The Thrill is Gone: Days 3 and 4 - January 25, 2006

Day 3: It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

On Monday, I spoke with a friend of mine (Jen) about the emotional fallout from the break-up. We talked about the typical stuff that is, at this point, totally irrelevant. Why did she do it? What did I think I did wrong? Blah Blah Blah. I answered her questions not because I was still unsatisfied with the answers I had received, but more to get her up to speed on things so she could provide the best advice she could.

Like the rest of the people who have generously offered their advice and support, she too came to the conclusion that this was all for the best and that I was, in fact, lucky that it happened when it did rather than a year from now when the emotions would have been exponentially stronger.

She asked me how I was holding up and I told her that I was doing fine...a lot better than each of the previous couple days. I told her that the days were easier because, even though I would see her and sit next to her in class, I had other things to distract me and occupy my thoughts. Plus, irrespective of those distractions, just interacting with her on a platonic level helped to ease any of the tumult inside me. It was the nights that were much more difficult

She understood, as she typically does, and she quoted me a line from The Sun Also Rises.

It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing

If that ain't the goddamn truth. It's easy around other people, with any of the numerous activities that attend daily living, to put on your game face and confront those things and those people who, in the privacy of late-evening thought, torment you and chip away at the confident exterior you erected mere hours before. Questions and doubts you rightfully disregard at noon come charging to the fore at midnight.

She left the library earlier than usual today. It's midnight and she hasn't called like she used to just to say 'Goodnight.' Maybe there is another guy. Maybe I know him. I wonder what about him made her stop loving me.

These are the kinds of thoughts that burrow into your consciousness late at night when you've been left to your own devices. If you don't realize that this is what's happening, it can be incredibly destructive.

I am one of the fortunate ones in this regard because even as I write this I know precisely what's going on. I'm battling my hyperactive imagination. It's a fencing match inside my brain that I will almost assuredly win as long as Crown Royal doesn't stick its nose in where it doesn't belong.

My brain knows (my heart's almost there) that there isn't another guy. Even if there were another guy, I know she wasn't cheating; she didn't have the time. More to the point, if I know that we are too different to be compatible and if I truly care about her the way I tell myself I do, how can I be so self-absorbed as to let the temporary ego-bruising that a new boyfriend represents get in the way of the friendship I promised her I would never abandon?

The answer to that question is obvious, but it is still a question with which one must wrestle daily...in the quiet of the evening.

Day 4: Black and White

Jen said a couple other things Monday evening that stuck with me throughout the following day. I was describing how different my ex and I are--she's a pious conservative from Texas, I'm a moderately liberal atheist from California--when I mentioned that she carries herself rather seriously and doesn't particularly enjoy the sometimes gruff, sometimes over-the-top sarcastic sense of humor that has become a hallmark of my personality. Before I could get the next sentence out, Jen said:

"That's probably the most unexpected thing you could have said...how did you date this girl?!"

She was right. How did I date a girl who didn't really like my sense of humor? To be clear, this is not to pass any sort of judgment on her personality, it is merely to point out that I dated a girl for several months who didn't particularly appreciate elements of my sense of humor. Jen went for another minute or so longer while I sat there thinking to myself, 'did I just spend my first semester of law school believing that 1+2=green?' Maybe I did.

I couldn't shake the feeling all the next day. I walked around in a sort of daze, like I was hooked up to an emotional morphine drip. Had I lost my mind? Had I abandoned those aspect of my personality that most would say were definitive? Of course I hadn't. There was a real, deep, meaningful connection between us. Nonetheless, this wasn't the only pearl of wisdom from Jen that coursed through my psyche on Tuesday.

Right before the conversation concluded Monday night, Jen said:

"Ya know, maybe she just couldn't handle your black-and-white approach to things."

Let me be clear about one thing first. I have always been someone who has believed that everything in the human experience falls somewhere on the infinite spectrum of shades of gray. There are no absolutes. When Jen said, matter-of-factly, that I employed a black-and-white approach it threw me for a loop. I didn't know what to say exactly so I wrapped up our conversation of the break up by saying:

"I don't think it's so much that she can't handle my black-and-white approach as much as it is that when I see black, she sees white...and vice versa."

When I wasn't fighting through the haze of 1+2=green, I was grappling with the implications of both her hypothesis and my retort. Not surprisingly, we were both right. I may believe the world is made up of shades of gray, but for me it's not simply a matter of belief. I KNOW that is the way things ARE. There is no debate. Moral absolutes be damned. You're either with shades of gray or against shades of gray.

That is not a certainty my ex shared with me. To the contrary, she believed in moral absolutes that could, in rare circumstances, be effected by time and change (the two main catalysts for any number of shades of gray). To say that our worldviews did not jive at times is to assume we were always looking at the same world. That is still up for debate. In some sense, my black really was her white.

Processing this over the last day or so, I have come to realize that our break-up was perfectly reasonable and totally sensical. It didn't make it hurt any less, of course, but the knowledge that her decision to break up with me was the result of thoughtful contemplation of the realities of our situation is a far easier pill to swallow than the one my hyperactive imagination fabricates as the darkness creeps toward the dawn.

