From a guy I always thought to be burly and bearded and gruff and grouchy just because that's how his picture looked like in some book of poems:
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
It's Lord Alfred Tennyson by the way.

'Loved and lost' - strange how the two words go together so well. How many quotes have you heard with 'loved and lost' - just google it. Or songs about 'loved and lost' - like S Club 7?

Just yesterday, I've a friend telling me about how her cousin got wedded in a beautiful scottish church to his very first love. And today, another tells me about how her boyfriend just told her he's bringing an Californian girl in to live with him. A pretty girl told me once how she never had a boyfriend, just because she's scared to lose. But we all are afraid to lose, aren't we? And thinking back about past relationships, as I grew older, don't we all start a relationship thinking about how we might lose it?

I'm really happy where I am now.
But sometimes I wonder, what do you do with all the odds and ends of your history? Do you just throw away the ring he gave you to mark your love just as he trashed your love? Do you just keep all the love letters in a box that you will never want to open again for fear of the reminders of false promises and glittery words? Or do you just wear those pretty earrings and pretend that they don't come attached to pretty memories long gone? How do you tell a friend to just forget her boyfriend if he had been a bastard - if everything you do reminded you of him? Should you not go to the cafe where both of you always lunched? Should you not go watch the movie at the cinema both of you loved? Should you not cook or eat his favourite food that you used to all the time just because he loved it? Should you take a different path home because he had always walked you down this path, whispering sweet nothings to you and telling you he'll hold your hands forever? Every time it hurts more, and the scar lingers on. I think of it like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Everyone significant leaves his imprint on you, a mark of glorious history, yet one that mars the smooth concrete pavement anyway - one that is but a ghost of a history, one that's not really there. The stars walk on, their imprints stay.

Every time I want to tell my friend that everything is alright, I know that it isn't, or that she should just dump him, I know that it's difficult and that she'll still hurt for a long time.
So what can I do for her but to stay silent and pray that everything goes well?