Can it not die please?
I support the Paul Newman Memorial Salad Bar.
15 April 2009
11 April 2009
The Breakup Visit
I have no idea what if anything my title scheme is at present.
One of the shitty things about long distance relationships is that when they end you have the choice of a phone break up, which is unsatisfying or tacky, or a live break up, which involves the prospect of traveling X number of hours just to spend an awkward day together breaking up. That second option was my Easter Saturday.
Here's the timetable. On Sunday, Saralyn told me this guy who liked her finally admitted to liking her. On Monday, I found out I could come visit this weekend. On Tuesday she admitted she liked the guy back. On Wednesday it came out that she liked him a lot - enough to consider breaking up with me. On Thursday the visit was supposed to be about talking this out. On Friday it was upgraded to one last hurrah before we break up. By Friday night, it was clear there was to be no discussion and no hurrah: it had become a breakup visit.
Saralyn is inexplicably, irrationably, and irrestibly in love with this guy, whom we'll call Aren*. Aren, it should be noted also has a girlfriend. They decided together to break up with their partners to date one another.
For my part, I employed every rhetorical and logical device I knew of to talk Saralyn out of, down to breaking down the morality of the situation on Utilitarian, Kantian, and Aristotelian grounds. (She possibly came out doing the right thing with Aristotle, depending on what virtues you use). All of this fell on deaf ears, and it's not just because she likes Aren. She misses the excitement at the beginning of a relationship. She's tired of doing long distance.
The weekend itself was weird. There is no protocol for a breakup visit. We would get talking and laughing and one of us would start to kiss the other one and stop and then there would be an awkward pause. Or the laughing would make us both realize what we were losing and we'd get all sad. We went out to breakfast. We yelled a little. People probably caught on that we were breaking up. The waitress showed up right after a particularly bitter exchange to say, tentatively, "Will this be one check or two?" We cracked up. The question of the day.
We talked about my songs, whether I should retire the ones about her. Whether I needed to start writing breakup songs (I said no, she said yes). We talked about Levi's wedding, about Facebook (we're waiting a week so we can tell people ourselves first).
Finally we went home to her room. We talked, we cried, we kissed by habit or accident, we cried a bunch more, we played cards - I know, weird, but you can only cry much and we figured it was probably healthier than kissing and Evan was held up coming to pick me up.
And then Evan showed up, we hugged goodbye, and that was that.
Or so I thought. We had agreed not to talk on the phone for at least a week, so as not to fall back into dating. I did lunch with Evan in Bloomington. We hung out. He burned me a DVD of the Star Wars Holiday Special (!), I met his cat, and he drove me home. I went to dinner with my folks. I started to feel like everything would be ok, like I could get through this breakup.
While I was at dinner with my parents, my phone rang - it was Saralyn. Calling to tell me that Aren had decided not to break up with his girlfriend. The implication that we might get back together hung in the air. The obstacle seemed removed, an yet not. I told her I was sorry, but that I needed some time by myself before anything else. At my parents' suggestion I called her back, and asked for a week of not talking before we do anything. So that's where I am now. Next Saturday, if she's game, if I'm game, maybe we get back together and try to figure out what was really broken and fix it. If I can forgive her. If I want to.
Meanwhile, we're broken up, she miserable, and I can't call to see if she's ok. I can't be there for her. I know I can't and I know why I can't and I know if I'm honest she probably doesn't deserve me to. But it's killing me. Everyone needs to make sure I don't break down and call her this week.
So that's the story so far. I'll keep you all posted.
I support the Paul Newman Memorial Salad Bar.
*Because that's his name.
One of the shitty things about long distance relationships is that when they end you have the choice of a phone break up, which is unsatisfying or tacky, or a live break up, which involves the prospect of traveling X number of hours just to spend an awkward day together breaking up. That second option was my Easter Saturday.
Here's the timetable. On Sunday, Saralyn told me this guy who liked her finally admitted to liking her. On Monday, I found out I could come visit this weekend. On Tuesday she admitted she liked the guy back. On Wednesday it came out that she liked him a lot - enough to consider breaking up with me. On Thursday the visit was supposed to be about talking this out. On Friday it was upgraded to one last hurrah before we break up. By Friday night, it was clear there was to be no discussion and no hurrah: it had become a breakup visit.
Saralyn is inexplicably, irrationably, and irrestibly in love with this guy, whom we'll call Aren*. Aren, it should be noted also has a girlfriend. They decided together to break up with their partners to date one another.
For my part, I employed every rhetorical and logical device I knew of to talk Saralyn out of, down to breaking down the morality of the situation on Utilitarian, Kantian, and Aristotelian grounds. (She possibly came out doing the right thing with Aristotle, depending on what virtues you use). All of this fell on deaf ears, and it's not just because she likes Aren. She misses the excitement at the beginning of a relationship. She's tired of doing long distance.
The weekend itself was weird. There is no protocol for a breakup visit. We would get talking and laughing and one of us would start to kiss the other one and stop and then there would be an awkward pause. Or the laughing would make us both realize what we were losing and we'd get all sad. We went out to breakfast. We yelled a little. People probably caught on that we were breaking up. The waitress showed up right after a particularly bitter exchange to say, tentatively, "Will this be one check or two?" We cracked up. The question of the day.
We talked about my songs, whether I should retire the ones about her. Whether I needed to start writing breakup songs (I said no, she said yes). We talked about Levi's wedding, about Facebook (we're waiting a week so we can tell people ourselves first).
Finally we went home to her room. We talked, we cried, we kissed by habit or accident, we cried a bunch more, we played cards - I know, weird, but you can only cry much and we figured it was probably healthier than kissing and Evan was held up coming to pick me up.
And then Evan showed up, we hugged goodbye, and that was that.
Or so I thought. We had agreed not to talk on the phone for at least a week, so as not to fall back into dating. I did lunch with Evan in Bloomington. We hung out. He burned me a DVD of the Star Wars Holiday Special (!), I met his cat, and he drove me home. I went to dinner with my folks. I started to feel like everything would be ok, like I could get through this breakup.
While I was at dinner with my parents, my phone rang - it was Saralyn. Calling to tell me that Aren had decided not to break up with his girlfriend. The implication that we might get back together hung in the air. The obstacle seemed removed, an yet not. I told her I was sorry, but that I needed some time by myself before anything else. At my parents' suggestion I called her back, and asked for a week of not talking before we do anything. So that's where I am now. Next Saturday, if she's game, if I'm game, maybe we get back together and try to figure out what was really broken and fix it. If I can forgive her. If I want to.
Meanwhile, we're broken up, she miserable, and I can't call to see if she's ok. I can't be there for her. I know I can't and I know why I can't and I know if I'm honest she probably doesn't deserve me to. But it's killing me. Everyone needs to make sure I don't break down and call her this week.
So that's the story so far. I'll keep you all posted.
I support the Paul Newman Memorial Salad Bar.
*Because that's his name.
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