Like a Corkscrew to the Heart There are worse things in the world than having to break up with someone. Like war. Cancer’s certainly up there. The righteous vengeance of a wrathful God – definitely worse. I suppose the converse of dumping has a palpable level of suckiness: not having anyone at all to break up with. Still…no fun. Especially when the dumpee is completely unaware. It’s not like I wasn’t giving hints. I tried to unearth all those uncomfortable silences in our phone conversations that were always there but I had tried desperately to cover up with inane chitchat. Now I just let them draw out…and out…the second hand on my kitchen clock echoing throughout the apartment…KA-chunk…KA-chunk…the dark solitude of an eternity of silence… and then the sound of quiet sobbing…realizing the sound is coming from me… Or the subtle clues…“Aren’t you tired? You must be tired…Are you sure you’re not too tired to talk?” or “I would have called last night, but I fell asleep on my couch, and I didn’t want to bother you at…er…9:00.” And my personal favorite, “I would come over, but I really need to spend more time with my dog today.” But I bit the bullet, finally. The real tragedy: every one of these excuses is true…even if I didn’t actually verbalize them all.
The truth is (which is the truth of every break up, I suppose) that I just didn’t like her very much. I maybe could have been in love with her for a while, if I could have ignored all our missed connections and wilting chemistry. But I had already felt the hot, vicious breath of "pet peeves" breathing on my neck. Like her finishing every sentence with “and whatnot”. “I went to the store and bought Delores a sandwich and whatnot”; “I fought off a pack of wild dogs and whatnot”; “I was at this Klan rally and whatnot”. Or her completing every sentence for me, but incorrectly: me: I need to go home and – It’s especially painful not to be an asshole, but to make the severing to be clean and permanent. Like the final exchange of personal property: her: I can come over and give you you’re book back. In the end…she returned the fucking book. By divine intervention I wasn’t home at the time. But finally, there was the undeniable reason to break up. The typical excuse, that universal touchstone of a relationship that every man and woman can relate to: the old you-never-told-me-that-you-were-a-31-year-old-virgin-until-you-weren’t-a-31-year-old-virgin-anymore-and-my-sheets-were-covered-in-blood excuse. But hey, I can’t be the only one… right?
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