Over your roller coaster of a relationship? Call it quits on Belmont Park’s famous Giant Dipper.
Ah, spring in San Diego. The sun is shining, the beaches are packed, and, if you’re being honest, that cuddle buddy you locked down to keep you warm during the chilly winter nights isn’t as cute over a round of patio margaritas. Cuffing season is over, baby!
Next step? Find the right place to call it quits. No disrespect to the anonymous sidewalk bench, where several members of the SDM editorial team may or may not have said our own goodbyes to various exes over the years. But, look, if you’re about to spend the rest of your life being the one that got away, make your getaway as interesting as you are.
Here are 12 spots in San Diego to dive into your new single era.
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Belmont Park
We recommend getting the Ride and Play pass at this Mission Beach amusement park so you can bid them adieu on the ride that serves as the most apt metaphor for your relationship. Constant fighting? Overdrive Bumper Cars. Nonstop mood swings? Giant Dipper Roller Coaster. If they proposed after month two, lay on the brakes on the Speedway. Anger issues? Welcome to the new Flip Out.
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San Diego Padres Game
Try to time this one for after the kiss cam. Or showcase your own rendition of the seventh inning stretch tune. Look deeply into their eyes and proclaim, “Take me out…ofthisrelationship… I don’t care if I ever come back…” Then hand over your hot dog and flee Petco Park while the crowd distracts them with proclamations of peanuts and Cracker Jacks.
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Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens
Obviously, your ex has a lot to work on. Set them on the right path by ending things in the county’s most personal growth–friendly spot. Your former lover can perch by the koi pond in Encinitas while contemplating life’s big questions, like, “Should I clean my bathroom more often?”
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Rich’s
Depending on your preferences, this thumping Hillcrest nightclub is the place to find either an instant rebound (What? You’re not a nun) or a crowd that will hype up your newly single status. Plus, two separate dance floors and two sizable patios provide ample space for you and your ex to start awkwardly avoiding each other at the same bar right away.
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Japanese Friendship Garden
What better place to tell them you should just be friends? Sure, this 12-acre garden in Balboa Park may be a favorite spot for weddings, especially during cherry blossom season, but now that its sakura trees are bare again, they’re a fitting reminder that all beautiful things are fleeting—including this romance.
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Sunset Cliffs Yoga
You’re protecting your energy! You want to work on yourself! Which is exactly what you’ll tell them during the first downward dog at this donation-based Saturday morning yoga class in OB. Instead of pestering you with questions or protests, your one-time partner-pose companion will just have to pranayama their way to inner peace.
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Whaley House Museum
Ghosting your current boo? Not recommended. Gently explaining you’re not that into them while surrounded by real-life specters? You just gave them the best breakup story ever. Known as America’s most haunted house, this residence-turned-museum is plagued by the spirits of the Whaleys, early settlers in Old Town San Diego (and, soon, by the ghost of your ill-fated situationship).
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Pacific Shores Cocktail Lounge
The marine life murals in this 75-year-old OB dive bar will remind you and your new ex that there are plenty of fish in the sea, while the enormous seashells over the bar inspire comforting platitudes like, “You deserve someone who really brings you out of your shell.”
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Santa Fe Depot
Trying to manifest your actual soulmate? Break things off at this downtown landmark on a drizzly day. (Built in 1915, the Depot inspired other Spanish architecture around the city and is wayyy more enduring than your winter fling.) Then ride the Pacific Surfliner up the coast, staring out the rain-spotted window as a single, attractive tear runs down your face. The love of your life should be under an umbrella at the next stop.
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Whiskers & Wine
This is the definition of letting them down gently. University Heights’ Whiskers & Wine cat bar has a room full of kitties and a full liquor license. Your newly established ex can drown their sorrows in pinot and pets while you scope out a companion with cuter annoying habits (scratching the sofa a little instead of, say, leaving laundry all over the room).
Nicolaes Maes. Portrait of a Girl. 1664, oil on canvas.
San Diego Museum of Art
As you stroll through the galleries in Balboa Park, use the art to drop subtle hints of your impending breakup. Point at Nicolaes Maes’ Portrait of a Girl and say, “LOL, me asking for my stuff back.” While studying the Turkish mural Departure (from the House of Menander), try, “OMG, that’s so me leaving.”
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Outside the San Diego Central Courthouse
In case anybody needs to sign some papers.
