Best Way To Get Over Heartbreak? Clown Around and Find Out
How being sent a plastic clown anonymously in the mail helped ease a broken heart.
As most of my friends, the parents of the kids I babysit, and the bassist of Beach Fossils know, I went through what they call “heartbreak.” I'm unfortunately an open book, thinking if I keep something inside my mind will warp it into something worse than it is. If I say it out loud to others, then it will actually seem like nothing. To make it less complicated: I simply want someone to tell me what to do.
I won’t go into details of the heartbreak itself. Listen to the song “Let You Break My Heart Again” by Laufey and you’ll get the gist. I’m no stranger to heartbreak, to be clear. It’s to be expected when you’ve had crushes on boys since you were three and decided to pursue a notoriously competitive career.
Still, heartbreak fucking sucks.
This recent one hurt pretty bad, mostly because my mental state is still reeling from previous grief. My emotions were already fragile. After bottling it up for so long by being in vacation mode, I let the reality of my broken heart wash over me when I got home to Brooklyn. I was jet-lagged, hungry, cranky from waiting over an hour in customs, and emotionally exhausted. I laid out on my living room floor and sobbed. I felt it in my body. I couldn’t stop. However, I brought this on myself. There is no villain in this story, no love lost, and no ill will. Like the Hot Priest says to Fleabag when she tells him she loves him: “It’ll pass.” It is now a matter of me letting these feelings pass.
So how does one get over soul-crushing heartbreak? How does one go from sobbing uncontrollably on their cat-hair-infested rug to a (somewhat) functioning member of society once more?
First: Be broke. Nothing distracts you more than the fact that you have no money! There’s no room in your brain to be heartbroken as you’re spiraling about how you’re going to pay for things!
Second: Make the great musical artist Peaches proud. Go see that guy you went on a couple of dates with as fast as you can. Just let go and see said new guy 2-3 times a week. That will fill a hole in your heart! He’s not what you want in the long term, but he’s what you need in this period of your life. A nice, casual relationship to remind yourself: You still got it baby!
Finally, and this is very important so I need you to listen: be sent a plastic clown in the mail anonymously. The very mystery of the clown will consume every ounce of your being. You will not be able to rest until the clown sender reveals themselves. I share this knowledge with you because it happened to me.
It was a Wednesday, exactly one week since arriving back to New York. My neighbor was dropping off his one-year-old son who I was babysitting that evening. During the pass off, he told me I had a package in the foyer. I hadn’t remembered ordering anything lately, did someone send me a little treat? I certainly can’t be the only person who opens the mail every day, wondering if maybe today is the day someone sent you a surprise?
On the same spot on the rug I was sobbing the week before, I now knelt down to open the unexpected package. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but I can tell you I would sooner expect anthrax in the mail. I was left speechless at what I saw.
It was a clown. A plastic clown that looked like someone had made it in a Boy Scout meeting in the 1980s. Its face was frowning and it had weird wispy yellow hair under a plastic hat. He had the classic red ball nose. He looked haunted.
I inspected it some more thinking this was all some façade and inside would be the real gift. Because why else was I getting this? Was this a clever way to send weed? Or was this an invitation to the Met Gala? There was an envelope with my name on it as well. Hoping for an explanation, the note instead said:
“My name is Dance! I’m gonna lick you right up like a tasty, melty ice cream. Sluuuuuuurp sluuuuuuuuurp.”
I was incredulous. My only company was the one-year-old I was in charge of, so I just repeated “What is this?!” over and over to him like he had the answer (he did not).
The nature of the note was up for debate by my peers, but I initially perceived it as sexual. Why did this clown want to lick me up like an ice cream cone? As mentioned above I had been seeing a guy, but we did not know each other well enough to send each other plastic clowns (that’s a 2 months of dating thing, no?), plus I knew he did not have the money to even do this. My ex boyfriend could have done it, but this didn’t feel like his wheelhouse.
I texted dozens of people, asking them if they knew what it was, or demanding they reveal themselves if they sent it. My parents were convinced I was going to be murdered. I went to Google and found nothing about what it meant to be sent a clown. Like this wasn’t a weird charity thing or a marketing stunt. If you can’t find it on Google, then the next logical step is to search TikTok. Sure enough, I found some videos on there of people showing off clowns they were sent. They came from this account on Instagram called Send Clown. None of my friends followed the account. There was a picture of my clown, the caption confirming his name was Dance. One part of the mystery was solved, but this only led to more questions.
The SendClown Instagram has 302 photos of various toy clowns collected from thrift shops. Each had their own name and level of creepiness. The bio of the account itself read: “Send a forever friend to someone. The clowns choose who they go to.” The last sentence concerned me the most: “NOTE: We are not responsible for any actions of clowns after you receive it.”
