The Best Worst Breakup Incident

Back to bloggin and it feels so good.

It was time to break up with my second boyfriend.

I learned a couple things from my dumping the dude incident. Don't ask if he's horribly depressed. Don't believe anything he says. Don't cry. Don't be awkward.

Yeah, still having trouble on the last one there.

This boyfriend, whom we will call Loki for love of all things Norse of course, was a REALLY BIG DEAL. We started dating the day after senior prom. It was *~TrUe LoVe~* or something equally sophomoric. 2gether 4ever.

In high school, 4ever roughly equally 4 months. It was my fun, freewheeling summer before COLLEGE and I was all "mature" and "intellectual" and "moving on." This younger guy (which caused quite a scandal in high school. Dating DOWN? For a GIRL? I am all about breaking social norms, clearly.) had started cramping my style. He couldn't stay out as late. He didn't like the hookah bar. He didn't have a car. Oh, the horror.

I went from no standards to ridiculous unrealistic standards in, what, a year? Oh high school hormones.

So after some incident related to him being unable to attend a really important little speech I was giving, I'd decided enough was enough. I think I wrote out a pros and cons list. I know I cried a lot. This was a REALLY BIG DEAL, after all. But I was resolute. And so the execution date was set.

At Panera Bread.

Ironically, I went on my first date with the Dude at a Panera Bread. I don't go there often anymore, because it is now firmly rooted in my mind as a place of high school heartbreak and romantic despair. But they have some damn good black bean soup.

Anyways.

We were grabbing a bite to eat before I had a meeting for a church youth thing and he was headed out to the beach with his family for a week. We sat down at a high table. I couldn't eat. My face was all red. Moment of reckoning.

"I think we should break up." Okay, see, that was good, I didn't say anything bad. "I mean, you know, you just, things keep going wrong and plans keep falling through and you don't care enough about me and I'm going to college anyways and I mean since you know I think it's not like ummmm..." and then I dissolved into a rambling idiot. No mention of death, though, so that's a tiny victory.

He nodded and said he understood, and sat there red-faced, looking at his food. Okay. Simplest breakup ever. Phew. Nothing awkward about that.

Then Dishwasher Bro came up to us.

Dishwasher Bro went to our high school and was somehow vaguely related to our group of friends. He might have worked tech on a play once? I know he had a gross makeout sesh with one of my friends that left her covered in bite marks in the back of her car. Anyway, he thought we were friends.

"R. Grace! Loki! Ahhh man it's so cool to see you guys. Y'know, I'm really glad you guys are staying together even though R. Grace is going off to college. You're like, my favorite couple ever. You just like, work. An inspiration, yo. I love you two."

Except we had just broken up less than two minutes ago.

Not only was I the cruel girl who had just ended a *~TrUe LoVe~* relationship, I'd also let down all these people who believed in us. Thought we were going to make it. Storybook romance, a love for the ages, all crushed because I wanted to suck face with some hazy nameless college guy in the near future. I made people stop believing in love.

We stared at each other and then him, both bright red. I would have burst out laughing at the ridiculous timing, except I was too busy thinking about how my world was crushed and I was in the throes of hearthbreak and despair and I would never believe in love again. I think Loki spoke up.

"Well, actually we just broke up. Ummm. Just now."

There was an awkward pause, where any sane person would have quickly excused themselves and apologized later. Luckily for this story, and unluckily for me, Dishwasher Bro is not all entirely sane.

"Ahhh man," he said, turning to my just-now ex, "That's so rough. I'm sorry, man. You know how girls are. Terrible. Damn, man, that must be really bad. Sucks. But I mean, she's going off to college so now you've got all that single time. Look, bro, if you want to hang out some time, let me know. Girls, man. Awful."

I'M STILL A FOOT AWAY THIS ENTIRE R.GRACE/GIRL-BASHING RANT.

I now sat there, open-mouthed and publicly shamed as a heart breaking whore. I mean, what about my feelings? I still felt bad. Where was the "you guys are the best couple forever" friendliness and adoration that had been poured out mere seconds before? Now I was a villain, a fiend, lumped in with every other two-timing gutter slut.

Gratefully, it was time for us to depart for our various commitments. We hustled out of the restaurant before my character could be trashed any further and had a tearful goodbye in the parking lot. That was it, then. I was through with relationships. Love was a lie. I was a heart-breaking vixen. Alone in the world.

I started seeing a cool community college boy a week later. He wore shoes that flipped out to rollerskates.

Needless to say, we got back together two weeks later... at least for the last three weeks of the summer. But that's a story for another time.

Dumping the Dude Incident

It was time to break up with my first boyfriend.

