These Foolish Things
It’s hardly news that being in a relationship makes you do crazy things, or stupid things, or things that make you cringe when you look back at them later. And typically, the other person in the relationship is there to witness these things, making them even harder to look back on without cringing once you’re out of the relationship. In the interest of honesty and good karma, I will now admit to you three embarrassingly cringe-worthy things I have done under the auspices of love that, until this moment, no one knew about except for me.
(I feel like I should admit that I’m doing this because last week was one of the best weeks I’ve ever had, and although I’m not religious or superstitious, for some reason I believe that I need to counter all of my recent good tidings just in case, like making a Shame Offering to the Luck Gods or something. Okay, maybe I am superstitious. I really liked last week, though, so let’s give this a try.)
1) My long-term serious we are totally in love boyfriend broke up with me, completely out of the blue. Then he quit speaking to me, immediately after a conversation where he said, "I don't want us to quit speaking!" I was pretty confused and shocked and devastated. I was also pretty furious, for a myriad of reasons, one of which will become abundantly clear to you in the next sentence. So anyway, a week after the breakup I had to go to the drugstore to buy a home pregnancy test, and instead I somehow I ended up in the deodorant aisle, sitting on the floor and sniffing his brand of anti-perspirant and trying not to cry because I missed him and hated him so much. I am not proud of this. So not proud that I felt compelled to share it with a multitude of strangers, evidently.
(I do feel that I should add that, since we were no longer speaking, he didn't know anything about the home pregnancy test, but after everything that had happened, I certainly wasn't going to call him and tell him.)
2) I started sort of seeing this boy who was very nice and really into me, a little more into me than I was into him, because I knew he wasn’t my type and it wouldn’t work, and also because I knew better than to be getting into anything at the time, but then I started to like him in spite of myself, and was looking for a sign to go either way. Around this time, he wrote me a letter, and it was really not that remarkable or lifechanging a letter, except for this one sentence, which was so breathtakingly lovely and wise that I thought, wow, I have completely misjudged this person! Maybe I should allow myself to fall for him! But the discrepancy nested in my brain, and it kept digging at me so much that one night I got out of bed and turned on the computer and googled that exact sentence to see if he had lifted it from someplace else. Google turned up nothing. Jesus God, can you believe that shit? Clearly I am horrible person and unworthy of human interaction.
3) Why am I doing this again? Because I think it’s good karma to admit it or something? What the hell gave me that idea? Fuck karma. I’ll take my good week and see what happens.