Maybe it’s a trite opening, but I’m going to use it anyway. I had an interesting week.
It started last year (OK, so it was in 2001, but I figure it’s a more exciting intro if I say last year?gives it that sort of historical flavor).
I had been dating a girl from Duke, whom I’d met while interning at the State Department over the summer. After a couple months, I started having doubts. But I wouldn’t admit them to myself. I tried looking in the mirror and forcing myself to say, “I want to end this relationship,” but I couldn’t. I tried talking to my friends, but I usually ended up trying to justify the relationship.
Finally, I decided to break up with her ? but not really. She was planning to visit Seattle, where I live and she has family, over Christmas break. I figured I’d see how the relationship was going, and maybe things would get better (a stupid idea).
So, having decided on my decisively un-decisive course of action, I stopped worrying. Problem solved. That Friday, I went to a party about midnight.
Everything started normally. I started talking to this girl sitting across from me. After the customary “Where are you from? What school are you in? So what Turnpike exit is that closest to? Did you cry when Kurt Cobain died?” info was out of the way, I told her I was dating someone from Duke long-distance. She was pretty cool, so we talked for a while and I left the party and went home.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention we talked for about five hours on the sofa and I went home at 5:00 a.m.? We talked about my relationship, and I basically spilled my guts about how things weren’t working and how I knew they weren’t working for a while. It helped that this girl knew exactly what I was thinking, as if she had my mental blueprint in front of her and was telling me what it said.
I left completely stunned. Why did I tell this total stranger my entire dating situation while sitting on a couch at some party from midnight until five in the morning? I didn’t know, so I didn’t try and figure it out.
Until I saw her the next night at another party, and we started talking, again, on a sofa at a party for about five hours. We had a more normal conversation, if any of this could really be called normal.
Now, my stress and anxiety levels had reached “code red”?actually, when the Pentagon invents a higher code level above red, I’m copyrighting it. I knew had to break up with my girlfriend because my miserable Seattle plan wasn’t going to work.
Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that this was all happening during finals and I had five papers to write in about five days? And, come to think of it, I was also starting to like this new girl. Wow, this was getting really fun now.
I eventually broke up with my girlfriend over the phone. I didn’t want to do it, I hated doing it, I called her number four times without turning the phone on and practiced. When I finally called, I expected the worse. But something amazing happened.
She felt the exact same way I did?I’m not kidding, the exact same way. After we talked, I thought to myself, “What if I hadn’t said anything ? Well, I would have had to rename Seattle “The Awkward City,” because that’s what our time together would have been like. We might have even convinced ourselves that things were fine and kept dating while things were definitely not fine.
It’s now 2002, and I’ve had some to reflect on how on the whole experience.
Lying to yourself is the easiest and most difficult thing to do. Incredibly easily because your mind can manufacture the best, most convincing sort of lies. Incredibly difficult because, no matter how convincing these lies are, you never really believe them.
So what about the new girl? We’re going to try dating and see what happens.
“Wow, so quickly after you broke up with your old girlfriend ? That must be weird and sort of strange, right?’
Definitely.
“Were you to do it over again, would you have done it differently?”
Well, let’s see, a week of emotional stress ? yeah, can’t get enough of that. Seriously, these weird events got me in touch with how I was actually thinking, and that’s really what matters. So I’m glad things happened in a little less than normal fashion. But even if things don’t work out in the future, who’s going to know what happened anyway?
I mean, I’m certainly not telling anyone this story.
