Getting used to new things

I think it's strange what we can get used to, and how these things don't seem at all strange at the time, not until they're undone.

A recent meeting with an ex highlighted the point for me. Poster Boy and I were getting together for one final exchange of stuff.

(Or we thought it was final, that process seems neverending, the unentwining of things, pictures, friends, bank accounts, tax documents. Everso thankful there had to be no courts involved, no kids, even more)

More than six months had passed, the holidays were over. And we'd both moved on, and both had new people in our lives. Somehow, this was the first meeting at which things were comfortable. I could tease him without getting nasty. We could laugh without following it up with sad silence. No one cried, no one yelled. There was a brief, awkward hug (I refused to shake his hand. That seemed stupid). We shared a beer. He asked me about the New One, I gave up only as much info as I was willing to, danced around other questions. Then Poster Boy, in classic form, asked, "if this dude" was going to try to find him and fight him or something. I laughed, admitting New One had asked the same question of him. But then I answered, "No, no. He's really nice," and immediately after saying it, I realized that there was noticeable surprise in my voice.

Poster Boy looked at me, "Oh yeah? He is? I have that, too," he said, eyes wide, incredulous.

We nodded together, slowly.

"So, do you guys fight?" he asked.

"Oh, no. No." I said, "You?"

"No, huh uh."

We looked at each other, shaking our heads. Shrugged. As if we'd had no idea such a thing was possible.

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It Would Be Better If This Were a Friends Episode

**Editors' Note: Today's guest post hails from "Rachel" who wants us to know she doesn't get paid a million dollars to deal with this crap.**

So the first time I was approached about contributing to DIW I had to carefully explain that I couldn’t really contribute since I hadn’t actually dated. Yes, I was about 8 months in to my first serious relationship (lasted 15 mos. Boo-ooring!), but everything before had been pretty much the same: he’s cool, we start hanging out alone together, he acts weird, I go out of town and I never call when I get back. All in less than 3 weeks. That just didn’t seem DIW worthy. That’s when I learned that you don’t have to have officially dated the person, just tell us some crazy relationship shit. Oh! In that case, I’m totally in.

You know how on Friends they had the whole “We Were On a Break!” thing? Mine is “I Don’t Think We Should Do This Anymore”. And just like on Friends I can say it and all my friends know what I’m talking about. And just like on Friends, it never quite gets to the “we will laugh about this one day” stage. Its always just as awkward and hurtful as the day he said it.

So you should probably know that while we weren’t dating, 88 and I were sleeping together pretty regularly. We were good old-fashioned fuck buddies, there for each other at all the right times (ex: After bar time). Oh, we were also really great friends. But that’s what friends do in college; they sleep together. And if they are a really great friend, they’ll be ok with no strings attached and they won’t get all emotional on you every time they down a 12-pack. So that was us—really great friends. And I think we must have been sleeping together for about a year before things got ugly the first time.

I could totally feel it coming; things just weren’t feeling as friendly between us as they had been. I knew it. He knew it. I knew that he knew it. You know. But less than friendly sex with your FB is better than no sex at all. Apparently that only holds true until your FB girl (me) shows up to your house shit faced off tequila and with a group of friends.

It was a friend’s birthday and we had been at a Mexican restaurant doing the obligatory underage “pitcher of margarita/flirting with the waiter” thing. And I was properly shit faced. I can’t give you great details about the first half of the night at his house other than at one point, I was mummified in scotch tape, I opened a bunch of flavored condoms that were in a bowl on the counter and tried to get people to taste them, and my wallet was missing for about a week. What I can tell you is just about every single thing that happened after 3 am that night.

I ended up passing out in his bed of course and somewhere around 3 am I got that half-asleep sex nudge. You know, you’re both still kind of sleeping, but you still know you want to have sex, so you fumble around for a bit until you wake up going at it?! I know I don’t have to explain that to this crowd.

So I got the nudge and I responded and I was fine with it. He, apparently, was not. It wasn’t more than 15-20 seconds after we finished, we’re both totally naked, I’m laying on top of him, resting a minute, when he said the words that have come to define an entire period of my life:

“I don’t think we should do this anymore”.

