The Breakup Blog

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Summer=Weddings=Constant Reminders of my Eternal Singledom

I logged onto Etsy today to find some artwork and there was a huge wedding banner telling me where I could find cute vintage white dresses and handmade lace veils.  

Last weekend, my Facebook feed was overtaken by wedding pictures. Apparently the weekend of July 7 is the time to get married.

And if I have to shell out one more dollar on bridal gifts, I’m going on strike.

I have come to the conclusion that all my friends are getting engaged and married specifically to taunt me.

But you can write about it on your blog!!

If I hear one more of my friends say that sentence as justification for making me do things I don’t want to do, I promise I will personally disband The Breakup Blog simply to make a point. 

Ok. That is a bit extreme. I wouldn’t go that far, however, my friends are collecting bad karma points for taking advantage of me in that particular way.  And therein lies the problem with being a writer whose misery becomes a source of entertainment for others. When I don’t want to do something my friends want to do because I know it will unduly cause me discomfort, shame, or some combination of both, they gleefully remind me that I can “write about it!”

Case in point:

This weekend, I joined one of my girlfriends for a glass of wine at a cute wine bar in her hood.  As we chatted, she continued to text back and forth with a friend of ours who also happens to be really good friends with my most recent ex (not HIM him, but an ex nonetheless.)  

Before I’d even finished my first glass of wine and was able to get a good buzz going- essential for reckless decision-making- she asked if I wanted to meet up with our friend at another nearby bar. I shrugged and agreed, until I looked at her most recent text. I immediately spotted in the response to her question of who was there my ex’s name.

I started shaking my head and my friend smiled sheepishly. “Come on,” she insisted. “It’ll be cool.”

You see, I have no problem seeing my ex. His new gorgeous girlfriend, however? Furthermore, I had been napping before I decided to go out and in my rush to get there had skipped doing my makeup and had pulled my hair back into a sloppy ponytail. Seeing my ex and his hot girlfriend while feeling completely unattractive? No thanks.

She wouldn’t give up, though. And then she uttered the words, I have come to recognize as my friends’ go-to last ditch effort: But you can write about it!

I checked my phone, saw that it was barely 11 PM, and rolled my eyes. Groaning, I consented because the only thing lamer than being dragged to a bar to confront your ex and his new girlfriend is being shamed into retreating to your house before midnight on a Saturday night because of your ex and his new girlfriend.

In hindsight, it wasn’t that bad. I borrowed lipstick from my friend, immediately ran into the bathroom to try to “sexy” up my hair, and never even had to be awkwardly introduced by my ex to the girl who took my place. My ex was cordial and we amicably chatted about what we’d been up to.

At the end of the night, I even got a delicious bacon-wrapped hot dog and cheesy tater tots from the gourmet food truck outside the bar and collapsed into my bed slightly tipsy and comfortably full. 

My friend will most likely read this and text me later to let me know how right she was and how I was able to write about this, but to her I say: screw you, whatever.

This is my friend on the left. If you see her on the street, please punch her for me.

Acceptance/ Your Long-Awaited Update

According to the Kubler-Ross model, there are five stages of grief and loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Usually, this process is referred to when dealing with a death, but I have experienced every single one of those emotions since the breakup that spawned this blog nearly a year and a half ago.

I have denied the reality of our split, showing up at his doorstep at all hours of the night and insisting that we are still a couple whether he likes it or not, damn it. I have angrily dialed him and ranted on his voicemail about what a jerk he was and how he treated me horribly and can we please get back together before I die from the pain?

And when the bursts of anger did nothing to get him back or to even make me feel better, I bargained. I bargained with him, I bargained with myself. I’d chide myself to “get your shit together,” and be the perfect girl that he couldn’t bear to live without. I quit drinking so he’d see how much I was willing to sacrifice to be with him. I even bargained with the universe. If I pay my parking tickets, will you please bring him back to me? I suppose I can blame the five delinquent tickets that remain on my record for my continued single status.

Then there was the depression, a stage I thought would never end. It was the longest stage and I blamed myself for not being able to pull myself together and get over him. Sometimes it would ebb, give up a little, and I’d think I was coming out of it. I’d go on a promising date or get excited about things going on in my life, like graduating college.

