Weird Side Hustles
“Sometimes It Takes a Stranger to Say ‘It’s Not You, It’s Monday.'”
When 28-year-old barista-turned-entrepreneur Kelly Marris discovered her uncanny talent for writing eloquent, non-confrontational breakup texts, she launched “Ghostwrite My Heart,” a side hustle offering customized breakup messages for people too emotionally constipated to handle their own endings. Within weeks, she went viral, was featured on five podcasts, and became a millionaire with nothing but thumbs, sass, and an iPhone 11 with a cracked screen protector.
“People suck at breaking up,” Kelly said from her minimalist office above a vape shop. “I’m just giving them the dignity of outsourcing their emotional cowardice.”
For $39.99, customers receive a personalized breakup message based on a questionnaire that asks probing questions like, “Did they steal your hoodie?” and “On a scale of 1 to full ghost, how hard do you want to vanish?” Add-ons include literary metaphors, Taylor Swift references, and an emoji package categorized by tone (gentle, spicy, nuclear).
One satisfied client raved, “I gave her three bullet points and a gif of my ex crying at Olive Garden. She gave me a poetic farewell that ended with ‘May your Spotify playlist always skip our song.’ Beautiful.”
Kelly says she’s written over 7,000 breakup texts, including the infamous “It’s not you–it’s the late-stage capitalism inside me” and the viral “I need to focus on my kombucha brand and emotional abs.”
Her favorite? A 3,000-word breakup novella formatted as a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, complete with dice roll metaphors and an elven farewell. “He rolled a natural one for commitment,” Kelly said, sipping oat milk triumphantly.
Therapists are divided. Dr. Marvin Bellows called the service “a Band-Aid for a compound fracture of maturity.” Meanwhile, online daters rejoice. A Reddit thread titled “Just Got Dumped by Kelly ??” is filled with people admiring her punctuation and taste in seasonal metaphors.
Kelly has since expanded to corporate clients, writing polite termination notices, roommate eviction texts, and “It’s not you, it’s your dog” messages for people breaking up due to incompatible pet dynamics.
Despite her success, Kelly remains humble. “I’m just a girl with a keyboard and a heart full of other people’s drama,” she says. Her upcoming book, *Texts of Mercy: How I Monetized Your Emotional Immaturity*, is expected to debut on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigos.
