Dating : How to Know If It’s a Breakup Or a “Fake Up”

But the Fake Up isn’t a healthy way to end it, because you’re actually prolonging your pain.

A Fake Up one thing done under the guise of something else and that’s never a good idea. Clarity is always better. Truth and honesty are always a better way to set agreements. The Fake Up is a way of holding on to something that one or both people decided was better left released. Breaking up means letting go.

A Fake Up means you keep connecting. Maybe it means hooking up. Or texting. Maybe it means staying in close contact or communicating. One or both of you will get hurt, and you are riding the roller coaster of emotions. Each call, night, talk, hookup, or email is a little bit of that Love Crack! You get something out of it, and it will cause pain when you are forced to (once again) break things off. So hurt once, then hurt twice, and maybe even hurt 15 times.

I mentioned our brains earlier, and here’s where the Fake Up or Faux Break Up is almost hardwired. A few years ago I started working on a book about the hardwiring of love and found some fascinating facts.

Biologically we are driven to connect and attach; our species wants to reproduce. It’s a natural imperative. When we couple, we found our Plus One. Our partner. Our man/woman. Our brains like it and give us the reward of oxytocin (and other fun happy chemicals) when we are with them. We like oxytocin, it makes us feel good all over.

After a breakup, it takes six weeks for our brains to get the smell of our partner’s pheromones out of our system so that we aren’t triggered by them immediately into a state of connection/desire/love/arousal or an inherent drive to partner up again. Every time you see your ex (or smell your ex), it re-ignites the love sensors in your brain that make you want to re-partner, and that clock starts over every time you smell them. I also believe that if you like the sound of their voice, you are neurally programmed to release oxytocin when you hear them speak, to a lesser degree. The same would be true with our visual reward system, if you see pictures of them or see them you are re-presencing the memory systems in your brain that make it incredibly difficult to disconnect!

So when I said that reconnection was like Love Crack, to your brain it can be! In Psych101 we watched rats that chose to keep getting the reward centers of their brain fed, rather than choosing actual food. Other rats, we’ll call Urban Rats, chose cocaine over food, as cocaine lit up the pleasure centers as well. I’m thinking it’s a good thing those rats didn’t have Call To Duty back then.

Actively participating in a Fake Up isn’t going to help you “get over” your breakup or put yourself back together, in fact it can stunt your healing process, even though it may feel so good. If you do choose to get involved with your ex, just know ahead of time what you’re in for: a delay in healing. And go in with your eyes wide open. Think about what’s healthiest for you in the long run, what will help you grow and help you move forward powerfully. That’s all I ask.