I have been watching reruns of
Sex and the City for the past couple weeks for a number of reasons. Mostly,
because I have an excess of free time now that I have gotten into a Master’s
program for next year and work only part-time, but also because I have
discovered that despite my distaste for the materialism the show promotes, the
themes it presents resonate with me particularly now that I am 23 and have had
some (pretty minimal but some) experiences dating. Today I came across the
episode, “The Post-It Always Rings Twice,” where Carrie wakes up to find a
post-it written by Jack Burger, her boyfriend of several months, that reads in
screaming big, bold, black letters:
“I’M SORRY-I CAN’T – DON’T HATE ME.”
Though it is established earlier
in the season that he makes his living as a writer, and thus, his livelihood is
based on being a wordsmith, the most he can muster are those three terse, but
loaded statements. Carrie’s immediate reaction is not so much sadness as it is
utter disappointment and anger in the way in which it ended. She recognized that their relationship
was not necessarily meant to be everlasting, and thus, was mostly indignant
over the lack of dignity that Burger granted to the end of their
relationship. They were facing
some problems, and had been taking some time apart, but he came back to her
apartment with pink carnations, a grand, romantic apology, ergo make-up sex
ensued. Or so she thought. Turns out, he just needed to sleep with her one last
time, give her the hope of continuing the relationship, only to bail without
any real explanation.
This episode reminds me so much
of when my boyfriend broke up with me through a Facebook inbox message, I
suppose the twenty-something douche bag’s new go to break-up method of choice.
Oh, and this happened the day after I went on a two-week cruise through the
Caribbean with my family. Family
vacations are trying, emotion-fraught experiences without the added pain of constantly
thinking about how your ex disposed of your relationship like it was nothing,
and imagining how he is obviously immediately banging somebody cooler and
hotter (my ego has inflated considerably since. I know this to be impossible
now). Some might say being away from your ex-boyfriend, about to go on a sunny
vacation to exotic places, would be the perfect escape. However, the sunny
weather outside just reminded me that my mood did not reflect the weather at
all. I almost wished that I were somewhere dark and dank to create some kind of
pathetic fallacy and make poetry out of this situation and in turn, elevate its
grander purpose in my life (you know, for my inevitable memoirs). But no.
People told me my trip would “take my mind off things.” It didn’t.
I was pretty reserved in high
school. I didn’t date anyone and was convinced I would never fall for anybody,
let alone date, until I was at least 30 and man’s emotional capacity had developed
slightly. Despite my better
judgment, I let someone in. Guys I had dated before really meant nothing to
me. Breakups were easy and
pain-free because I just did not care. Not like this one. This one gutted me,
and left me pretty insecure about my self-worth for a while. He wrote to me on
Facebook to tell me in a message replete with (ugh.) contemptuous emoticons
that he “wants to be alone” and that he is “unhappy” and “going through some
stuff,” when a couple days before he called me “family” and told me that I “was
wonderful” and that he would miss me while I was away. I could not tell you if
he was lying and I fell for it because as humans we tend to easily believe
compliments, or if he was telling the truth, and in an instant changed his
mind. Which is more terrifying, I could not tell you.
I do not think I will ever really
get what happened, why girls need the “proper” breakup, why guys feel the need
to be dishonest, nor will I ever understand why it is that girls always seem to
need the answers to these questions while guys tend to shrug these concerns off
with a “who the fuck cares?” I am just glad that my friends, like Carrie’s,
made everything better by finding a joint and smoking it with me, which most
effectively numbs the questions in my head regarding life’s absurdities and enables me to laugh about them. For hours. With bread and cheese in
hand.
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