He said it with the kind of slight hesitation that you know he had been practicing it over in his head and for just a second he had to make sure that this time he was saying it out loud. That’s it. No, “I think we need to talk”, no “I think you should put your clothes back on”. Just, “I know I just initiated this sex, but now I got what I want and am ready to humiliate you”

Ok, that might not be word for word, memory can be a tricky thing. But I got up, I gave him a little “Are you fucking kidding me that you did this right now, like this? You’re the one who started this.” speech, I put my clothes back on and I went home. I’m not totally sure, but I’m guessing I was starting to cry at this point too. I know myself and I was sort of drunk, it was the middle of the night, and I just got broken up with by my non-boyfriend. That’s usually the kind of thing I would start crying over.

So I left. But I didn’t get in my car and drive home like a nice self-respecting girl would do. I didn’t have my car there so I stomped out the front door and started to walk the 7 blocks back to my apartment at 4 in the morning. And I had gotten about a block and a half before I realized I had forgotten my shoes at his apartment.

So now comes my mental debate: Is it better to turn back now and have to walk a few extra blocks and get the shoes, or wait until morning and have to call and ask for them back?

I turned around and retrieved my shoes, deciding I’m still a little drunk right now and can probably pull this off better now than when we all sober up in the morning. And I was pretty sure I didn’t want to talk to this asshole again for quite a while. So I walk back into his house, announce that I’m not returning to talk to him, only to get my shoes, and I walk right back out the door.

And I never slept with him again.

Actually, that was about 4 years ago and we finally ended things last week. You’re probably going to be hearing from me again.

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Best Breakup Ever

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Modern Girl's Guide to Being Dumped

If it’s been awhile since you've been dumped, ladies, here's a warning: A few things have changed, but others have stayed exactly, excruciatingly, the same. Here’s a short to-do list to get you started:

• Wipe away literal tears.

• Pull up metaphorical britches.

• Apologize for that text you shouldn’t have sent.

• Dust off your dating blogger pen.

• Change facebook relationship status from “In a relationship” to “single.” You can leave it blank for awhile, but why? Embrace it. You’re single.

• Update your Netflix queue. You don’t need to get his action movies, or the first season of Flight of the Conchords, which you’ve already seen but just rented so you could show him how awesome it is. Pick out every girly-ass movie you wanted to watch but had to bargain for. Been longing to finish watching Sex in the City? Fancy some cheesy musicals? Go for it.

• Get his shit out of your house. All of it. And don’t use the exchange of stuff as an excuse to “see how he’s doing.” He’s probably fine; or at least better than you are.

• Re-program your speed dial. It’s hard enough to avoid drunk-dialing. You don’t want to do it by an honest mistake.

• Send in a couple of the meanest things you want to say to dearoldlove.com. Don’t cc him on the email.

• Buy more wine.

• Find yourself a hot tub.

• Work out like mad.

• Rebound. Rebound early, rebound hard, rebound often. (With someone in his band, if you can pull it off, if not, someone who plays a different instrument will do).

What am I missing, dear readers? Or for the fells, what’s the same/different when it comes to your “dumpee” list?

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Better Late Than Never

**Makes sense this would come in from an anon.

A few years ago an ex of mine (who dumped me), died. We'd lost touch, but I heard about it through old friends. What sucks is that she was quite young. What is weird is that after hearing of her death, I had a few dreams about her. In the dreams she was yelling at me (in our two year relationship she never yelled, ever) and telling me how horrible I was at relationships. So I started thinking about her and our relationship and recognized that she was right, that I really was bad at being in a relationship. I communicated rarely and when I did I was aloof and distracted. I am ashamed to say that I think I went for months without looking her in the eye. I judged her for her inability to find a job, I criticized her for her shyness at parties, and one time, oh god, I even called her fat.

