What exactly are you putting on the line when you start something?

[alidile]

i got upset once because i got dumped by someone i was about to dump and i felt extreme rage which was physically bad but i got back at them...
anyways, i've actually had my "heart broken" in a manner of speaking, and it feels like i just don't care about anything. it feels like i can't even be suicidal because that would take too much effort and thought. everything feels like so much, and yes, you do actually feel physically hurt... haven't you ever heard of emotions causing physical pain? sadness, stress, all these things can trigger physical ailments.
for example, i pretended i had a cough twice in my life as an experiment entirely where i coughed and pretended to have the ailments 2 days later i was sick as a dog.

[TheSphinx]

I'm not sure if you're into stocks or financial trading of any kind, Charlie. I'm fortunate to be friends with a fellow, who like you, is generally not as deeply affected by a breakup. However, he wound up with one of the most desired women in the area and blew it.

He said that the feeling was very much akin to when he had performed poorly with his and his father's stocks and nearly left his father penniless and actually put himself out of a home.

Perhaps hopelessness would encompass the emptiness/suicidal/rage involved, as his future and current state were dependent upon the returns from his trades, and I'm guessing he placed most of his "returns" of self-worth from his former girlfriend were ruined when she left him.

I suppose the less investment, or basis of value you have for yourself in your girlfriend, the less of an effect it will have upon her departure.

[Gigabitch]

I think a lot of people are kinda broken to begin with, Charlie, and they use relationships to feel better about it, even fooling themselves that they can fix what's wrong with them by being in love. If they lose that relationship, they lose so much more than just the person they were with- they lose their big Band-Aid, too.

I've experienced having my heart broken once, and it felt like shit. It changed me forever but I'm not entirely sorry it happened. I think it made me capable of understanding other people's pain.

Maybe part of it is about the fact that humans are so social by nature. We actually need each other to survive, and being shut out by someone you were counting on can feel like banishment from the tribe.