This is Dating, Unhinged, an exclusive series for PLAYBOY from writer, model and viral content creator Isabel Timerman — better known to her loyal followers as IsabelUnhinged. She started posting videos in 2022, using social media as an outlet after a messy breakup. With her candid, painfully relatable posts, she quickly amassed a devoted following and millions of views. Now crowned the “Empress of Delululand,” she leads the delulu movement, encouraging women to embrace their fantasies with humor and positivity. Her satirical yet honest approach to dating has made her a powerful voice for those seeking empowerment through unfiltered authenticity.

I’m a huge fan of Mel Robbins—her black, thick-frame glasses, her no BS delivery, her cool-mom energy and wisdom without condescension. I’ve whispered “yes, Mel” to more of her videos than I’d like to admit, like she’s my private, on-call therapist. She’s helped millions of people get unstuck, grow up, and stop texting their exes at 1 a.m.  So when she introduced the now viral Let Them theory, a calming mantra that says instead of trying to manage how others act, let them reveal who they are through their actions, I wanted to be all in. The idea is simple: if someone mistreats you, your job is to do… nothing. Choose peace over the illusion of control. Let them ghost, lie, exclude you from plans. Let them disappear without explanation after sending you Zillow links to future lake houses and suggesting baby names from Victorian novels. Instead of confronting them, turn inward. Light a candle, journal about boundaries and protect your peace. 

It’s a lovely idea. Mature, enlightened, but it can sound suspiciously like rolling over and playing dead, something women have been doing to swallow mistreatment for centuries. Because what if the evil-doer slinks off thinking he got away with it? What if your silence doesn’t register as strength, but as permission? This is where I propose a new theory, less meditative, more actionable: Don’t Let Them.

I once dated the son of a biotech titan who lived in a $20 million duplex he called “the loft” and referred to himself as a “creative director,” though the bulk of his labor appeared to consist of dragging blurry party photos into Google Slides and reposting ’90s fashion campaign images on his story he claimed were curated by an assistant. (Said assistant, it turned out, was imaginary.)

When he told me he didn’t want a girlfriend, I thanked him for his honesty. I was fresh off being victimized by an undercover thot (see: column no. 7), so his straightforward boundary-setting felt, in its own twisted way, refreshing. Plus, I truly believed I could turn his indifference into devotion with the sheer force of my unparalleled charm. (If he could be so passionate about Tom Ford’s Gucci, couldn’t some of that ardor be re-directed towards me?) At one of his quote/unquote “dinner parties” at his parents’ Hamptons estate—read: Bacchanalian reunions for men reliving high school—he disappeared. I found him in a closet with my best friend. 

I was used to his shady behavior but this crossed a line. He didn’t just ruin the last weekend of summer, he detonated a friendship I’d cherished since middle school. I stormed out. The next morning, I received a text: 

“Why u so mad?” 

Everyone told me to go silent. Block him. Move on. But I had other plans.

I didn’t block him. I didn’t go dark. I didn’t take the high road paved with lavender-infused candle wax. I sent him a full diagnostic evaluation of his mediocrity, his cowardice and his unearned confidence in his creative choices. I told him he would never know real connection, because he was constitutionally incapable of intimacy without utility. I hit send. Watching the typing bubble appear, then disappear, felt like an exorcism. A week later, he apologized, and told me he planned to stop drinking and doing drugs entirely. It’s been three years since that night, and he’s been sober ever since.

Then there was the Italian sculptor. Gorgeous. Fiery. Quoted Rilke while following bikini models. His temper felt sexy—at first. Then one night, at a karaoke bar, he threw a tantrum because he couldn’t find a coat check for his vintage Armani. Unrecognizable, he spewed invective at me and my friends for our “uncivilized” venue choice. The next morning, he asked me to Venmo him the $10 cover. (Emotional damages for a dusty coat?) This, from a man who’d just sold a black marble cube for $40,000, was the final straw.

I dumped him with a long, emotionally-bulletproof text and he shot back with a slew of insults, claiming he’d been “checked out” of the relationship for weeks, but was “too kind” a person to break my heart. 

Six months later, I received an apology in the form of a handwritten note. He was in therapy. I was the only one who’d ever called him out. I made him “think.” That’s the point. He thought. 

This isn’t just about payback or drama. It’s about honesty. Breakups can turn into teachable moments. Sometimes it takes the sting of shame and mortification, a well-aimed attack, to make someone look inward. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been on the other side of this. When I once asked a kind, chill ex for an honest post-mortem, he complied. It was brutal to hear, but it helped.

Too often, however, women are told silence is power. That anger is unseemly. That speaking up makes you “unhealed.” That you should exit with grace, as if it’s your job to be easy. I’m more a fan of the girls who have the last word.

The late, great Nora Ephron, for example,  made a career out of telling the truth about her cheating ex-husband. She turned heartbreak into art, named names, and rewrote the rules. She believed in narrative as retaliation, in transforming her own humiliation into plot and a brilliant career. 

I get that there’s no use dragging out post-break-up conversations in a delusional attempt to make someone feel what they don’t.  I get that other people’s cruelty and conniving are more about them than us. There are many situations that fit the Mel mantra. The flaky friend, the random social climber, the guy you date twice who ghosts? Let them. But after serious betrayals? Silence just prolongs your pain. Avoidant coping—shutting down instead of speaking up—often leads to more depression and anxiety in the long run. Women ruminate. And when paired with silence, that rumination festers.

Letting go might look graceful. But letting someone off the hook can haunt you. Too many women look back and feel shame—not just for staying, but for staying quiet. For being too cool, too calm, too collected. For not saying what needed to be said. They don’t wish they’d been more Zen. They wish they’d been more of a bitch.

And while I agree with the advice that you can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow, there’s a certain liberation in telling them today. So if someone schemes, lies, cheats and humiliates you in a Montauk closet? Don’t let them. Say it. Send it. Don’t light a candle. Light them up. 

Let them show you who they are. But don’t, by any means, let them get away with it.