Did We Break Up Or What?

by George

Editor:
This piece was originally written for another project long ago and has been resurrected from the archives. So, if you notice that the style and tone are different that’s because they were written by different people at different times. But… The topics are still just as relevent today as they were then! Enjoy!

If I were a superhero, one of the powers I’d like to have is mega-translation.  It might be fun to speak a hundred languages with ease, or to know exactly what it means when someone talks about profession-specific terms and jargon.  But the real gem in my mega-translation crown would be the ability to determine what the hell is going on in my dating life.  BOY-SPEAK!  GIRL-SPEAK!  DATING AND DUMPING SIGNALS!  I’m telling you, with this alone I would totally rule the world.

I was recently dumped twice in the same week.  The first one was a painful experience including phrases like “I’ll miss you” and “We can’t do this anymore.”  And while it did have me shedding a few tears, at least I was aware of what was happening.  The whole brief love affair was encapsulated in sweetly crooned Regina Spektor albums.  There was no ambiguity to it, just a very clear cutting of ties that left me sighing that week and listening to music in a wistful, sappy way that turned my car into a karaoke lounge.  Yes, I am that chick you see driving down the street singing loudly and pausing at stoplights to even close my eyes in order to crack a certain note.

The second one?  Let’s just call it less than clear.  Okay, let’s just say that the f*cking “Post-It Note episode” of Sex and the City was less confusing than this!  It started slowly, with dates canceled at the last minute, only to be rescheduled and then bailed on again.  Now, my Google calendar has at least five colors on it and it looks a bit like a paint-by-numbers kit, so making time for one of my paramours is something I do because I want to do.  I’m a busy person and I don’t have time for crap like that.  (Having a little unplanned free time was an unexpected benefit, but it wasn’t my preference in this case.)  After this happened more than once, I stopped setting aside our normal Tuesday night adventure time and began making other plans, but hoped that he would contact me again. 

Hours turned into days, and then the messages with romance began to show up once again.  The fish hook was in me, I admit it.  I let him know I was thinking about him and we tried to plan a date… or rather, I did.  When I was done telling myself that we “kept on missing each other for some reason” and woke the hell up, I decided to rent a billboard.  HEY!  WHERE ARE YOU?  IT’S TUESDAY!  Few replies came, but they were all frightening and none of them was him.  The next tactic was to hire a skywriter.  WANNA HAVE A DRINK?  I MISS YOU!  HOPE YOU’RE DOING WELL!  Alas, it was a cloudy day and he never got the message. 

I called in an expert, otherwise known as a boy, to tell me that I was being an idiot and had been dumped without noticing.  My attempts at reasonably explaining why I needed closure from this guy were met by confused looks from L, mostly because he had a puzzle of his own.  L was trying to figure out if he was being brushed off by a girl who apparently had so much laundry to do that she tried to schedule a date sometime in the following month.  It seemed he was in need of an expert translator as well, otherwise known as a girl. 

We took out ads in national magazines.  We sent smoke signals from a mountaintop.  We circulated photos on missing posters that we stapled to telephone poles.  The JumboTron screen at the arena was just way too expensive and usually reserved for marriage proposals anyway, so forget it.  With nary a word to be had from these people, the rejection became palpable.  Should we mope and become those people who wonder what the hell ever happened and keep on trying?  Should we mentally consign our others to the land of missing socks?  She did have that overwhelming amount of laundry to do, after all, and maybe he lost his phone in a high speed police chase, right?  Would it be easier to pretend that they had been kidnapped and put into a human slave trade somewhere?  Both of us concluded that we knew shit about shit, but hey, at least we had each other to commiserate with, so we laughed. 

Being with a person who has another person doesn’t have to be such a trial, and neither does deciding that you don’t want to be with that person anymore.  Breaking up, ditching, politely saying no – these should at least include a definite statement to let us know what’s happened.  Sudden radio silence is not an option.  It only leads a lot of women to CrazyTown messaging that ensures you’ll have a hard time getting rid of them.  At the very least you can count on being labeled as some sort of expletive.  

Lame excuses that seem like a social nicety are just that – LAME.  We deserve better.  We can handle it, especially because we’re the non-monogamous sort.  I know you want to be special (yes, you’re special) and original and all that, but odds are that you’re not the first breakup we’ve encountered, and also not the last we will have to endure.  We might be hurt for a minute and step back to absorb the sting, but that will pass quickly.  Just be evident about what’s happening, and we’ll think well of you for it, respect you even more.  Hell, most of the time we’re the type of people that embody the whole being friends afterwards thing.  If you’re considerate, we might even set you up with a terrific friend down the road sometime.  Really, no kidding here.

So please hit send on that email.  Leave that Dear John note on the pillow.  Call us to say goodbye.  Shoot us a text to say that you’ve lost interest or you’re seeing someone else.  Phone a friend.  Ask the audience.  Take a poll.  Slide a note with “Do you still like me?” check-boxes.  All we ask is that you stop wandering off like stray dogs that have found a new food bowl on another street.  We can only call out for Lassie so many times before we get a new pet and tell everyone that you died.

I mean, at least have the decency to leave a Post-It.

04 August 2014

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