Vulture Shock

My boyfriend dumped me, and I'm besieged with inquiries about how I'm handling it, both from friends and people who don't care about me and just want to pry. How do I field questions from the latter without getting into a lot of discussion?

--Exhausted

Without gossip, people would have to sit around talking about particle physics, the economic downturn, and what's going on in Libya. Gnawing on your life is much more fun: "Yeah, they broke up, and she's alone, and I counted 62 empty pork rind bags and 73 beer bottles in her trash." Recognize that you have no obligation to feed the info vultures, and plan in advance exactly how you won't be answering their questions. However you decide to shut them down -- with humor, vagueness, wild invention, or deflection ("Finehowareyou?!") -- keep responding that way until they get the message that it's all the message they're gonna get. Preserving your emotional energy means you can channel it where you need it most -- into working your way through the "Seven Stages of Grief": 1. Drunk dialing; 2. Watching "Law & Order" reruns; 3. Looking up elementary school boyfriends on Facebook; 4. And then not writing them; 5. Tearing pages from "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and lighting them on fire; 6. Putting on shadow puppet shows of brutal murders; 7. Making hangup calls at 3 a.m. to nosy buggers who ask you prying questions about your breakup.