Thus begins my single-girl-in-the-city chronicles. Stephan broke it to me gently Friday afternoon (he cried more than I did) then I went on a very ill-advised bender at Turp's (Melissa told me later that I tried to hump everything and everyone, a story later confirmed by my boss, Andre). After a brief blackout, I proceeded to blow up Stephan's phone close to eleven times. I left what he described as "not good" messages, none of which I can recall at present. Saturday was spent in a haze of misery and vomiting, ending when I met Eli, who gave me a Tylenol PM and the advice that I should just find somebody to fuck for two months.
Sunday I felt more cheerful, made plans to see my sister, and missed a call from Stephan. He said he just needed to hear my voice, and wanted to arrange a time for me to pick up a lamp and two pillows I had left at his house. The interaction was calm, neither of us cried, or I at least didn't cry too much. But today I woke up feeling like shit, because he managed to pack up my belongings and see them tucked safely in the backseat of my car without breaking down and begging for me to come back. I was surprised, and hurt, and couldn't quell the waterworks later when I texted him telling him how much I love him and how I would further efface myself and my needs to fit into his busy schedule.
When I showed the text later to my coworker, Taylor, she welled up in tears but also admonished me, rightly, saying that I am just allowing Stephan to treat me without any consideration. In fact, I was encouraging him to do so.
But this is a pattern of mine. I love to be the doormat that suddenly explodes and rains guilt down upon the unsuspecting bastards that are my boyfriends. Poor Josh never realized when he was doing something that hurt me, because I didn't tell him until all the little offenses accumulated into a fever pitch of resentment. Stephan, too, would never mean to hurt my feelings, but I would begrudge him some trivial comment and hold it against him until he would actually ask me to stop wallowing. I am skilled at the art of righteous indignation. Or maybe this is my self-conscious, hyper-sensitive post-break-up blame game, where I am the douchebag who wasted everything we had. Quoth Sally Albright: "no, no I drove him away!"
But did I? I have always loved the wisdom in the speech delivered by the character Tracy in Woody Allen's film Manhattan, that maybe human beings aren't meant to be with one person, that maybe we're meant to have a series of relationships of different lengths. I think Woody Allen's character rebuffs her, saying "don't be so precocious," as if understanding love and human nature is reserved for adults who know how the game is played. I thought I knew how the game was played. I thought Stephan did too.
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