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Living and Leaving an Abusive Relationship

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Living and Leaving an Abusive Relationship

Everyone wonders why the abusee stays. I wondered for several years after the conclusion of my relationship… why did I stay those 3 years, my college years? The simple answer may sound banal: I loved him. The convoluted answer is that love was worth fighting for, no matter the costs.

I thought that I could fix him, that I was the only one who could or would understand him. And for a long time, that made me feel special and important. But sometime between the belittling insults, the punching and shoving, the time he spit in my face, the time he dragged me across the carpet and threw me out the door in the middle of the night, and the time he cancelled my cross-country airline ticket home without my knowledge, leaving me stranded, penniless, and hopeless in the JFK Airport, I stopped feeling special.

The end started at that exact ticket counter. Andrew and I had spent four painful days in Manhattan visiting his sister, an NYU sophomore at the time. Our return flight to California was scheduled to leave early Tuesday morning. After nearly a week of yelling at each other, we both figured it was finally over, but despite my better judgment, I agreed to share a cab with Andrew to the airport. We hopped into a cab at 4 am with the plan of beating early rush-hour traffic and checking in early for our flight. The cab ride was particularly painful because after four days of fighting, we couldn’t even make eye contact. All I wanted to do was get home and away from him. Something in me told me that this was it: all I needed to was to get home and then I would be safe, with my family and friends there to help me through whatever storm was brewing.

We arrived at the airport with several hours to spare before we were allowed to check our baggage and print our boarding passes. I piled my suitcase, backpack, and purse into a makeshift cushion and tried my best to nap after the exhausting previous days. I was so close. I didn’t even need to sit next to Andrew on the flight. I could make it home on my own, without him, as long as I had my belongings and my plane ticket. I slipped into a light sleep for an hour or so before it was finally time to drag myself and my things to the ticket counter.

The airline employee at the ticket and baggage check-in counter asked for our ticket confirmation number and our IDs. He typed in our information, checked and double-checked his computer screen, handed Andrew his printed boarding pass, and looked up at me sympathetically, “I have one flight reservation for Andrew, but it appears the other ticket on the reservation, the one for you, miss, has been cancelled.” My knees buckled, my mouth dropped open, and tears immediately flooded my eyes. I looked at Andrew, pleading for an explanation, for his help. Andrew had booked our tickets, and sometime in the previous few days, he had intentionally cancelled mine. After days of arguing and fighting, he was exerting his final act of control over me, this time financially.

Andrew stared expressionless at the airline employee, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t cancel that ticket.” I looked him straight in the eyes and whispered, “You motherfucker.” The one-way, last minute ticket from NYC back home was $800, and I was a broke college student. The employee said, “Sir, it states right here that only her ticket has been cancelled. You cancelled it.” Andrew shrugged his shoulders and grabbed his boarding pass and his baggage. “Well, I better make it through security,” he smirked at me. “Good luck.” And he walked off toward the TSA security line.

I ran after him, not even bothering with my things still parked at the ticket counter. Grabbing his arm, I pleaded, “What are you doing? You’re leaving me here?! How am I going to get home?! Andrew, I need to get home.” I started to beg, my voice shaking, along with my hands. He had complete control over me and my ability to get home. “Andrew, please. I can’t pay for that ticket. My credit card can’t even accept that charge. Please.” The passengers waiting in line to pass through security stared at me and whispered to each other. I looked delusional and crazed. I was panicked, and Andrew was smiling. He was enjoying this. He loved the manipulation.

By this time, I was on my knees sobbing. He looked down at me condescendingly and replied with a smile, “You have that Coach purse I gave you for Valentine’s. Sell that. It’s gotta be worth three to four hundred dollars, easy. You’re half-way there already.” He shook me from his arm and headed off again in the direction of the security line.

Looking back, why didn’t I call my family back at home for help? There was a way to get out of this: all I had to do was use my phone. But that’s the scary thing about abuse. I was so afraid and so wrapped up in Andrew’s manipulative game that I felt completely isolated. He was my one and only confidant. You’re supposed to be able to rely on your partner when things get rough, right? But what the fuck do you do when the person you love is the person who will openly humiliate you in public, just to see you suffer?