No wonder she dumped me, though at the time I remember feeling it all as quite unfair. At any rate, the realization that I had been such an asshole, no, that I'd actually been way worse than just an asshole, I'd been a mean asshole, hit me pretty hard and I was filled with massive remorse. All I wanted to do was apologize -- but she was DEAD! Frankly, the whole thing was really kinda sad.

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Dear Serial: I'm all out of love

Dear Serial,

My girlfriend is a smart, pretty, kind, funny, loving and rad woman. She's my best friend and I love her deeply. Only problem (there's always one, right?) is that I'm not attracted to her anymore. I'm also not sure if I'm still in love with her, but I care about her so much and love our friendship that I don't want to break up.

Any advice?

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I have so many questions. When you say your girlfriend is smart, pretty, kind and funny, are you, you know, saying “she has a good personality”? Like, does she have a very pretty face? Is she really beautiful on the inside?

You know what I’m getting at. Are we looking at a few too many relationship pounds?

If so, I sympathize. Not so much with you, but with her. Goddamnitall if it isn’t hard not to plump up when you’re in a relationship. All that love and acceptance. The joy of cooking for and sharing meals with your honey. But if those pounds have gone from pleasantly plump to too much cushion for the pushin,’ it’s time for a chat. A loving, kind chat. Though there’s really no easy way to go about it. You’ll likely hurt her feelings. Try telling her you want to get healthier together. You can use a line like, “And just imagine how well our clothes will fit!” Naturally, you’ll mean, “You can finally pull those skinny jeans out of the back of your closet!” But I wouldn’t suggest actually saying that line.

She might be pissed, but unless she has a really good reason for getting fat, like having a kid, or an injury, it’s reasonable to expect she keep in shape for you, just as it’s reasonable for her to expect you to take care of yourself. Now, you can’t expect her to stay the same size forever, we all get a little bit fatter as we age (and if that rule doesn’t apply to you, well you can just go ahead and eat shit), but within reason, it’s OK to say, “Let’s get to the gym, sweetheart.”

Now, if it’s not that something she can control has changed, but it’s just that you don’t love her anymore, why are you still with her? For friendship’s sake? She probably has enough friends. You’re her boyfriend (or girlfriend, I can’t tell). If it’s just that the spark’s not there anymore, have you tried to get it back? Do you care to? There are things that can be done. You know them. Try something new. Go on a trip. Talk about whatever your problems are.

But if it’s really not happening, why not just dump her? If you’re not attracted to her, you’re not doing her any favors by sticking with her. She didn’t sign up for a friend, did she? She signed up for a more-than-friends situation.

Love, Serial

Got a question for Serial Monogamist? Want to tell her how full of shit she is? Do it. We dare ya. Send a note to seriallymonogamous[at]gmail[dot]com

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The Manwich

The night began with a "really very large" case of beer and a bottle of "really very cheap" gin.

My new Boyfriend had his Best Friend over and we set right into the task at hand: drinking everything in the house. After the usual pleasantries, we talked the usual BS, then turned on the music. What music? Whatever. Drunk people are very bad at making decisions. How much did I have to drink? I have no idea. I didn't care at the time. The beer was gone and the gin was hiding from us and there was MUSIC!

We were all three dancing in the living room and both the Boyfriend and his Best Friend had their shirts off and we were all three doing some lovely grindy-type thing. God Bless... um... whatever saint is in charge of the intoxicated. My Boyfriend was hot, his Best Friend was hotter: I could think that because I was really really drunk!!!! Yippee!! I decided to step out of the Manwich and maybe kinda...watch for a little bit. Yes, Boyfriend kept sexydancing with his Best Friend. Really hot, gay 100% Y Tu Mama Tambien moment right there in the living room. I finally understood WHY guys would want to watch two hot chicks making out at a bar. Young, shirtless... Amen!!! I slipped back into the lovely sweaty shirtless two man grindy thing because they were really taking this a little too far. I was making out with my Boyfriend... wait. Um. My Boyfriend was like a 29 waistband and... hugging this didn't feel like... HOLY CRAP NICE ABS!!!! Oh, sweet baby jeebus I was faced the wrong way. Yeah. But the Boyfriend noticed it too. Exit: Now Ex-Boyfriend. Me: Damn, what just happened? Best Friend: wanted to keep making out.

