The Snark | Dating Your Misery

Meet the Heartbreak Enthusiast

Some people collect stamps, others collect lovers who ruin their lives. These folks don’t chase happily-ever-afters; they chase the dopamine hit of a tragic ending. They don’t just fall in love, they belly-flop into despair and then Instagram the bruise. Their playlist is 80% breakup ballads, 20% Adele, and they like it that way.

The Art of the Glorious Crash

For misery-daters, the relationship isn’t judged by compatibility but by the cinematic drama of the ending. The messier, the better. A three-week situationship can be rewritten as an epic Shakespearean tragedy – “Oh, Jason was my Heathcliff, my Achilles, my Hamlet rolled into one emotionally unavailable man-child.” And when the crash finally comes, they don’t hide under the covers. They stage-dive into grief like it’s Coachella.

Self-Sabotage as a Love Language

These aren’t just victims of heartbreak; they’re co-conspirators. They swipe right on disaster because without the looming breakup, they feel… bored. Normal stability? That’s not love, that’s purgatory. Give them red flags, betrayal, jealousy, catastrophic arguments over nothing – anything that promises the inevitable implosion. For them, healing is the enemy; pain is proof of passion.

What’s in It for Writers?

For fiction writers, misery-daters are a goldmine. They give you:

• A slow-burn flaw for your protagonist: a character who keeps sabotaging relationships because heartbreak makes them feel alive. Watching them recognize (or resist) this flaw can fuel an entire arc.

• An antagonist in disguise: the lover who lures your protagonist in, not for love, but for the sheer thrill of watching it collapse. They’re not villains with evil lairs – they’re worse. They’re villains with a Spotify Premium subscription to the “Sad Girl Autumn” playlist.

• Atmosphere and tone: nothing says “modern gothic” like characters who actively curate their own heartbreak. Give them rainy streets, smeared mascara, and midnight texts that should have stayed in drafts, and you’ve got tension for days.

Writers should thank these heartbreak addicts – they make it easy to inject drama, self-destruction, and deliciously messy emotional stakes into fiction. They’re proof that sometimes the most dangerous affair isn’t with another person, but with misery itself.

The Snark