First she broke your heart, then she ripped it out of your chest, took a bite out of it, threw it on the floor and stomped on it. You wandered around in a daze of sorrow and self-loathing for weeks, wondering what you could have possibly done to deserve the way she treated you. But then, those feelings started to fade, making way for the emotion that guys are much more comfortable with: anger.

Oh, that sweet, sweet anger.

Now, you’re fired up as hell. How dare that bitch break up with you? Who the fuck does she think she is? You know stuff about her that she sure as shit wouldn’t want getting out there in the world. Hell, if you wanted to, you could flat-out destroy her. And maybe you do want to. How awesome would it be to see her lost and alone, humiliated and friendless? Then she would regret ever breaking your heart. Shit, by the time you got done with her, she would regret ever even having been born—

Okay, stop right there. Settle down for a second. Take a deep breath. Now repeat after me: “It’s not worth it.”

Got that? No? Still want your revenge? Okay, but hear me out first.

The truth is, unless you’ve somehow found yourself in a sort of Death Wish or Kill Bill type of situation, revenge is most likely not the answer to your problem. It’s tempting, I know, and the truth is, it probably will make you feel better, at least for a little while. But it’s only a short-term solution, a bad idea, and frankly, you should be above that kind of petty bullshit.

When you get dicked over, especially by a woman, you feel like a victim, and your fragile male ego doesn’t like that characterization, so it makes you want to lash out. But you really need to resist the urge to post your sex tapes and nudie pics online, slash her tires, bang her sister or whatever it is you think will make her miserable and thereby make you happy.

For one thing, if you’ll do that, you’ll lose the high ground you’ve got. Right now, she’s the bad guy in the situation. You do something mean and you’ll cancel that out. And as we know, high ground in a breakup is crucial, especially if you have mutual friends. Secondly, taking revenge can backfire. Women are capable of meanness and cruelty on a scale you and I can’t even imagine, and if you try to go toe to toe with her, there’s a good chance you’ll just get humiliated again. And it’ll be worse, because you won’t have your high ground anymore.

The best thing to do is just let it go. You’ll get over it, I promise. There’s plenty of fish in the sea and all that. So just say no to revenge.

Unless someone kills your whole family or whatever. If that happens, go nuts. You have my blessing.