I'm not going to say that it was BECAUSE I'd been upstairs watching his porn while he was at work... but I had been. That was actually WAY more porn than I've ever seen. The one porno I had seen at the age of 20 made up the whole of my experience with the genre. I thought of it as field research, actually. The vast majority of it involved women with more than one man, so I guess a man's porn really doesn't have anything to do with his reality. Guys have always said that to me...

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Callbacks

After the breakup of my last ill-fated relationship, I decided to hide out for a bit. This, dear reader, is why I was home on a Saturday night to receive his call. I HAVE to share, because of all of the "callbacks" I have EVER gotten, this one is the most interesting.

He called because I "am the only sane person that he knows" and he had to talk to somebody. He just broke it off with the girl he started seeing right after I broke up with him. He had JUST left a bar where he had dumped her and during his walk home, he told me what a mess she was and all that sort of garbage. He got to his house and was smoking on his porch when he quickly told me that she was there at his house and he had to go, but that he would call me back in a few.

I texted him "Do you need me to call the police?" jokingly after about a half hour. He said no, that the police were already there and that he was watching her get arrested.

So, he calls me back and goes on and on about how she was crazy and had a drug problem and drank too much. I remained silent and smirking. I AM so much better than that and was SO GLAD that I was over him. He was slurping down scotch while he was talking. Then came the big pause: "I have something I have to tell you and you're not going to like it."

Right after I broke up with him, he called an escort service. He was dating the girl from the escort service.

That's right: not a stripper or a topless waitress, he went directly to dating a whore. A whore with two kids. He kept talking. She was addicted to crack. In the first month of dating, they had ALREADY had a pregnancy scare. She was arrested in front of his house for drunk driving... with her three-year-old daughter in the back car seat...driving the wrong way on a one-way street. She had a key to his house. She said that she loved him. That was why he babysat her kids while she went off on tricks. Oh... and she was "really, really hot".

Did I have to explain that she was playing him for his money? Yes. Twice. "Trip" had never, apparently, actually met a whore before and must have missed all of the movies and books where the whore plays the rich guy for his money. He asked me what he should do. If he should break it off.

"It depends on how much drama you want in your life. If you want a psychotic crack hoe having your baby and really want to pay her monthly for the next 18 years, I'd say no. You should stay with her for a while. It will be very exciting... like watching COPS. If you don't want a crack baby, I'd say that you should change your locks tomorrow morning and never talk to her again."

He ask me if I'd go to drinks with him the next night. I politely declined. He changed his locks and is shopping for a psychiatrist.

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Little comforts

I’ve been thinking a lot about exes lately.

And don’t tell me you haven’t. I’m not interested in that. Really, can’t we please, for just a moment, admit, all together, that it’s weird, so very weird, to have exes in the universe? I don’t want to pretend that I’ve moved on—which I have, in a sense. I’m not stopped, I’m not waiting, or weeping. I’m just thinking.

Isn’t it strange that there are people in the world that you used to lay next to every night (if you’re a cohabitating type of serial monogamist, at least), who now have these lives that don’t involve you? They have wives and girlfriends and fiancés and children, and you have new loves, and you live somewhere else, and why does that have to mean you can’t still call his mother? Why does that have to mean that you’re a stalker if you want to see a photo of his new family?

One reason I’ve been thinking is because I’ve been hearing a lot from an ex who was an item so long ago I hesitate to think of him as more than a very old friend. I was visiting home not long ago, and he randomly called. He didn’t even know I was in town, but he instantly started pushing to see me. I agreed to dinner at his intense insistence—he hinted at some sort of trauma. He promised he’d be pathetic, and offered to buy.

We got in the car, and I said, “So. What was all that? What’s up with you?”

“Right,” he said. “So, my wife left me.”

