Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me - Ben Karlin [42]
Year 7
Same as year four. Three hundred sixty-five days, not that long as it turns out.
Year 8
Just doin’ time. You’re almost there. The couple who married a year and half ago after only being together for two years before that—they get divorced and don’t seem too distraught over it. By the end of the year they will both be in new relationships. Wow. That’s tragic. I guess some people are shallow. They have shallow relationships that start fast and end fast because they just aren’t that deep. They aren’t as deep as you, you tell yourself, at first confidently, and then, less so.
Year 9
The watershed. You can go to therapy now. Together and apart. You can do all those things you’ve been dreaming of: crying and collapsing on the floor, crying on the phone, crying in a restaurant. You can finally say, in public, “I think this has to end,” and watch the unstartled faces of your bored friends as they try to care. Give your friends multiple chances to care. They will need them. Start to separate your nine years of memories, furniture, and collections and realize it’s not that hard to do. It’s fairly easy to acquire the Seinfeld box set and an Irish knit sweater you both wore. As it turns out, the Irish can’t stop knitting. Spend that first night alone. The ghost of your ex wanders the halls. Don’t give it any credence because ghosts aren’t real. Not like vampires, which are very real, but not relevant to this particular discussion. I’ve said too much.
[Long pause, more coughing from the back, the sound of a few people getting up and filing out]
Great. You see that plan? You see how complete it is? How it covers every base? Here’s the great thing about the plan: It leaves you squarely sure that you will never enact this plan again. You will have a level of certainty in your life few people ever achieve. You will also have a high horse to ride as you comment on other people’s short-lived traumas. Oh how many times you will win the argument when you say, “Hey! Try hangin’ in there for nine years!” Nice. You can rest assured you tried everything, including depression and deep boredom, two flavors which must be sampled if you want to feel you truly lived. Why the hell do you think people climb Everest? Because it sucks BIG TIME! They did it anyway, and now they can rub that in other people’s faces for the rest of their lives. You wimps.
[Light applause]
Lesson#16
A Dog Is No Reason to Stay Together
by Damian Kulash, Jr.
Amanda was my best friend’s girl. Or at least he thought so. They’d had a brief fling eight months prior, and Adam’s M.O. at the time was to convince himself he was deeply romantically linked—like right on the brink of marriage—with whomever he’d last got it on with, regardless of how much alcohol had been involved in getting to the get-on, or how much time had passed since it’d been got. Every so often he’d run into his soul mate at a party and she’d have to ask for his name again, which made for awkward moments. Adam was my roommate, and I hated seeing him brokenhearted all the time, but Amanda was foxy, and since a guy is only obligated to respect another guy’s boundaries when they aren’t imaginary, I figured I was on stable ethical ground when Amanda and I made out after that fateful night at the monster truck rally.
We were a great couple. We dressed funny and made art and took road trips and got drunk a lot. We moved to Chicago together and filled a loft with armloads of amusements from the science surplus store, and we invited our friends over to drink wine with us and laugh at religious people on TV. It was love—love like you see in movies. Except in movies, relationships