Let’s face it. Whether they happen in January or June… breakups SUCK.
But… it’s safe to say that there are times of the year when an unexpected ditching can sting just that little bit harder.
Dumped on February 13th? It’s ice cream and Adele on repeat until July!
Back in 2014, a study of Facebook status updates found that March and December were the most common months for relationships to end.
But here at Her Norm, we wanted to find out if that varied across the USA.
Were New Yorkers more likely to be scroogers—who break up just in time to save money on Christmas presents—than Californians?
Were Texans inclined to dump their partner in the run up to Valentine’s day?
We analysed data from Google to find out…
How We Figured This Out…
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Like we do for most things in our lives these days… we used Google. Well, a specific tool that they provide to be exact.
Google Trends shows the relative popularity of a search term over time (on a scale of 1-100). So we simply looked at when searches for “how to break up” (which gets THOUSANDS of searches each month) peaked in each state.
In the example below (New York), searches peaked between the 10th and 16th of February…
…so it looks like there were a lot of broken hearts in Manhattan on Valentine’s day 🙁
Once we had the data, we split the states into 7 groups…
The ‘Cleanslaters’ (January)
States: Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, West Virginia
New Year is a time for fresh starts. And it seems this applies to relationships too. January was a popular month for breakups, with searches peaking in 7 states.
The ‘Heartbreakers’ (1st – 14th February)
States: Michigan and New York
Surely no-one would would be cruel enough to break up with their guy or gal just before Valentine’s day? Well, as we already mentioned, it seems like plenty of New Yorkers did just that! And they weren’t alone. Searches also peaked in Michigan just before the most romantic day of the year.
The ‘String Alongers’ (15th – 28th February)
States: California, DC, Kansas, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas
We call this group the string alongers. They didn’t have the bottle to break up before Valentine’s day—instead, they strung their partner along, waiting for the last 2 weeks in February to give them the chop. Is this better or worse? We can’t decide!
The ‘Spring Cleaners’ (March, April, May)
States: Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington
The spring cleaners like to take a broom to their relationship in time for the Summer. There were 12 states that prefer to do their breaking up in the Spring.
The ‘Summer Lovers’ (June, July, August)
States: Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Summer lovin’… it didn’t last.
8 states saw searches peak over the summer months. We guess that ‘summer fling, don’t mean a thing’ (ok, no more Grease puns).
The ‘Fallin’ For Anothers’ (September, October, November)
States: Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont
We did think about calling this group the ‘Strategic Scrooges’. They know Christmas is just around the corner, and want to get their dumping in early. But we thought we’d give them the benefit of the doubt…
Maybe they had just fallen for another (get it?).
The ‘Scroogers’ (25th November – 25th December)
States: Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah
And finally… we’ve got the scroogers. These 6 states preferred to do their ditching just before Christmas. We hope Santa put them straight on the naughty list and rewarded them with a lump of coal!
The Full List…
Here’s a full rundown of all the states in alphabetical order.
| State | Week | Category |
| Alabama | 28th Jul – 3rd Aug | Summer Lovers |
| Alaska | 27th Jan – 3rd Feb | Cleanslaters |
| Arizona | 30th Dec – 5th Jan | Cleanslaters |
| Arkansas | 23rd Dec – 29th Dec | Scroogers |
| California | 24th Feb – 2nd Mar | String Alongers |
| Colorado | 19th May – 25th May | Spring Cleaners |
| Connecticut | 9th Dec – 15th Dec | Scroogers |
| Delaware | 28th Oct – 3rd Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| D.C. | 24th Feb – 2nd March | String Alongers |
| Florida | 9th Dec – 15th Dec | Scroogers |
| Georgia | 18th Aug – 24th Aug | Summer Lovers |
| Hawaii | 27th Jan – 2nd Feb | Cleanslaters |
| Idaho | 12th May – 18th May | Spring Cleaners |
| Illinois | 3rd Mar – 9th Mar | Spring Cleaners |
| Indiana | 26th May – 1st Jun | Spring Cleaners |
| Iowa | 30th Jun – 6th Jul | Summer Lovers |
| Kansas | 17th Feb – 23rd Feb | String Alongers |
| Kentucky | 27th Jan – 2nd Feb | Cleanslaters |
| Louisiana | 12th May – 18th May | Spring Cleaners |
| Maine | 22nd Sep – 28th Sep | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Maryland | 16th Jun – 22nd Jun | Summer Lovers |
| Massachusetts | 20th Jan – 26th Jan | Cleanslaters |
| Michigan | 3rd Feb – 9th Feb | Heartbreakers |
| Minnesota | 24th Mar – 30th Mar | Spring Cleaners |
| Mississippi | 28th Oct – 3rd Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Missouri | 28th Oct – 3rd Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Montana | 14th Oct – 20th Oct | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Nebraska | 9th Dec – 15th Dec | Scroogers |
| Nevada | 24th Feb – 2nd Mar | String Alongers |
| New Hampshire | 21st Apr – 27th Apr | Spring Cleaners |
| New Jersey | 18th Aug – 24th Aug | Summer Lovers |
| New Mexico | 28th Oct – 3rd Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| New York | 3rd Feb – 9th Feb | Heartbreakers |
| North Carolina | 17th Feb – 23rd Feb | String Alongers |
| North Dakota | 14th Apr – 20th Apr | Spring Cleaners |
| Ohio | 30th Dec – 5th Jan | Cleanslaters |
| Oklahoma | 17th Mar – 23rd Mar | Spring Cleaners |
| Oregon | 2nd Dec – 8th Dec | Scroogers |
| Pennsylvania | 7th Apr – 13th Apr | Spring Cleaners |
| Rhode Island | 11th Nov – 17th Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| South Carolina | 17th Mar – 23rd Mar | Spring Cleaners |
| South Dakota | 30th Jun – 6th Jul | Summer Lovers |
| Tennessee | 28th Oct – 3rd Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Texas | 17th Feb – 23rd Feb | String Alongers |
| Utah | 25th Nov – 1st Dec | Scroogers |
| Vermont | 18th Nov – 24th Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Virgina | 4th Nov – 10th Nov | Fallin’ For Anothers |
| Washington | 10th Mar – 16th Mar | Spring Cleaners |
| West Virginia | 13th Jan – 19th Jan | Cleanslaters |
| Wisconsin | 21st Jul – 27th Jul | Summer Lovers |
| Wyoming | 16th Jun – 22nd Jun | Summer Lovers |
Which group did your state belong to? Drop a comment below and let us know!
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