Of course she did. Although there was one point in my life that I’d considered him my backup plan, my safety, in case my life didn’t go the way it expected, I gave up that plan about four years ago when he told me he was having a baby. Since then, I’d been firmly in the camp that supported his relationship, and I’d even been charmed by his wife – and while we’re being honest, I’ll just put it out there. I’m prettier than his wife.

“Oh, buddy,” I said. “That sucks.”

“For her teacher,” he said.

“Yikes,” I said.

“Who is a lady,” he said.

“Oh, fuck.”

At dinner, he told me the whole sordid story. It’s pretty fucking tragic.

He knew our server, it was why he’d picked this particular restaurant. When the server walked away, my friend confessed, “he doesn’t know yet.”

This break had been sudden, and the whole thing had only gone down about three weeks prior. My friend described to me how he understood depression for the first time in his life.

“I wake up in the morning, and I can’t think of a reason to get out of bed. And even when I can, I just can’t think of how in the world I’m going to make myself do it.”

I hugged him, and got a little drunk with him, and said what little, weak things you can say to comfort a friend whose family has just been torn apart. Mostly I listened to him. And when our server asked what the wife and kid were up to, he got the bad news. When our bill arrived, I think it was $5.

“I’ve been getting a lot of free meals lately,” he confessed.

What little things we can do to comfort a friend.

Later, after I’d left town again, he texted me, saying he wished he’d been able to spend more time with me when I was in town.
“I have a lot of friends here, but none like you,” he said.

I’m not sure what he meant by that. In a literal sense, he doesn’t have any other friends who took his virginity. In another sense, he probably doesn’t have any other friends who have considered making a life with him. I’ve thought about what our kids would look like. I’ve considered whether I would take his last name.

But he probably didn’t mean any of those things.

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A Day in the Life of DIW

In case you were wondering, yes, we all have our Dear Serial days.

frenchie: hi honeybun

serial: whaddup dollface??

frenchie: oh, nothing

i was going to get some advice on how to not respond to the boy

i just.... ugh. feel awful just flipping the ignore switch

serial: You already dumped him.

frenchie: i know!

and i think he's trying to worm his way back in or something?

i think he thinks it's working

serial: Poor guy.

frenchie: i know

serial: The only way to take the plunge is to stop replying completely

I mean, I wouldn't suggest that

if it weren't clear he's delusional

I've had more than one guy I dated for awhile

broke it off with

and then texted back and forth a little bit

Like, he'd send a friendly

thing and i'd reply nicely

made it easier when I ran into him on the street

frenchie: yeah...

serial: but his courtesy has run its course.

No mas.

frenchie: maybe he's not delusional? i dunno.
he just seems way too caring

i don't like it

serial: I feel like I'm missing something

why wouldn't you ignore him?

Because it'll hurt his feelings?

frenchie: because he's nice and he means well

yeah

it would be a weird blow to him for me just not to answer

serial: Well then you could always lie to him

Ignore him for a week

then say

"Sorry I haven't been replying, just really busy"

then ignore him for two

(or, you know, baby steps)

frenchie: hmm. that could work

serial: He'll know you're lying

but that's OK

It eases the blow of being ignored a bit

But when you say

"sorry I haven't been replying"

and he replies to that

you must NOT RESPOND

frenchie: ahhhh

true

serial: even to direct questioning

frenchie: i see

serial: That's my advice

frenchie: i kinda want to say "you give me both the heebies and the jeebies now. please go away"

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I Can't Make You Love Me If You Don't

A few months ago my long-term boyfriend and I split because I decided to move to a different state for a job. He's the best man you could ever ask for and my heart still hurts when I think about the decision. Ever notice how when you first break your heart, it's this intense, all-consuming sort of emotional pain? I'm from Wisconsin and like most solid Mid-Westerners, we swallow our emotions well. Maybe I'm just actually emotionally delayed, but lately the heart break is this constant ache that wasn't there a few months ago. Music has been a huge solace and this video I found today has been on repeat all day. Bon Iver is a good Wisconsin boy so I have extra love for him.

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