Somehow ignoring the surrounding crowd, I picked myself off the floor and walked back to the ticket counter and back to my belongings. The airline employee was fully aware of my pleading attempt get Andrew to help me. I looked at the employee, hoping that there was some magic button on his computer that would reverse Andrew’s manipulative trick and restore my reservation on that flight home. “Please, sir. I have no money. He cancelled my flight. I need to get home.” And this man somehow knew that I was telling the truth and that I was hopeless. That I was forced to stand in front of an audience of airline passengers and employees, pleading for help on my knees to a guy that was getting a rise out of the whole dramatic scene. And somehow that airline employee knew something was wrong. He sighed, “Okay, miss. I can restore your seat.” He typed some commands into his machine and printed my boarding ticket with a concerned expression.

I inhaled deeply and thanked him repeatedly. I wanted to hug him. To this day, I wish I had recorded his name in my memory. He was a stranger who might have risked his job by taking a chance on a young woman who, in that moment, clearly could not help herself.

It took another three months after this incident in the airport to finally leave Andrew.

Revisiting the entries of my journal from those last few months, I now realize how I omitted all the specific events involving physical, emotional, or mental abuse. Maybe writing them down forced me to face them, made the feelings real. What I did write was, “When am I going to be enough? When am I going to be worthy of me?” It took three years to lose my self-confidence and my self-worth, and it’s taken me just as long to gain it back. Now, I know that I am worth more.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

Debunking the Three-Date Rule

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Having a script for how we’re supposed to behave can be a great security blanket. Someone asks, “How are you?,” and you say, “Fine.” You see someone you haven’t seen in a while, and you say, “Well, it was great running into you,” at the end of the conversation. These social scripts smooth out social interactions.

Limiting the possibilities for our interactions to these scripts can cause trouble, though, and the biggest arena I see this trouble play out is in the world of sexual relationships. The dating world is ripe with confusion regarding how we’re supposed to behave versus how we need to actually behave in order to have healthy and satisfying relationships. In the realm of dating, the timing of sexual acts is frequently seen as one of the indicators of how serious a relationship is, or as a predictor of how long the relationship will last (i.e. “why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”). So let’s just take a few minutes to debunk one of the most common dating scripts: the three-date rule.

What is the Three-Date Rule and Who Uses It?

The three-date rule states that one must wait three dates to have sex with a new partner. This rule plays on some very basic assumptions we make about sexuality in general. First off: this rule applies almost exclusively to heterosexual people. Queer folks have their own stereotypical rules of dating (like gay men and one-night-stands, or lesbians and U-Hauls*), most of which contradict heteronormative sex rules.

Responsibility and Shame

Because this rule applies mostly to straight folks, it heightens the gendered expectations in relationships. The three-date rule plays on the idea that men always want sex, while women are the gatekeepers, which puts women in charge of men’s sexuality and causes a whole slew of problems. If women are in charge of whether or not men have sex, it takes all the responsibility for acting like compassionate human beings out men’s hands and likens them to animals, acting out of instinct and completely incapable of reason. Besides being demeaning to men, this mindset also supports rape culture, because it creates the reasoning that if a man rapes a woman, then she must have done something to open the gate. She must have flirted with him, or worn a short skirt and heels, or taken the ring off her finger—because those are signs that “gate is open—man can have sex now!” (Do me a favor and read that in a caveman voice, because that’s exactly how devolved this mindset is.)

Another problem caused by the notion of women as gatekeepers of sex is the denial of female sexuality. Men are not the only people made stupid by the human drive for sex. Many of us have felt that brain-fog when our crush in junior high noticed us, or that rush of “I don’t care what happens afterward” right before that first kiss. At the very least, we’ve seen people swoon over each other in movies. It’s a human thing, not a guy thing. Female bodies are actually more responsive to sexual stimuli, and denying that lends support to the shame surrounding female sexuality. Imagine taking shame out of the equation surrounding sex—how much freedom would come from it?

Now take that lack of shame and put it into the three-date rule. It doesn’t fit, does it? That’s because the three-date rule is centered around “appropriate” and “proper” times for women to say yes to sex, when in reality there is no “proper” time. There’s only the time that fits well for that given relationship. For some partners, sex is the first thing to happen, and the getting-to-know-you bit happens much later. For other couples, one or both partners need an established emotional intimacy before anything remotely sexual gets introduced. And for a large amount of the U.S. dating population, we need something in between those two. Hard and fast rules don’t work when we apply them to very individual and unique contexts.

