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Dear Level
So You Want to Win Back Your Ex…
Empty promises and performative displays won’t cut it (sorry, Kanye). Here’s a guide to restoring relations.

Last week, Drake and Ye squashed their beef and reunited at the Los Angeles Coliseum in an effort to raise money and awareness for jailed gangster Larry Hoover and criminal justice reform. You may have heard about it. Or seen the promo plastered all over the homepage of Amazon, where it was streamed to millions of viewers. For those watching, there was one moment that was especially… Well, it was something!
While performing his song “Runaway,” the artist formerly (and pretty much still) known as Kanye West switched up some of the sung lyrics to publicly beg his estranged wife, Kim Kardashian, to “run right back to me.” Talk about awkward.
Look, none of us knows what happens behind closed doors, so I won’t analyze this very public but still private relationship. I’m not one to find entertainment in the personal lives of others — especially not in their turmoil. However, Ye’s cringy public blubbering has brought to mind how men often get this aspect of relationships wrong. Perhaps you’ve been there before: You done fucked up and now you want another chance. You want your baby back, no ribs. You want to sleep in the same bed once again and convince her you will do and be better from here on out.
But, she ain’t listenin’, chief.
In cases like these, often a woman has already given months or years of grace. She’s cried, screamed, threatened, begged, and bargained. She’s given a thousand second chances. Until one day, she’s out of fucks to give — those are already earmarked for the new guy. And now that your boo has moved on, you’re outside of her bedroom window in a gnarly trench coat, subjecting her to a boombox serenade like John Cusack in 1989’s Say Anything.
This kind of thing may work in cheesy 1980s flicks, but in real life, putting on a Hail Mary public…