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Can you ever get used to continued instances of footballing heartbreak?
Gareth Southgate must be wondering.
England's second consecutive European Championship final loss, a 2-1 defeat against a magnificent Spain team, is just the latest blow that Southgate has had to absorb in his tortured England career as both a player and coach.
"It is going to take a while to pick the bones out of it really," a dejected Southgate said at full-time.
"We've competed until the very end of the final. I think today we didn't keep possession of the ball quite well enough. We defended well but when you win the ball back you need to get out of that pressure and we weren't able to do that.
"That said, we got the equaliser and then it was wide open.
"A big chance at the end to equalise so as always it is fine margins."
Fine margins indeed.
Mikel Oyarzabal was only played onside by a matter of centimetres for his perfectly timed run to score Spain's winner.
Marc Guéhi's late header was straight at Dani Olmo, when either side of him would have likely resulted in a second equaliser for England.
Fine margins.
Harry Kane articulated it best.
"Losing in a final is as tough as it gets," he said.
"It's as painful as it could be in a football match … It's a huge disappointment.
"We've made it clear we love the manager, that's his decision [as to whether he stays on].
"That's down to him. He'll go away and think about it. Right now we're all just hurting."
Southgate knows more than most about the hurt football can inflict.
His stellar 57-cap England career is so often boiled down to one penalty miss, against Germany in a European Championship semifinal in 1996.
His 102-game tenure as England manager, if this is where it ends, might boil down to questions over his tactical acuity, his apparent resistance to change and the "handbrake" he placed on the star-studded generational talents he had at his disposal.
Never mind that his record of leading a team to two major finals, a semifinal and a quarterfinal is unmatched in the history of England's men's national team.
Southgate changed England
Short-term memories are endemic to football supporters — with the exception of most England supporters' astonishing ability to recall the events of 1966, whether they were alive at the time or not.
But it does bear remembering what sort of crap-shoot the England team was before Southgate took over in 2016.
Southgate, who had been working with the under-21 team since 2013, stepped in when Sam Allardyce stepped down after just 67 days.
UK newspaper The Telegraph published footage of Allardyce allegedly negotiating a £400,000 ($765,000) fee to represent a firm hoping to profit from player transfers into the Premier League, allegedly offering advice on how to circumvent FA rules on third-party ownership, and mocking his predecessor Roy Hodgson for having a speech impediment.
Hodgson, it should be remembered, stepped down after a disastrous 2-1 defeat to Iceland in the last 16 of Euro 2016.
Under Hodgson, England were knocked out of Euro 2012 on penalties and were knocked out of the 2014 World Cup in the group stages without winning a game.
Of course, that Euro 2012 tournament came in the wake of the John Terry scandal, with then-coach Fabio Capello resigning after the FA stripped the captaincy from the Chelsea skipper after it was alleged that he had racially abused Anton Ferdinand in a Premier League match.
Capello — an international manager of exceptional pedigree it should be said — supervised one of the weakest English showings at a major tournament in history at the 2010 World Cup, with pathetic draws against the USA and Algeria in the group stages preceding a 4-1 hammering at the hands of Germany.
Before that, Steve McClaren — labelled the wally with the brolly — failed to qualify the side for Euro 2008.
It is not a stretch to describe the decade after Sven-Göran Erikson led England to the quarterfinals of the 2006 World Cup as dismal.
And the decade before that wasn't much cop either: After a semifinal appearance at Euro 96, England made the round of 16 at France 98, went out in the group stage of Euro 2000, made the quarterfinals at the next three majors, and sacked a coach for his belief that people living with a disability were being punished for sins in a previous life.
Perhaps the previous decade wasn't so dismal after all.
Is Southgate going to continue?
So what now?
Where now for an England team battered by the rollercoaster of this tournament, bruised by the early criticism, and cowed by the soul-destroying pain of falling just short again?
Southgate would not be drawn on whether he would stay on as coach.
"I don't think now is a good time to make a decision like that," he said.
But he said there were always reasons to stay positive.
"England are in a really good position in terms of the experience they have," Southgate said.
"Most of this squad will be around for the World Cup and the next Euros.
"There's a lot to look forward to."
He is, of course, right.
Of England's starting 11, just four players were aged 30 or older, while five are under the age of 25.
There are positives to be taken amid the heartbreak.
England, formerly the great underachiever of the footballing world, is now expected to be at the pointy end of tournaments — and not just by the flag-waving, tub-thumping supporters, but by every team around the world.
Experience matters in major tournaments. Just look at how Southgate has leaned on his own penalties heartache to seemingly eradicate England's shootout phobia.
England has now earned the swagger that so many opponents hurled as an insult, unearned and based on bloated reputations rather than any genuine track record.
They have that now.
No, it didn't come home.
But Southgate has swept the floors and laid the table with the best china, ready for it to walk back in through the door.
But, as the 53-year-old so rightly said at full time: "At this moment, it's not any consolation."
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