To Each Their Own

I like to think of each new relationship in my life like water: it seeks its own level. Each relationship is like a different container, but ultimately the surface is level because I’m seeking the same respect and love. Sometimes that love comes in the form of sex, sometimes in the form of abstinent cuddles. Ultimately, whether or not I have sex with someone depends greatly on a number of factors, predominantly chemistry and trust, not on how many dates we’ve had.

Side Note: the following are tales of three loves. I am purposely avoiding gendered pronouns because no matter how enlightened you are, everyone puts gendered expectations and explanations onto simple “he/she” language. I’m disallowing you, dear reader, to assume I’m treating a given partner a certain way based on their gender as part of my exercise in debunking this dating rule.

The first lover, I hated right off the bat. I thought they were an arrogant know-it-all, and I couldn’t have been less impressed with them. A year later, we met in a different context, and I found that we actually had a lot of similar life experiences. We got to talking and I loved the way they thought about things. I started running into them at clubs, and finally one night, amidst the pulsing bass and the crush of hot bodies, we kissed. And, oh my—that kiss. That’s how it went for several months: meet up with friends at clubs, dance, kiss, go home. Then, one night in November, our friends were heading out and I knew: tonight was going to be the night. …which frankly sucked, because I was sick with a cold, and I knew that I should be home in bed, having soup and going to sleep early. But this person wanted me to come out—texted me specifically to make sure I was going—and I knew that if I went, I’d get laid. We met at the club, we danced all night, we drove back to their place, and we spent the night entangled in each other. No official dinner-and-a-movie dates involved. We’d spent copious hours in discussion groups, in hangouts with friends, in all the getting-to-know-you moments with other people around, and it wasn’t necessary for us to date before having sex. I knew how they took care of their sexual health, how many partners they’d had, and their STI status before we had sex, and to me, that was more important than waiting for three “official” dates.

I met the second lover through the first. My first impression of this lover was that I wanted nothing more than spend many long hours having glorious, athletic sex with them—they were the athlete, not me. I started getting to know this one very slowly as the end of my first sexytimes week with my first lover rolled around. My first time with this lover was actually a threesome with my first lover as well, which was nice because I was still recovering from being sick and having someone else there gave me a little bit of the rest I needed. Two years of having sex later, my second lover and I finally went on a date. But we did it completely backwards from how dates are “supposed” to go. You know that script for dinner-movie-sex-walk of shame? I went over to their place the night before, and we had sex, started the movie, slept, woke up, had sex again, showered, and then went out for breakfast and a walk around the park. For us, the sex needed to happen first in order to get to the point where we felt comfortable enough talking about the rest of life.

I met my third lover, the most recent, through a mutual friend. This lover was just out of a long-term relationship, and I figured I was going to be the rebound. We started out having chaperoned dates with our mutual friend as the buffer, because we did not know each other at all. A few dates in, we took off the training wheels and went on our first un-chaperoned date. I remember sitting on my hands so that we would actually talk. Similar to my second lover, the chemistry between us was electric and I found it difficult to do the get-to-know-you bit with my tongue down their throat. We started having manual sex before they were tested, and after we knew the results, we proceeded on to the many other types of sex.

I specify manual sex here to highlight another shortcoming of the three-date rule: it doesn’t define “sex.” Many people tend to think of “getting laid” as penis-in-vagina sex, but there are a whole range of sex acts that can be considered “sex” (i.e. manual, oral, anal). What one person classifies as “sex” may be completely different and no less valid than what another person calls “sex,” and waiting on one type in particular doesn’t mean you aren’t having sex in general.

Looking back at the rest of my dating life, I have never followed the three-date rule, and you know what? I’m still here, I’m still standing, and I’m only as slutty as I call myself. I am living proof that the timing of sex between two people does not revolve around what other people think. I expect my partners to be responsible for their own sex drive, and respectful of my humanity, and I think that’s a much better rule for when to have sex than measuring out three dates.

