Upset that a ‘thing’ you had with someone recently ended? Don’t be. It was probably barely a ‘thing’!
To be clear, a ‘thing’ is different for everyone. A ‘thing’ can be when you’re seeing someone, dating someone, having sex with someone. I used to laugh when people mourned the end of ‘things’ that had only been 3 months. Four months. Even 6 months. I had been in two 4-year relationships. ‘That’s nothing.’ I’d think.
But as it continued to (and continues to) become harder and harder to find real, lasting connections with people, rather lovers, I realized I was becoming one of those people upset by the end of, what I would previously consider, short, ‘things.’
Well, surprise! I didn’t like the way that felt! I didn’t like the power that these ‘things’ held and I wanted to do something about it. There had to be a way to make me, make all of us, feel less bad.
And guess what? There is!
All you have to do to make the ‘thing’ you’re upset about feel less upsetting is plug it into this very easy, very mathematically correct equation:
TAW x 4 = MTR(NOM > 5) = TNTM(ALOH) = HT
Confused? Let’s take a look! How many times a week (TAW) did your ‘thing’ take place? Okay, now multiply that by 4 (for 4 weeks in a month). There. That’s your Monthly ‘Thing’ Rate or MTR. Now take your MTR and multiply that by the number of months (NOM) your ‘thing’ lasted. This number should not exceed 5. (If your ‘thing’ exceeded 5 months, it was not a ‘thing’. It was a relationship and therefore I cannot help you). Where were we? Right, we just multiplied your MTR by # of months which gives us your Total Number of ‘Thing’ meetings aka TNTM (not to be confused with TMNT, everyone’s favorite mutant turtles).
Still confused? Don’t worry, we’re getting there. Let’s break down the TNTM of a recent ‘thing’ of mine that ended. My TNTM was 20 (It so happens my ‘thing’ fell on a few holidays which led to some extra meetings). Continuing on, the average length of our hangs (ALOH) was 3 hours (When doing this exercise yourself, only count conscious time together, sleeping hours do not count). So now I’m going to take my TNTM and multiply it by my ALOH which leaves me with my total number of Hours Together (HT), 60.
Wow. 60 hours together. That’s it!
60 hours isn’t even a 3-day weekend.
60 hours is barely 7.5 business days of boning. No way you’re putting that on a resume.
60 hours isn’t even the entire series of the 75 episodes of The Americans let alone the 86 episodes of The Sopranos (Imagine you stopped watching after “Marco Polo” and never found out what happened with Tony and Carmela in the pool?).
60 hours is only three 19-hour flights from Newark to Singapore. Ugh, Newark!
60 hours is a cross country trip from New York to Los Angeles, with a handful of rest stops. Nothing you can’t do alone!
60 hours is only .6% of Malcolm Gladwell’s debunked 10,000 hour mastery rule! You ain’t gonna master a skill and you ain’t gonna master this ‘thing’.
So, let’s get over our ‘things’ however long they were because guess what? You’ll be using that equation again soon enough. Another ‘thing’ is always around the corner. Until then, be grateful of the hours together (HT) we get back to focus on our friends, our family, our work, our pets, and of course, ourselves.