"Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier." Whoever wrote that lyric is either the most offensive peddler of unfounded optimism in the history of the written word or a reclusive virgin. I am 27 years old, my girlfriend broke up with me last night, and it is most certainly not easier than break-ups from my past. In fact, it's excruciatingly painful. Crippling. Don't let that insipid lyric fool you. Break-ups don't get easier. They get much, much harder.
It's nothing surprising, of course. It's a function of age. When you're younger any single quality may be enough to capture your imagination and sustain a relationship until, inevitably and not so traumatically, the novelty wears off. When you're older you're more discriminating. You start looking at the totality of circumstances. You start looking at the women you date as potential wives or mothers; the men you date as potential husbands or fathers. That's why, when you think you might have found someone compatible--someone perfect--and they tell you they don't feel the same anymore, it feels like they stepped on your chest and removed your heart through your stomach.
The worst part is that this whole break-up may have been my doing. She loves me. She likes spending time with me. It's nothing physical about me. She likes my chest hair and she likes to poke (and poken fun) at the bit of extra weight I'm carrying in my stomach. It's not my personality. As a matter of fact, just before she told me that she doesn't see herself spending the rest of her life with me, she told me that I am "perfect and I do everything she could ever want." That's some pretty tasty frosting for a big slice of shitcake.
I think what did it was when I said "Fuck You" to her in the middle of a stupid argument we had a couple months back. It was at the pinnacle of my frustration at the moment and I was monumentally sorry the second the words slipped off my tongue. She shut down. I apologized profusely and explained myself. She forgave me that night. I believe her even yesterday when she said she forgave me then and forgives me now.
But I don't think she ever recovered from that initial shutdown. They say you can't unburn a bridge and I think "Fuck You" was just one big flamethrower. I would like to take some solace in the possibility that she might want to rebuild the bridge. She knows I'll provide all the raw materials and most of the labor. I know her too well, though. She is not the type inclined to give second chances to the men in her life who have crossed the threshhold of acceptable behavior with her. One misstep is one misstep too many. Knowing that my loose cannon of a mouth stoked the flames that engulfed that bridge is enough to make me absolutely fucking sick.
So yeah, that's where my head's at right now. Being dumped fucking sucks.
Posted by nils at 1:51 PM