The Breakup
A friend patted me on the back yesterday and congratulated me for “growing up.” This comment was preceded by my confession that I’d never really broken up with anyone before. I hate direct confrontation so much so that I’d always just alternated between ignoring and driving my boyfriends crazy with obnoxious behavior until they were forced to dump me.
But I knew I couldn’t do that this time. As a big, grown-up 25-year-old, I had to be direct, suck it up, and do what had been done to me only a year earlier. Today was the day.
I spent much of my day at work expressing my terror to my co-workers about my impending breakup. I wondered if this was how my ex felt when he dumped me. I knew it wasn’t. I’m convinced that emotional, sudden breakups— though they hurt longer in the long run— are much easier to execute in the moment because they are sudden.
The ones you know are coming but you don’t want to actually make happen are extra nerve-wracking because you have time to think and re-think and plan and re-plan what you’re going to say over and over.
In the end, I said the truth, cliche as it may have been— it’s not you it’s me. We sat there awkwardly for a while and though he admitted he was kind of stoned and was not sure he was taking it all in yet, I could still see how bummed he was. And I still felt terrible.
So here I am, an hour later, feeling somewhat like a traitor writing about doing exactly what drives most people to seek refuge on this blog in the first place, but let it be known that no matter what side you’re on, no matter how wrong it all was anyways, breaking up just sucks. Period.
