A woman’s tweet sharing a screen recording of a voice note she sent her ex-boyfriend in the hopes of getting him back has gone viral sparking laughs from millions of viewers and a deeper conversation about relationships.
With the multi-platinum R&B singer and award-winning songwriter Ne-Yo’s “So Sick” as the backdrop, she pours her heart out in a Whatsapp voice note. After her attempts to regain his love fall flat, the Twitter user invokes comedy to deal with her heartbreak and endears herself to millions.
Twitter user @PartyWithDesto sent the message to her ex and then made it public for the world to see on Thursday, April 20.
“Other women act too prideful to beg for a man back but then there’s me,” she said in the tweet.
The screen recording starts with a text from her former partner saying, “I’m in class.”
She then drops the voice note of her partially talk-singing the hit love song.
She starts with the lyrics of the song, singing, “Got to change my answering machine … “ but before the singer can finish, she breaks out and says, “I want you back.”
Continuing in a desperate plea, “I’m sorry for being overdramatic. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for driving you crazy. My bad!”
“Let’s just vibe,” she asks her former lover. “It ain’t got to be nothing crazy. It don’t got to be nothing serious. I just miss you, so bad. I can’t take it out here no more and I don’t like when you don’t answer my phone.”
The bridge of the song comes up and strikes a nerve with the heartbroken tweeter, and she chimes in singing again: “It’s been months, and for some reason I just can’t get over us and I’m stronger than this.”
She ends the song, begging, “Please call me back you.”
The video received over 6 million views on Twitter, with viewers engaging Desto and asking her why she posted it.
Laughing at her own self, Desto said “I didn’t even know the words. Why was I so unhinged?”
She explained while her note was clever and funny, it only worked for a short time before her the man left her again.
“Since I dragged him thru the mf mud he wasn’t having it. Singing or not,” she said. “He basically didn’t believe none I said.”
Desto said the young man was a great catch and she basically let him slip away with her behavior.
According to a reply tweet, he is a full-time college student and basketball player. Despite all of his responsibilities, her guy “made time” for her and loved her for her and didn’t care about what others said about her.
Desto says she continued to complain that his love, including inviting her to training camps with him, was not enough and that was the basis of him leaving her for good.
Responses on Twitter have been mixed with some people believing it is healthy for her to process her feelings this way and others saying she is attention-seeking. Others also refer Neyo’s 2006 song is from an era when R&B would beg for their lover’s return.
High Seas Bruce said, “I’m sorry I shouldn’t even be encouraging it … but something is so cathartic about this. Sometimes we can make a vulnerable choice and it doesn’t work out and we can find humor. I hope if you’re having heartbreak that it’s healing sis.”
Another person said, “I respect this immensely lol, ain’t too proud to beg 😂, accountability and putting in effort to get buddy back, kudos to you.”
“Love the accountability in this thread,” KiKi Da Gawd wrote. “Love is gonna come back. If not in this form it’ll be another that’s more aligned.”
One woman said, “I’d drink glass before I would ever beg a guy to come back. However, I can respect the effort you did to try. You took an L this time but you learned a lesson from it & that’s called growth.”
Some believed she was playing herself, saying her “pick me” behavior paints her as undesirable. In urban slang, a “pick me” person does whatever she can do to gain favor from the person they desire to have in their life, even if it degrades them or makes them look desperate.
Although Desto took accountability after the breakup, relationship experts say that accountability is important to maintain healthy romantic relationships. The skill requires taking ownership of wrongdoing, but it must also be coupled with a plan to do things differently the next time around, according to Flourish Executive Counseling & Coaching.
Experts also believe using humor to work through trauma is healthy.
Alison M. Landoni of Lesley University suggests laughter is a therapeutic way to transform trauma, adding there is limited research in this space.
“Humor and trauma share two characteristics: they are both perspectival in nature and hold incongruity at their core,” she says.
Adele McCormack, a social worker and trained laughter workshop facilitator, says, “In the midst of hurt and pain of heartbreak, the last thing that you can imagine yourself doing is laughing, and yet the benefits of doing so can be extraordinary because laughter is a natural healer.”
But adds there are biological benefits to why people should use comedy to help them out of a funk.
“It boosts the production of serotonin, a natural anti-depressant in the body whilst also reducing the levels of stress hormones cortisol, dopamine and epinephrine,” she said.
