Heartbreaks: A Taxonomy

I have a theory that the 21st century has spawned several hundred species of heartbreaks. I imagine that, in the fifties, things were simple. A boy asked you out, you were “going together,”, he took you to the sock hop (what even is a sock hop?) and then he dumped you right before home-ec. I’m not saying it was easy, but it was simple. It was clear cut. (Or maybe it wasn’t at all, sorry grandma.)

Today, however, things are complicated. You can fall in love over the internet and never meet, date someone without ever making things official, or watch your ex fall in love with somebody else on their Instagram story. There are so many different ways a heart can break now. Maybe there always were.

For me, the best balm for a heartbreak has always been music. Even when my first crush rejected my advances on the playground, I went home and listened to the Fray and felt (marginally) better. So, when I experienced a heartbreak I didn’t quite have the words for, I began collecting sad, complicated love songs.

What resulted was this playlist: a sort of taxonomy of heartbreaks. There are songs about loving someone who only loves you back sometimes, songs about losing a partner who was also your best friend, songs about just missing the feeling of being loved by someone. It’s my attempt to document the many ways a heart can break and to, maybe, offer a cure for some of them. Or at least proof that somebody, somewhere has felt the kind of heartbreak that you are feeling too.

– Jade Sham