Break Up with Your Girlfriend, It’s Spring

How to be a homewrecker in nine songs.
Break Up with Your Girlfriend, It’s Spring

How to be a homewrecker in nine songs.

Words: Lizzie Logan

March 25, 2019

Listen up, bitches (I mean “bitches” in a non-derogatory and gender-neutral way, similar to how we use “y’all” and “dudes” and “guys” and “gang”): it is uncuffing season. The flowers are blooming, sundresses are on the horizon, and spring fever is in full effect. If you don’t like the one you’re with, dump them for someone else. And if you do…hold on tight. Because this is the official playlist of Stealing Your Man. Sorry, not sorry (another good song, but not on this list).

While there are plenty of bops about wanting someone who is taken (“Jessie’s Girl” takes the cake there) or waiting patiently for a playboy to realize you’re his dream girl (“One Fine Day,” “The Tide Is High,” “Take a Chance on Me”), rare is the banger that actually advocates finding someone who is not on the market and going home with them anyway.

This isn’t about starting an affair, either. There are bangers aplenty about cheating, from every perspective, but the following songs are about starting a real relationship with someone who is already in one. It’s 2019. GO GET YOUR MAN (or woman or consenting adult of any gender). Harness the power of Jolene

1. Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”

The ur-anthem of lusting over someone else’s significant other. This song will prepare you, mentally, for the difficult process of breaking up a mediocre couple to form an amazing new one. Sing it in your car, your bedroom, the shower, until you’ve convinced yourself of its logic: you’re doing the right thing because, actually, he belongs with you.

2. The Pussycat Dolls, “Don’t Cha”

Once you’ve decided that stealing a man is, in fact, the right and correct thing to do, you must subtly but persistently convince this man that it is his idea to date you, because you are so much better than his girlfriend. Not that there’s anything wrong with her. But doesn’t he wish his girlfriend were a freak like you? Raw like you? Aren’t you just telling him something he already knows?

3. Avril Lavigne, “Girlfriend”

Since it has been established that you’re better/hotter/crazier than any of the other options out there, including the person he is currently dating, let him know that you’re not just available but actively interested. Hey hey, you you don’t like his girlfriend, he, hey, you you want to be his girlfriend.

4. Ariana Grande, “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored”

Self-explanatory.

5. Robyn, “Call Your Girlfriend”

Specific instructions for accomplishing the above break-up! Call (it’s time you had the talk); give reasons; say it’s not her fault; but there’s somebody new; tell her not to get upset; when she inevitably gets upset, tell her the only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again. Sure, it doesn’t make sense right now. But they can still be friends!

6. The Beatles, “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”

This one’s for the menfolk, and for anyone who thinks homewrecking is a sign of society’s moral decay. It’s as old as time itself! Look at Guinevere and Lancelot. In fact, picture Lancelot singing this song to King Arthur about Guinevere. That would be a fun video if another band ever did a Beatles cover. Just saying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va1Y6uAgNJY

7. Brandy & Monica, “The Boy Is Mine”

There might be an awkward in-between phase when both you and his soon-to-be-ex believe that the boy is yours. Have some sympathy! It’s confusing when your boyfriend is someone else’s boyfriend. But your boyfriend is your boyfriend. Not her boyfriend. Yours.

8. Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation”

If you’ve made it this far in the process, there may be one or two or fifty people out there calling you names. But take the high road. Set your lock screen to a picture of Angelina Jolie and make this IDGAF canticle your ringtone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ZDNuakBsQ

9. Rachel Bloom, “West Covina”

If you are ever in doubt, remind yourself that there is a long tradition of picking up and moving across the country to chase a guy who is already with someone else. Yes, the ex-girlfriend in The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is crazy, and yes, Elle and Warner don’t end up together at the end of Legally Blonde. But the point is that both Rebecca Bunch and Elle Woods are smart lawyers, and if smart lawyers do something, it is a good thing to do. That is how the law works. FL