The Best T.V. Shows To Watch After A Break-Up

As someone who’s been dumped more times than the Doritos Locos Taco in toilets across America, my expertise in the realm of post-break-up remedies can and should be trusted.  First and foremost: you don’t need a boyfriend because you have television.  Here are my top picks for shows to ease the heartache:

This gem on TLC follows individuals with unusual compulsions like sniffing gasoline or eating drywall.  Sounds fun, right?!  RIGHT!  This is the reason we watch T.V. after a break-up—to feel better about our shitty lives by comparison to other people’s even shittier lives!  You have to go to your sister’s wedding solo now?  Well this chick just ate 17 dryer sheets!  Your bed feels like a vast ocean of despair as you lay alone in it wondering where it all went wrong?  At least you’re not in love with fifty thousand balloons!  (Season 4, Episode 7.  I could not make that up.)

Guys.  It’s hangman.  Like, you got this.  This is something you can actually solve (unlike the cipher of your unrelenting heartache) so solve it with gusto!  High-five Pat Sajak when you ace the $3,000 Toss-Up!  Scour the deep web for whatever secret potion Vanna White takes to defy the natural aging process!  Yell at the idiots for buying an E when the word is clearly BANANA!  BANANA, you fool!  You have a B and two N’s and the category is Food & Drink!  But make sure you turn it off IMMEDIATELY once the credits run before Jeopardy comes on or else you’ll feel like a big dumb idiot who no one could ever love because you don’t know what the Battle of Hastings is or where to find Chelyabinsk on a map and Alex Trebek will judge you with his cold shark eyes.  Cheer up, kid!   T H _ R _    A R _    P L _ N T Y    M O R _    F I S H    I N
T H _    S _ A !

You’d think a show revolving around marriage and finding that perfect gown for that perfect day would send you running for the hills after a breakup, but you’re wrong.  Because bitches be crazy.  A typical episode consists of some bride-to-be trying to snag a designer gown on a microscopic budget and crying lots of sad human tears when people confront her with basic math that proves her conquest problematic.  In Act II, she explodes at her Mom who’s financing the whole thing, because when the woman who forced you from her loins offers to buy you a multi-thousand dollar dress that you will literally wear for 4 hours, isn’t it custom to yell in her face? Act III, our bride finds her dream gown but something goes terribly awry (see: basic math) and she cries MORE SAD HUMAN TEARS!  WEDDINGS ARE SO FUN!  By the end of the episode, the bridal shop doormats employees have found a dress that appeases everyone, and they all live happily ever after!  Except not.  Because our bride is still the worst and her mom is still going to get yelled at like 14 more times before her demon spawn says “I do.”  And also because 45% of marriages in this country end in divorce.  Marriage is for suckers!  You’re gonna be fine!  America!

Grief after a break-up can be all consuming, so keeping sight of your relative insignificance in this vast world can actually serve as relief—when we realize we’re just another speck on this magnificent planet, our crappy week doesn’t seem so earth-shattering.  Planet Earth takes us around the globe in hi-def, giving us an inside look into some of the most breathtaking slices of natural life.  We step outside of ourselves and into the arctic tundra where being sad about our ex won’t cut it!  We’ve got bigger things to worry about—like permafrost!  And bigger facts to learn—like caribou have four-chambered stomachs!  There are underwater caves and birds that do silly dances and great white sharks that pwn seals and NATURE IS MAJESTY!  Not like I needed to clarify, but we’re def talking about the version narrated by SIR David Attenborough and NOT Sigourney Weaver because Attenborough’s voice is like sweet warm syrup and your heart is a short-stack of buttermilk pancakes and I guess in this analogy I’m telling you to eat your own heart?  I don’t know. 

Hey, you’re a champion of life.  Stick with it.  And if your cable goes out, God help us all.