Zollotech/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Gentlemen, about your lost love.

It may be that the breakup was your fault, that you're an obstinate, thoughtless, misguided, misunderstood eccentric who doesn't deserve even a hug.

It may also be that she was a mendacious manipulator with a brain the size of a 12-inch pianist's and the empathy of an inebriated worm.

When it's over, texting or calling her a couple of times in the hope of a reconciliation is understandable. But when your texting and calling gets to 20 unanswered, it really is time to stop.

When it gets to 21,807, it's time to check yourself into a secure facility.

I mention this number because of a Frenchman from Rhone, located in southern France, who demanded his ex say thank you for work he had done to improve her apartment.

They had broken up in 2011. However, as Agence France-Presse reported Friday, he bombarded her with requests over a 10-month period to either pay him for his work, or at least show gratitude.

When she blocked his calls, he called her parents or her workplace, according to the report. At heart, it seems, he simply couldn't cope with their breakup. His behavior, however, suggested that he needed to analyze his obsessive behavior a little more than he did.

After 21,807 attempts to get a thank you, he got one -- in a meeting moderated by a mediator. A court in Lyon wasn't too sympathetic toward his insistent, possibly deranged, behavior. It gave him a 10-month jail sentence -- 6 months of which was suspended -- and fined him 1,000 Euros (around $1,297), reported AFP.

Looking back, he offered this: "It was stupid."

It was possibly a little more than that, and AFP reported he has been sent for psychiatric examination.

Clearly, his behavior was unacceptable and disturbing. What also disturbs is that he has reportedly discovered "a passion for writing."

Currently in France, the scorned have been exercising their passion for writing to an extreme. Valerie Trierweiler, the ex of president Francois Hollande, has penned an embittered masterwork entitled "Merci Pour Ce Moment."

I fear that, in the case of the obsessive texter and caller, he might turn to the literary form to write even more than he did in his texts.

Oh, love. How you twist the vulnerable.