If you know me, and you’re good at picking up on subtlety, you know that from time to time, I’ve expressed a totally casual, passing interest in Vince Vaughn.

Are me and Vince Vaughn astrologically compatible I will literally change my birthday

— Colleen Healy (@leenie11) April 15, 2015

And so when I learned Vince would star in the new season of True Detective, I was, to say the least, thrilled. Finally, everyone would see what I see, and love Vince with me. This week, I sat down to write about his gallant comeback.

And then, he said this.

It launched thousands of scathing denouncements, and to add insult to injury, this is the photo they ran with the story, just so that my heart would polarize between moral consciousness and blind love, and literally rip in two.

Is this what Bieber fans feel like all the time? Like a mix between heartache and anger and hollow disappointment? At least when the Jonas Brothers broke up and wronged me deeply, they didn’t take a terrifyingly militant stance on child safety.

Why, Vince? You were about to star in True Detective. True Detective is what celebrities with terrible resumes do in order to be redeemed professionally. We could have been so happy. My devotion, a devotion that caused me to watch Pauly Shore is Dead because you were in it for less than 15 seconds, has now been rendered moot. The Vince Vaughnaissance is one that I’ve waited for patiently ever since you did Fred Claus, and now I can’t even sit on my high horse and say “I told ya so,” because you’re now widely considered to be a gun-crazy hothead.

The road has been rough this past few days, but throughout this ordeal, I’ve developed some coping mechanisms, and if I can help even one lost soul navigate the embarrassing, or ignorant, or alarming dogmas of their ultimate celebrity bae, my difficult journey will not have been in vain.

How to Cope When Your Celebrity Bae Turns Problematic:

• Revel in What They Once Were

Harking back to better times is a widely used coping mechanism, one that, yes, may debilitate your capacity to process your grief, but nothing about this article is mentally or emotionally sound, so just roll with me. Watching Dodgeball one thousand times and remembering when my love for Vince was new and untarnished is what has carried me through this difficult time.

• The Bounce-Back Factor: Stay Optimistic

Britney Spears lost her mind in 2007, and not only is she doing great, but her biggest fan, who used to look like this, now looks like this. So in addition to assuming Vince will come out on the other end of this glowing, I also expect to personally get a lot hotter after this ordeal.

• Create Your Own Reality

This is something my personal love for Vince requires on a regular basis, as I’ve found that most people hate his guts, or find his voice grating, or are artistically offended by his constant string of shitty movies, or text me pictures of him eating hot dogs.

But since the whole point of a celebrity crush is to project all your idealistic needs on someone so unattainable that reality can’t disappoint you, you can literally pretend the problem doesn’t exist. Photographs can’t speak, so as long as you stop reading your favorite celebrity’s twitter feed and steer clear of youtube comments, you can just stare at your Google image search and ignore the fact that they are a racist, or a bigot, or a Scientologist, or whatever their affliction may be.

I hope this helps, friends. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find another sorta old, out of shape, tree-sized celebrity whose daily appearance is haphazard at best, but recalls a faint whisper of debonair magnetism, suggesting that he was once a smokin’ hot hottie in his twenties. GOODBYE.