One thing (of many) that I suck at is consoling others. To be specific, consoling people who have just been out of relationships. People who have just dumped or been dumped by their GFs/BFs. More often that not when so-and-so come to me and say they have just broken up with such-and-such, I find myself struggling with words to, yep, console them. Worse when the words have to be in English. Because I also suck at English. That's why I'm writing this entirely in English. Uh, and I hope you notice the irony. You don't? Fine.

I, for one, don't often show feelings. And more than once my mom called me on it. You have no feelings!, she would say. Poor Mom. Anyway, let's leave her out of this as at the moment she doesn't need any consoling. And even if she did, I wouldn't know because we're thousands of miles apart. I mean, it's not like I don't care about her, it's just... You know what, after this I'll give her a call, gosh.

Anyway, I was saying... Right, I don't show feelings. So when others come to me with feelings, especially hurt, sad feelings, I don't know how to react. My fav words would be: oh no! Then: a) how did that happen? or b) how could he/she do that to you! or c) man, that's mean! or a lame d) really? At my more creative times I can come up with slightly smarter variations, to my endless pride. Unfortunately, those times don't come too often.

People learn. Even I. So I've been asking around, finding the right consoling ways. And here are some that I personally think make more sense than the rest. Might help some talking-robot developers, who knows.

Rule #1: never say it's good. 'Cause it's not. Most of the times it just sucks when it happens. It's all right, you'll move on. Oh yeah, they will move on and get over it. That's not the point. Whatever better things lining up for them, what has just happened is bad. I mean, come on now, they wouldn't be sad were it not, would they?

Rule #2: never say bad things about whatever is now their past. Dude, don't feel so bad. Look at her, she has a soccer player's calves! Which is as good as saying, dude, your choice of GFs sucks. We don't tell a friend how ugly we always thought his GF was. Just like we don't date a friend's ex-GF. Friends notwithstanding.

Rule #3: never compare their problem with ours. Yep, however similar and relevant they are. I know how you're hurting, it happened to me, too. I feel your pain. Partly because it's always easier to talk about problems after it's over. In other words, easy for us to say how we also suffered because we no longer do. And in yet other words, deal with it, man. It hurt me before, so now it's your turn. And partly because I don't think our suffering friends would want to hear about our problem anyway. We should listen to theirs.

Rule #4: sometimes simple, seemingly meaningless words will do. And be a good listener for the rest of the way. She did, huh? That sucks. You wanna talk about it? Let's go downstairs for some coffee. I'm buying. This works best for me. At least if he ever complains I never treat him anything, I'll just say, hey, I bought you coffee, didn't I? Remember when you were down and troubled? Now, how come you never treat me?

All those said, I still suck at this consoling thing. Beats me.