(Before you ask, no I’m not going through a breakup—I just have advice about how others should do so).

You all seem to like when I give life advice. Some of my most popular paywalled articles have involved giving advice about how to write prolifically, make interesting friends, and find a romantic partner. In light of this, I thought I’d write more articles on subjects where I have specific, concrete, and actionable advice.

Most advice is not very good. It’s usually hopelessly vague and difficult to apply. Usually, people who are successful in some domain have innate skill in that domain. Mozart’s natural genius gives him no special ability to communicate to others how to compose music well. Most people who are socially adept find social skills easy and intuitive. If someone can’t explain how they do what they do, they’re unlikely to give useful advice on how you can do it too. If you want to learn to talk backward, I cannot give you any helpful advice.

For this reason, I prefer to give advice in areas that I used to be bad at but have improved. Don’t ask the person who was always excellent at some task for advice. Instead, you should ask the person who started out bad at it and improved. Don’t ask Trump how to be a demagogue; ask Vance, who started as a serious intellectual and had to intellectually lobotomize himself to be the demagogue he is today. For this reason, I feel uniquely qualified to give advice about getting over crushes.

A few years ago, there was a girl who I had a TREMENDOUS crush on. Sadly and inexplicably, she did not like me. She and I interacted on an almost-daily basis, meaning that I could not simply forget about her. I had to interact with the person I had a massive and unrequited crush on almost every day. It was pretty brutal. This is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone.

For some of this period, I was quite sad about this. Unrequited crushes—especially severe ones—are quite unpleasant. But then at one point, I decided that I was making myself pointlessly miserable. I decided to do the thing that I’ll describe in more detail below the paywall, and within a few days, all my misery was gone.