Sweet Vengeance

When a guy acts like a jerk to you, maybe it's worth taking the high road.

by Anna David

You know how it is after you're dating someone for a few years--or months or weeks or days--and it doesn't work out. Disappointment and despair can, for some time afterward, be constant companions. But then add to that the fact that it didn't work out because of something atrocious he did, and insult is added to injury.

You want to be the bigger person and know you shouldn't stoop to his level, but whether he hooked up with your friend, suddenly cut you out of his life without warning, or simply acted like a Class A jerk, the concept of exacting revenge can sometimes simply be too tasty to resist.

Payback can get pretty creative, as The Avenger's Front Page certainly attests. The site lists a slew of ideas, like screwing with his phone (calling up his local phone provider, pretending to be him, changing the number, and then installing a password on the phone so he can't do anything about it without that password), car (all it takes, according to the site, is a wrench), mail (filling out hundreds of magazine subscriptions forms), job (faxing his boss and saying he got a better offer) and even freedom (studying up on his neighbor and then posing as this person when you call the police reporting that you saw him engaged in duplicitous, illegal acts).

If all of that sounds too complicated, dangerous, or extreme, you can always order a voodoo doll then purchase an Ultimate Revenge Spell. That's right, for under $50 ($17.95 for the doll, $25 for the spell, with some tax and shipping and handling thrown in there), your ex will supposedly "feel the wrath of your anger and...be sorry they ever messed with you." (If you're still feeling hopeful about the relationship despite his absence, you can always try the polar opposite approach and invest your $25 in a Come Back My Love spell instead.)

Of course, there's also the possibility that you can simply accept that everyone, in the end, gets what he or she deserves and focus your energy on loving yourself...or at least trying to meet the next guy.

Look, I've tried it both ways (though I've never taken it to Avenger's Front Page or voodoo-doll levels). I had the coworker ex who, through a series of circumstances, I suddenly became the boss of, and I tried to take out my anger at him through the job. And then I had the guy I dated who I was so angry at--the kind of man who makes Class A jerks look good in comparison--and I desperately wanted to lash out at him. I fantasized about ways to make him sting with hurt or scenarios that would cause him to deeply regret the cruel things he'd done and said to me. But I didn't do a thing--not because I didn't want to, mind you, but because a friend promised me I'd be happier in the long run for it.

Despite the fact that I very much wanted to send the roughly 38 angry e-mails I'd composed to him, I didn't do a thing. Time passed. And I got over it--much faster, I might add, than the time it took me to move on from the one on whom I'd sought revenge.

Though come to think if it, filling out a post-office form that he'd moved to Zimbabwe, like the Avenger's Front Page suggests, might have felt pretty good too.