And then I’d get a glimpse online or hear a snippet from a mutual friend of what he was doing and I’d spiral right back down. I had a reader tell me once that when I saw him down the road with someone new, it would be like we were breaking up all over again. I scoffed and insisted he’d never settle down. It wasn’t in him. And then he did. And fuck, she was right. How could he be so happy when I was still so miserable? How was he fine- scratch that- better than fine and experiencing all the successes he’d ever wanted, while I was floundering, alone and directionless?

But eventually you get busy. And you meet people who make you laugh and you go a day or two without obsessing. You forget to worry about him or compare all his successes to all the shortcomings you are feeling in your own life. And that’s when you get to acceptance.

I haven’t written in a while and I realize that the further I get from the relationship, the harder it is to give him my time, my thoughts. To get to acceptance, and believe me I waver between acceptance and regressing to depression on a pretty regular basis, I’ve had to distract myself. To not let myself think about him or what he’s doing. That can get pretty hard when you’re writing about the person.

But I love the people who read this blog. Every comment, every “like,” every new person that follows my story and lives every emotion I have felt for the past year or so, inspires me to come back here. So for the people who have wondered aloud where I am all this time later, this is what acceptance is like for me:

I have my good days and unfortunately some bad ones thrown in there as well. A good day is when I don’t think of him at all. I like those days, but I usually don’t get to celebrate their existence till he pops into my head and I realize it has been days since the last time I thought of him.

And then there are the bad days. There’s fewer and fewer of them, but that almost makes them worse. They are the days when I look up his new girlfriend’s Facebook page to see if her profile picture still shows him dipping her romantically in Prague. The days when I check his old work website to see if he’s still toiling away at the job he used to complain to me about. I look to see if he’s left it like he kept saying he would. Those days, I can lose hours searching the internet for clues, almost as if to see if he still exists. When I am exhausted by the dead ends, I succumb to depression.

Most days, though, he’ll pop into my head for a minute or so, triggered by a song or an article in a magazine, until I can successfully shake him out, distracting myself with loud music or mindless chatter with a friend. Sometimes, I want to email him, share a funny story with him or recommend a movie I’ve seen. I don’t. I know all too well how easily an ok day can turn into a bad one.

But all ll in all, I guess shit isn’t so bad. I haven’t hopped a fence in over a year. I smile more than I cry. And I’m pretty sure I can make it through The Notebook without breaking down into sobs, although I’m gonna hold off on proving that theory for the moment.

I have to admit though, those black pickup trucks? Well, they still make my heart sink.

Be Careful What you Wish For…

I am sitting with tears streaming down my face and I am reminded that information is a powerful thing.

When we no longer have access to the one person we knew inside and out, we tell ourselves that just having a glimpse of their life after us is all we need to move on.  Sometimes, when we say that all we want is to know, all we really want is to not have to even think about it.

I recently moved in with a friend who knows my ex.  Yesterday while going through a bout of the “I miss hims,” I suggested coyly that she add him on Facebook. She was totally down, understanding my need to know what he was up to after going through the same thing with her own lost love.

It only took 12 hours.  Twelve hours and I went from knowing nothing about what he was doing and who he was with to being able to see pictures of the new love of his life.  The very girl who I had run into months ago when I got into a screaming match with him in the streets.

The girl who stood with her hands on her hips, rolling her eyes, and said, “Can we gooo babe?” That girl was being dipped romantically on the streets of Prague.  Smiling happily with the love of my life at dinner with his family.

That girl had everything with my ex that I ever wanted with him and that he had told me repeatedly that he didn’t want. And suddenly, I found myself thinking. I wish I didn’t know.

Touche. And for the record, I agree. So let me explain… When I started this blog over a year ago, I had no problem baring my soul and laying all the ugly feelings and the embarrassing actions that went along with them out on the table for the world (or whoever happened to stumble upon this humble little blog) to see. At a time when my breakup with my ex had been acted and reenacted so many times that my friends had ceased to care or even take my painful tears seriously, I found a place to vent unabashedly.  But today, on the eve of my 25th birthday, I scrolled back through my posts from the past year and idled on the entry I posted March 8th of last year. I was heartbroken that I wasn’t going to be spending my birthday with my ex. And you know what? A year later, I still feel a little tinge of pain at the thought of spending yet another birthday without him. And that is why I avoid writing.  Because even though everyone on here understood at 3 months and 6 months and even 9 months how I felt to lose my first real love, I’m embarrassed that at approximately a year and two months later, random pictures of him and his new girlfriend posted by mutual friends on Facebook can send me into a dark fog of gloom for hours and potentially fuck up my day. That when I lay next to my boyfriend of six months, sometimes I secretly wish it was my ex laying there. I think you’ll judge me, because I judge me. Because I should be better by now. But the truth is, I’m not. 

