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Food

These Ice Cream Pints Are the Sweet but Savage Way to Say "It's Over"

Customizable prompts on each pint help you find the words beyond "thank u, next."
Bettina Makalintal
Brooklyn, US
break-up pints of nora's non-dairy ice cream
Photo courtesy Nora's Non-Dairy

If it wasn’t already obvious from the barrage of new couples smiling in selfies on your social media feeds, it’s cuffing season again.

As anyone who’s ever dated via the internet can tell you, for every good potential date, you’ll encounter at least three bad ones. Even then, no matter how good someone may seem on dates one, two, and three, with comfort comes the harsh realization that people are grosser, weirder, or just shittier than you once thought.

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Still, when it’s time to cut your losses, letting would-be beaus know it’s over needn’t be so bitter. The Vancouver-based company Nora’s Non-Dairy is churning out a solution that’s a little sweeter, albeit still pretty savage: a limited-edition collection of ice cream pints that say “it’s over.”

There’s no metaphor here; they literally say that—along with “I can’t do this” and “we’re done”—in big, bold letters. It’s like the Sex and the City Post-It breakup but for the Instagram era.

“With people dating and dumping so frequently, the pints serve a very important need—the need to break-it-off with someone without too much drama, time, or awkwardness,” wrote the company in an email to MUNCHIES.

The idea isn’t entirely unique: Breaking up via desserts has become an internet attention grabber. Last week, a London ice cream shop made the rounds with its $96 “I’m divorcing you” ice cream cake, and the Instagram-based art project Eat Your Heart Out transposes phrases from break-ups (e.g., “I don’t think I actually loved you”) onto pies and cakes.

Nora’s collection includes three flavors of non-dairy ice cream, each with its own selection of prompts. The Mad Lib-style of Strawberries and You’re Mean lends itself to a slightly nicer separation, while the check-off list of break-up reasons on Bye Bye Brownie—including “you like Nickelback” and “you slept with my best friend”—might be reserved for a more blunt break. (If it’s the latter, though, they probably don’t deserve that ice cream.)

Even if none of these products—divorce cakes or break-up pints—serve to actually sever ties, the juxtaposition of something so serious with something so sweet is appealing in a tongue-in-cheek way.

Think of it like a parting gift: You’re doing something nice, preventing your now-ex from sadly skulking into the nearest bodega for solace in Ben and Jerry’s. You’re a catch and losing you will be hard—maybe ice cream will soften the blow.