WTF, were these clowns cursed?! Now I was starting to think an enemy, not a lover, had sent this. I racked my head for anyone I had pissed off lately. Was the clown just a vessel for poison? Or was the culprit someone who knew me well enough to know this would lead to me spiraling into madness?
In between keeping my eye on the one-year-old in my care (don’t worry, he is easily entertained by magnets for two hours) I continued my research. In the Instagram bio for Send Clown was the link to their website, where you can purchase and send a clown for 30 dollars. The site also explains that all clowns will be sent anonymously, but the purchaser does not choose the specific clown for the recipient: “The clowns choose who they go to.” To further add to the creepiness factor, the website stressed the point that they are not responsible for any actions of the clown.
In my Instagram stories I tagged the Send Clown account along with a picture of Dance. That is when I dived further into the lore of the clowns. Send Clown messaged me, and you can just read the conversation yourself.
Again: More questions than answers. The clown has chosen me. However, I did narrow it down to who could have sent me Dance. This person has to know my address, be on TikTok/some deep corner of the internet, and have $30 to spare. It was suggested by some to be my friend from England who I had just returned from visiting, but I had only just introduced the man to Eric Andre, there is no way he would ever be on that corner of the internet. It could be my sister, the only sibling out of the four of us with the dark humor and means to do so. Or, it could be one Emily Murphy Weiss, my college day one whose wedding I had officiated last year. She was probably my number one candidate, though she denied all allegations.
The night only got more bizarre. I was concerned that I had a child in my care and I was being told to not have it near the clown. If something were to happen, how was I supposed to explain to his parents? Hi sorry, a plastic clown has cursed your child. Be on the lookout for any signs of demonic possession.
I would not rest even for just a minute. My Instagram story was flooded with memes I made of my descent into madness over this clown. I threatened to hold my entire Instagram audience hostage: I would post nothing but clown content until the sender of Send Clown came forward. I biked to the restaurant we were holding my roommate’s birthday dinner at, the adrenaline of the clown pushing the pedals forward. My eyes were on the road, but my head and heart were on the goddamn clown.
A margarita at dinner ensured that all I would talk about was the clown. The other dinnergoers were equally confused, my roommate fully creeped out. The boy I was seeing kept trying to text me, but I told him I could not talk, I was too consumed by the clown. My desire to solve a mystery trumps the desire to flirt. This must be why Sherlock Holmes never had a romantic partner. He got off on the thrill of the mystery.
Send Clown would message me over the course of the night as I begged them to reveal the sender. They refused, saying it would “undermine the integrity of the clowns.” More allusions were made to something “happening” while Dance was in my possession. My thoughts went to our cats, were they in danger of this clown? According to Send Clown, they very well could be. The conversation continued to get weirder:
Send Clown wasn’t the only person to message me. I received two more messages from unknown people, telling me that though I didn’t know them, I should trust them when they say the clowns were amazing little friends. I attempted to sleep that night, but my dreams were haunted.
24 hours later I sat on my front stoop, still plagued by the clown. I had decided to stop fighting Dance, and let him join my world. He sat with me as I drank a beer, contemplating how my life got here.
I texted my friend Emily again, for she was my number one suspect. You see in college we used to tape pictures of failed American Idol contestant Sanjaya to each other’s doors, pretending to be Sanjaya. Ten years later and that has now been substituted with plastic clowns. She admitted it was her, saying it was the best $30 she ever spent. She ordered it the minute she heard about the events that lead to what had happened upon my return to the US.
According to Emily she had no involvement in which clown was to be sent or what the note would say. She also had nothing to do with the random Instagram messages from other clown recipients. What we both discovered together is that there is a whole world of people who enjoy being sent toy clowns, something we both could not have anticipated.
I could do nothing but applaud. Emily Murphy Weiss knows me to my core. Sure, a sweet note or maybe some spa materials can help ease the pain of a broken heart. But what truly helps a friend struggling is to send a plastic clown with no indication that it is from you, prompting them to spiral about who had sent it. Like Spongebob consumed with the desire to know what was in Patrick’s secret box, I too could not rest. With my mind occupied by a clown, I had no time to be sad. For the first time in a week, the sinking feeling in my stomach had gone away and I felt more like myself again. The adrenaline had replaced the dread.
So there you have it. If you, like me, had your heart shattered into a million pieces and thought nothing happy was ever going to happen to you again, then consider emerging yourself into the mystery of the clown. Nothing will distract you more than a passion for the absurd. Soon you’ll stop singing “I wanna hear one song without thinking of you” and move on to singing “forget your running, I will find you.”
I’m sure I have left you with a lot of questions. For now, I direct all of them to Dance, the clown. Thank you.