Touche. And for the record, I agree. So let me explain…

When I started this blog over a year ago, I had no problem baring my soul and laying all the ugly feelings and the embarrassing actions that went along with them out on the table for the world (or whoever happened to stumble upon this humble little blog) to see.

At a time when my breakup with my ex had been acted and reenacted so many times that my friends had ceased to care or even take my painful tears seriously, I found a place to vent unabashedly.  But today, on the eve of my 25th birthday, I scrolled back through my posts from the past year and idled on the entry I posted March 8th of last year. I was heartbroken that I wasn’t going to be spending my birthday with my ex. And you know what? A year later, I still feel a little tinge of pain at the thought of spending yet another birthday without him.

And that is why I avoid writing.  Because even though everyone on here understood at 3 months and 6 months and even 9 months how I felt to lose my first real love, I’m embarrassed that at approximately a year and two months later, random pictures of him and his new girlfriend posted by mutual friends on Facebook can send me into a dark fog of gloom for hours and potentially fuck up my day. That when I lay next to my boyfriend of six months, sometimes I secretly wish it was my ex laying there. I think you’ll judge me, because I judge me.

Because I should be better by now. But the truth is, I’m not. 

One final ode to Match.com

So after realizing I just simply do not have the time to devote to meeting men in bars and online, I’ve decided to cancel my subscription to Match.com.  But as I say a final goodbye to the online dating world, I have a few questions to ask.

I’m assuming this is limited to LA, but why is it that every accountant, dentist, or teacher has a headshot amongst his profile pictures? Is having studio pictures a pre-requisite in this city or are even the professionals just failed actors?

Second, maybe online dating and being adventurous just go hand in hand, but it seems like a suspiciously ample amount of bachelors on Match.com have either climbed Mt. Everest, regularly skydive on the weekends, or go swimming with sharks in their free time.  Guys, this is not 1995 and we are all well aware of the magic Photoshop can perform when it comes to cutting and pasting yourself in front of the Egyptian pyramids.

Finally, a note to Mr. 50+ Bachelor: lying about how old you are just makes you look pathetic even if you admit to your real age in your introduction.  Furthermore, using the excuse that you’re trying to weed out the “older women who have teenage kids at home because you want to start a family of your own” does not help endear you to us young and fertile ladies because one day we too will be lonely divorcees who want to get some just as badly as our twenty-something counterparts.

So goodbye Match.com.  It’s been a blast- or at least an interesting experience.  I’ll miss all the actor-lawyer-adventure seekers you have to offer, but for now I prefer to meet my men in dank East-side music venues.

Dating is a full-time job..

A few days ago while slumped over my computer in my early morning public relations class after a night of dancing till 2 AM, I realized two things.  One, taking a Saturday morning class was one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had and two, that being in a relationship may be mentally exhausting, but being single is physically and financially exhausting!

In the past week alone, I’ve gone on two dates, taken five phone numbers, and had one steamy make-out session on the sidewalk outside a Santa Monica bar.  And that did not take place on one of my dates. I also spent more than half my financial aid check (which I’m sure the federal government would be pleased to know) on new clothes, new makeup, and my very first pair of expensive sunglasses. 

 Between actually doing my hair and makeup and finding an acceptable outfit to wear instead of just throwing on sweats, it takes me twice as long to get ready in the morning as it did when I had a boyfriend. By the time I leave my house, I already need a nap.

Then in the evenings, there’s dinner dates, bar outings, and sifting through match.com e-mails. At this point, I’m starting to prefer watching 30 Rock episodes in bed with a Lean Cuisine over scouring LA for my soul mate.

Everyone knows relationships take work, but I’d forgotten how much effort a girl has to put into being single. And to think I thought I would need to take extra classes this semester to keep myself occupied!