There's something almost poetically on-brand about choosing San Francisco as your post-breakup destination. This is a city built by people who left everything behind and headed west chasing something better. You'll fit right in.

A visitor recently posted online looking for advice after their girlfriend became their ex-girlfriend — right after they'd booked a whole long weekend here. Instead of canceling and doom-scrolling in their apartment, they decided to come anyway, solo, asking the internet for recommendations on bars where it's not weird to sit alone, places to meet actual humans, live music, and — we're quoting directly — "good/safe places to take hallucinogenic drugs and vibrate."

Honest king. We respect it.

The responses were genuinely great, and honestly serve as a better tourism guide than anything the city's official marketing has produced in years. One local suggested Bottom of the Hill in Dogpatch for small, cheap live shows with friendly vibes — and noted it's closing for good at the end of the year, so catching a set there is now a piece of music history. Another recommended going full main-character mode: "Go treat yourself to a Michelin-starred restaurant. They'll treat you like a King as a solo diner." Not bad advice when you need a reminder that you deserve nice things.

But our favorite suggestion? One SF resident pitched the idea of simply taking a ferry somewhere random, because "ferry rides are designed for the liminal space between depression and freedom." That's not tourism advice — that's poetry.

Other highlights from the thread: Archimedes Banya for a co-ed, clothing-optional cold plunge that "will take your mind off everything," the Internet Archive's free Friday tour, Dolores Park for vibing in the sun, and Madrone Art Bar for live music on a random weeknight.

Here's the thing — no government program, no taxpayer-funded initiative, no six-figure-salaried tourism czar produced this guide. Just regular San Franciscans freely offering up the best of their city to a stranger going through it. That's the version of San Francisco worth visiting. The one that costs almost nothing, requires zero permits, and reminds you that a city is really just people being decent to each other.

So to our heartbroken visitor: welcome to San Francisco. You're going to be just fine. And you definitely don't need a girlfriend to ride a ferry into the fog.