I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who was going through one of the most annoying of breakups. Even more annoying than the breakup of my marriage; although hers didn’t have lawyers involved. The reason hers was so annoying was because the guy just disappeared. Not like abducted by aliens or deported out of the country; but rather disappeared without saying goodbye. Nothin, nada, zip, zilch. No phone call, no email, no text message, facebook message or tweet; just disappeared without so much of an explanation. I hate these men. And the thing that sucks is that, male or female, we have all been there before. All you have to do is say goodbye. Lie to us and tell us “it’s not you, it’s me” and let us move on. Seriously.
It’s not the breakup that makes people crazy. It’s the lack of breaking up during the breakup that makes us crazy.
All people have to do is let us know if we are waiting for them to deal with whatever they are dealing with or we are done waiting and now on the path to getting over them. Once we have that choice made for us, we can then get on with our lives because we know what we are getting on with. But when we get no closure, we sit there, waiting for something, some clue as to why we have been broken up with.
Closure. It’s a total therapy word that gained popularity in the 1980’s to help people deal. Deal with life, love, traumatic experiences, and sometimes, a little bit of all three. Closure helps people to move on or at least realize why they are eating a gallon of rocky road ice cream. They can justify their behavior when they are buying six pairs of shoes. They know exactly why they can’t sleep or having weird dreams that seem to symbolize their waking lives. Being up at 4am when the cat is still sleeping suddenly becomes clear and we can just feel sorry for ourselves and then the next week, we can sleep.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Shoe shopping can be used in all sorts of circumstances. Personally, when something wonderful happens to me, I like to celebrate with a pair of fabulous shoes (on sale). They say, “Woot! You are fabulous and deserve these Steve Madden sparkly purple pumps!” On the other hand, when I am totally depressed, man-related or otherwise, I like to drown my sorrows in a pair of fabulous shoes (on sale) that say, “Oh honey, don’t worry, you are fabulous and deserve these Steve Madden patent leather Mary Janes that make your legs look breathtaking.” Either way, shoes seems to make me feel happy. Oh shut up. I know several men who feel the same way about shoes. Yes, not just heels on the women they are looking at but for themselves as well. (nothin wrong with a good foot fetish) I only know a few who wear heels, but I do have a straight male friend who has more boots then I do. Of course, he does live in Seattle where shoes get ruined very often because of the rain so it’s good to have a strong collection of boots as a back up to Seattle mud. Oh look, I justified his boot collection for him. Man that is nice of me.
So basically the shoe industry wouldn’t feel a thing in the sales department if people actually gave some closure to their breakups. Trust me, I will keep it going all by myself.
Seriously, all one has to do (and seriously, I am saying male or female here) is say something, anything that makes us realize it is over. There is nothing more pathetic than waiting by the phone, refreshing your email over and over again, and waiting for something to happen. Just be a grown up and end it in a polite and civilized manner that allows us to move on. There was once where this guy I had been dating for months stopped calling and disappeared. I ran into him three months later and found out he had been bitten by a Recluse Spider and had been in the hospital for six weeks. He had been in a coma for three weeks of it and had lost twenty pounds. THAT is the only excuse for disappearance I will accept.
Now, sometimes with technology we tend to get lazy with breakups. I had a student last year who was in a long distance relationship whose girlfriend broke up with him on a text. Personally, if I could have I would have flown to her house and smacked her for that. It was horrible. It was so impersonal and icky. I hated how devastated he was by it. If someone ever broke up with me on a text, I may actually drive over to his house and smack them and I am a pacifist. I abhor violence, but a text-breakup? Seriously? Grow up. I think the amount of sincerity in a breakup should be proportionate to the amount of sincerity there was in the relationship. It’s like relationship math. Yes, I suck at math (and spelling) and yet I can figure this math problem out.
Look, all I’m sayin is when you change manicurists because they have stabbed you one too many times in the cuticle, you really don’t need to say goodbye. You can just find another manicurist. If you are forced to change medical insurance by your employer, you don’t need a face to face with your gynecologist to move on. Well, face to vagina, but whatever.
However, when you have been intimate, emotionally or physically, with someone for more than a month or two, you expect a goodbye with at least a bull shit explanation of why. Even if you don’t like us anymore, we annoy you or we have become too needy or too fraught with expectations about the relationship we thought we had; we are not asking for the Holy Grail of excuses, just a nice “I’m in a different place than you are” excuse works for most of us.
A month goes by and you sit with your friend telling her she should now delete his number off of her phone. She sighs and hits delete. The phone asks her if she really wants to delete his number. She looks into your eyes hoping you will say no, but you just offer her another glass of wine as she hits “yes”. She breathes that shaky breath and sighs again. You sigh as well, remembering the last time that happened to you...
I hoped you liked this blog. If you don’t, it’s not you…it’s me.
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