Posted by nils at 6:52 PM

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Please tell me this is somehow like the Munchausen by Proxy story, or some kind of ironic meta commentary on blogging.

Posted by: Anonymous at January 25, 2006 10:38 PM

Just a lurker who reads your site from time to time...

Well put. Breakups are rough, even when you have managed to think everything through in a logical manner. I can completely relate to night time being the worst.

I hope you are feeling better. Whether it makes sense or not, it still hurts like hell. But you seem to have a good head on your shoulders, and I'm sure you realize that "this too shall pass," as cliche as that may sound. At least you appear to be gaining something from the experience; it sounds as though you have learned quite a bit.

Good luck with this and with law school/writing, etc.

Posted by: anonymous at January 25, 2006 11:10 PM

I admire your ability to spill your guts about your break-up in real time. It may be cathartic, but that doesn't diminish the fact that it takes balls to get your heart stomped and then put it out there for the masses to ogle, pick apart, and criticize. I also love that you're not afraid to admit that it's not just women who analyze and over-analyze relationships at their demise.

Finally, I'll tell you something I'm sure this you already know. When you find "The One" (and I take it that you believe that person exists), you will thank your (proverbial) God that she dumped you and breathe a sigh of relief that you did not end up committing your life to a woman not right for you.

Posted by: Rachel at January 26, 2006 10:26 AM

How did you hook up with this chick if she didn't like your sense of humor? No wonder she blanched at the 'Fuck You' uttered in her direction. This was a trainwreck from the start. If any of your true friends were around they'd have told you that it was going nowhere. Chalk this all up to you moving to a new city, not having your lifelong friends near to point out that she wasn't really your type anyway, and your wanting to avoid lonliness.

It's not surprising that lonliness rears its ugly head at night. You just need to get back to being used to being alone again and not dependant on her goodnight phone calls or time spent with you. You'll look back at the semester-long romance and you'll see it for what it was: temporary companionship, permanant friendship.

Once you get over your 'cheating phobia' you'll feel better about the whole episode, and you'll laugh at the fact that you dated someone for such a long time who didn't like your sense of humor. She missed out on one of your better attributes.

Posted by: Anonymous at January 26, 2006 05:34 PM

D-Rex,

I'm way too young to give any answers, but I also want to understand this shit better so that when it comes my way, I'm ready to face it. These realizations as you live through the breakup reminds me of something Tucker said on one of his advice threads: That you have to evaluate any relationship objectively, no matter how involved you get. It seems to me that you're doing this retroactively, that now you're realizing, as much as you loved this woman, the relationship was not going to work out. Am I reading this correctly, or am I way off-base?

Posted by: David at January 31, 2006 11:45 PM

"Finally, I'll tell you something I'm sure this you already know. When you find "The One" (and I take it that you believe that person exists), you will thank your (proverbial) God that she dumped you and breathe a sigh of relief that you did not end up committing your life to a woman not right for you."
-
With all due respect, that's a load of crap. If you love this woman as much as you purport to, you will always love her. You won't thank God that she dumped you. You'll eventually find someone else, and you may enjoy an even deeper, more meaningful relationship with her, but a part of you will always belong to Jen.
Realizing this now will save you a lot of future grief. Don't wait for your feelings for Jen to vanish before allowing yourself to feel for someone else. It's impossible not to have feelings for a person who meant so much to you. Just make sure you wait long enough that you're able to sort out which feelings belong to which person and don't confuse the two.
Finally, don't expect the next love of your life to feel like the last one did. It won't. That won't make it better or worse, just different. My guess is you will casually date multiple women but none seriously. Eventually they will all come and go until one, towards whom you never really had strong feelings, will just keep hanging around and you'll realize that she's a lot greater than you noticed. You won't have noticed it because you'll be waiting for someone to give you the same feeling that Jen gave you, something that no-one else ever can. Hopefully this new woman will eventually give you new and unique feelings of intimacy. If not, there's always the familiar feeling of unconditional love that only cheap booze and hookers can provide.

Posted by: Saul Goode at February 2, 2006 08:43 PM

on edit.

I guess "Jen" was the name of a platonic friend and not your ex. Nevermind. This changes everything.

Posted by: Saul Goode at February 2, 2006 08:46 PM

Posted by: dhfzjnkl at February 13, 2006 03:15 PM

I just want to say that I feel like I am reading the male-counterpart of my situation last semester. It was my first semester at law school, I was away from home, and I dated and was dumped by a guy I would consider one of my first true loves. It is really hard, especially when you are alone in a new place, and at night time it seems that all the painful memories seep through the most then. I hope you are able to remain friends with your ex. I tried until my ex started dating someone new and it became too hard since he told me he didn't want a relationship right now-- but I too had to come to the realization that he just didn't like me. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but I think moving on and ending my friendship (not in a horrible "I hate you and never want to talk to you" kind of way, but just by going your separate ways) helped me get through it best. He was a great friend, but it was what I had to do. Know that even though it is great to have the friendship, you need to think of your feelings and what will make you feel best in the end.

Good luck. And hey, at least womankind gets to benefit from having you now available to us!

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