Sunday, October 13, 2013

the fade out

No matter how many Alanis Morissette songs you listen to on repeat, it's going to be a totally shit time. You go from being sad, to angry, to apathetic all in the time it takes you to suck down a [insert drink of choice]. Breaking up is bad. But at least from my experience, it's usually mutual and hardly ever a big surprise. You normally have sufficient time to stock up on an assortment of salty snacks, plan your angry girl playlist on iTunes, and allocate the appropriate funds for doing major damage at the mall. On the other hand, being faded out by a boy is much, much, much worse.

The fade out. You know what I'm talking about. After a month and a half of going on cute dates, sending playful texts throughout the work day, and sharing coy kisses here and there, it suddenly stops. No warning whatsoever. No more dates, no more texts, no more kisses. He's quit you cold turkey. If you're anything like me (stubborn and proud), your first reaction might be, "That fucking asshole." Seven days later, I'm still thinking, "That fucking asshole." Only now I'm not able to trick myself into pretending I don't care. Because let's face it, if I'm still angry seven days later, it's because I do. 

The trouble with being faded out isn't easy to explain. I guess my first struggle is coping with the realization that somebody saw you, liked something about you, took the time to get to know you, and then thought, "Actually, she isn't good enough for me." I know. It isn't meant to be a personal insult. We are all looking for different things in a partner. But how can you not take it personally? Secondly, being faded out is an absolute let down. So what if he had questionable hygiene and a smoking habit? He had a winning smile, he made me laugh, and let's be honest, I enjoyed having someone around that thought I was pretty, wanted to kiss me under the stars, and potentially take me on festive fall dates (see previous post about new year resolutions). For God's sake, we talked about baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and drinking apple cider. Now I'm stuck confronting a pathetically single holiday season. Please pass the spiked eggnog. Lastly, and in my opinion the biggest trouble of them all, is that the fade out is a total cop out. If you don't like me and if you aren't interested in seeing me anymore, than please, just tell me. Yes, it requires finding your man parts and stringing together words to form a cohesive explanation. But it's also common decency. Some twenty six year old men just don't grow past their fifteen year old selves.

So where do we go from here? What is the remedy for a bruised ego and a cracked heart? I can't say that any of these have made me feel better this week or are healthy ways of coping, but they certainly haven't made me feel any worse:
1. Listening to No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" album driving to work.
2. Reading thirty pages of Betty Friedan's "Feminine Mystique" before bed.
3. Emptying my closet of everything except oversized flannel.
4. Scoffing at every hand-holding couple I see on the street.
5. Signing up for a half-marathon because I'll be damned if I don't have the best looking ass next time he sees me.


“Yeah, it’s really about my grief,” Alanis said of the breakup. “I think the most painful, sort of suffering oriented moments in my life [are] when I’m resisting something… If I just say, ‘It’s true. I’m unbelievably insecure, really broken, devastated,’ then I can move through it, toward the next place. But if I keep resisting it, I’ll stay there forever.”

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