emotionally at first; men suffer more in the long-term.
Though I can by no means lay claim to “dating at the zen centre” as Lindsay aspires to, her post rang true to some of my own experiences. If I was not using this app to help me get over this break-up, I would be doing something else: exercising more, starting a journal, throwing myself into a project or hobby, making a conscious effort to spend time with friends, perhaps seeing a counsellor.
Break-Up Boss is an easy, convenient, novel approach to a process I’m already familiar with. Though I can’t imagine them downloading the app (they are better with money), most of my female friends know the steps to take to achieve the same outcome.
I would not say the same of my male friends, or my ex-boyfriends. Perhaps a less pink app would help.
source: The Guardian