I was not particularly distraught by this realization. I had no delusions of together-foreverness; he lived really far away and it's not like we'd "done it" so there was nothing to be upset about. We didn't even love each other, though he said he "really liked me a lot. Like, a lot" so I guess you could say we were kind of serious.

This realization came about by two major factors: a phone conversation earlier in the week had me gushing on and on about the two roles I had in upcoming theatre productions that were SERIOUSLY SUCH A BIG DEAL and THEATRE IS LIFE ect. After gushing about how this was my whole world, the defining aspect of my life, greatest calling in the universe for my soul for ten minutes or so, his response was, "oh god, I hate plays. I guess I'll come if I have to. For you, I mean. Only for you, and I guess I won't fall asleep."

Aw, hell no.

There are a lot of things I can forgive, unattractive traits I can overlook. The Calzone Incident, for example. But listen to me rant and rave about theatre and brushing off my life goals as a tiresome obligation? I suddenly saw a glaring incompatibility between us. And when I become a breakout star on Broadway in just a couple years, I mean, I only get so many comp tickets. The nonbeliever has GOT TO GO.

Also Halloween was next weekend, and my cool friend JD planned to host a party with dancing and candy and cute boys. Cute boys I liked, who weren't half a coastline away. I mean, hayyy.

Whilst I was ready to move on and my eyes had started wandering, I was not brazen enough to cheat, or even flirt with other guys. But I wanted to, and lest I act on those urges and then forever be branded a scarlet woman and cruel temptress, this relationship had GOT TO GO.

Love is so simple when you're seventeen.

Time came for the nightly phone call (remember, seven hours long distance). I think it was his turn to call me. He didn't have a cell phone (these were the dark ages) and mine was prepaid with a few hundred minutes because my parents were, and will always be, late-adopters/laggards to technology (AW HELL YEAH PUTTING THAT PR TERMINOLOGY TO USE) and also frugal as all hell. So we made long-distance calls from our HOUSE PHONES.

I sound so old right now.

He was talking about... guy stuff, or something, whatever, only focused at the upcoming task of how-to-dump-him-effectively-but-painlessly. I had even surveyed my friends at the lunch table throughout the week. Had I access to technology, I would have made a google spreadsheet with the advice and tried to categorize it. The suggestions ranged from the cruel (tell him you're seeing someone else) to the passive aggressive (just stop talking to him and defriend him off of Facebook).

I am not cruel nor passive aggressive, but I am tactless. And blunt.

"Are you okay? You seem really quiet and uh stuff."

Now see, I am not one of those girls who answers "I'm fine" all huffily and wants you to guess what's wrong. I am much, much worse. You ask that question, and the floodgates come down.

"I don't think we should date anymore / I just um it's like I don't know it's really hard and uh stuff / like ummm the distance! / Yeah the distance is really hard and I can't visit all the time / and we're only in high school and so like um yeah / and we just don't have a lot in common and the distance is bad and I don't think it can work because I like you and stuff and you know, like like you but it's not working out and uh so yeah."

Long pause.

"... okay."

Okay? Okay?! I dump all that out and get a one word response? I was still really naive (again: see the Calzone incident) and expected to talk about our feelings and how we would deal with this and all the changes. I tried to prod for a little more reaction.

"Well uh, how do you feel about it?" Dumbest question to ask a guy, ever.
"Um. Bad?"

Oh god, he felt bad. I made someone feel bad. Instantly I felt like the most horrible person on the planet. I didn't want to be with him, or ever see him again or talk to him, but I wanted him to still like me. (Somewhere, a feminist is clawing her hair out at this statement. I am not so gooey anymore, rest assured.)

I was concerned. And naive. I didn't know how bad was "bad." I hung out with a mix of AP students and artsy freaks, and the artsy freaks were always having existential crises to attend to. When they felt bad, that usually meant a trip to the psych ward. OH GOD. What if he feels that kind of bad and it's all my fault? I had to make sure I wasn't leaving a fragile eggshell of a person to be smashed against the rough wall of reality.

Once again, with the tact and gentleness of a steamroller, I tried to find out if he was deeply emotionally damaged.

"You're not going to kill yourself, are you?"
"WHAT?!"
"Kill yourself. I mean, you shouldn't, that's really bad. You're going to be okay."
"Why would I kill myself?"
"Oh uh..." Good question. "I heard people do that sometimes. When they get dumped."
"I'm not going to kill myself."
"Good! Because that's really bad."

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and the request to mail his sweatshirt back, which I never wore at school anyway because it smelled weird (LIKE POT), and within fifteen seconds after hanging up I changed my facebook status to "single."

I can safely say no one I've dated has died as a result of dating me. As for the frequent bumps and bruises and foot-in-mouth clumsiness, well.... that's just an occupational hazard you know going in.

Lorne Michaels if you're reading this hire me for SNL kthanksbai