* Author’s Note: The jokes typically run along these lines: “What does a gay man bring on a second date? …What second date?” (Because gay male culture is stereotyped as only capable of one-night stands.) “What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A U-Haul.” (Because lesbians are notorious for moving in together very quickly after starting to date.) Warning: if you are straight and you tell these jokes, that is considered homophobic. 

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

Being the Sancha

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“She be wifed up for not even a hot minute and she already lookin’ for a sancha.”

Coming from a small university town and moving to the big city was an adjustment in many ways, the least of which was the language.

“A what?” I asked. Thankfully, this friend was my Urban Dictionary: the one who recognized I was a little white girl from the middle class who knew virtually nothing of slang.

“A sancha*—you know, a woman on the side. Sancho, a man on the side—like that.”

“Oh, like Sancho Panza from Don Quixote!”

“Yeah, okay.” Complete with weird look of “Nerd.” Little did I know I was about to spend the next year being the sancha three times over.

A few months later, I hooked up with a woman from my hometown. We spent a fabulous weekend in bed, followed by promises to meet up again once I returned to school, since school wasn’t too far away from home. I got back to school only to experience radio silence for the next week. Finally, I saw on Facebook that she had gotten back together with her ex. She’d never mentioned they were talking. This was my first experience being the person on the side: not too bad, granted, but I still felt sucker-punched upon finding out that I had been played. See, I’m usually fine with keeping things casual, seeing other people, whatever. But if someone’s going to leave out facts to make the situation seem simpler, well, that’s lying by omission in my book, and I’m not okay with being lied to.

A little while later, I made a Mistake. It was one of those mistakes that I knew was a mistake going in, but I still had to do it. A friend of mine had recently come back into my life after a long hiatus. He was one of those people that would go MIA once he was in a relationship and the rest of us would only see him again after the relationship started to go sour. He and I had long-standing sexual chemistry, and him showing up on my doorstep was no coincidence. He said he was still in a relationship, but that he was in the process of talking his girlfriend into opening up. (Open and polyamorous relationships are a pretty common thing in my world, so this didn’t come as a surprise.) We hung out all night, the air thick with unsaid wants, and if there had been matches anywhere near, I’m pretty sure one spark would’ve sent us up in flames. The next night he came back, but I wouldn’t let him in until he cleared it with his girl. I knew I wanted him enough that I wouldn’t care that he had a girlfriend once he came up. He told me he sent her a text with the request, and read the reply aloud, “I don’t care—do what you want.” Now, most monogamous people would take that as, “You do and I’ll kill you,” but in my world, where people say what they mean and sleeping with people outside the primary relationship is both okay and common, I was thrilled. A hot, kinky, sweaty, sexy hour later, I found out the text had actually come from his best friend. His girlfriend had not signed off, and I was officially the other woman. Like I said, I’m not okay with being lied to—I didn’t talk to him for another nine months.

Not long after this Mistake, I found myself in the most egregious of all my sancha-ing. I was heading back home for the summer break and I wanted a snazzy summer boyfriend. I had just the guy in mind: dark wavy hair, dark eyes, killer smirk, an edgy streak and a great sense of humor. Problem was, he and his girlfriend, while having been on the rocks for a year, were still together. My actions here are the most heartless I have ever committed. I wanted him. I knew they were going to break up, but I wanted them to break up on my timeline, so I could have him for the summer. Everything fell exactly into place a mere two weeks behind my preferred schedule, and he and I were together. I called him my boyfriend, we were together with all of my friends, but every time we saw someone he had known with his ex, we were “just friends.” This might sound trivial, but it’s a small town, so most of the time we were in public, we were closeted. Here I was in an opposite-sex pairing and we were closeted. Oh, the irony.

As everything was falling into place with this boy, I had this odd feeling that I should feel guilty, but I didn’t. Rather, I felt guilty that I didn’t feel more guilt. I knew I was hurting this girl, but from everything I knew of their relationship and the horrible way she treated him, I felt justified. I was offering him the kindness she didn’t show him, the love that she refused to give him. I did not think highly of her, and my strongest emotion towards her was apathy.

Three months later, Summer Boy and I broke up, right on schedule. It took me a while to process the anger that I felt about the relationship, but once I did, I realized some important Life Lessons:

  1. By golly, it’s not good to thwart the intentions of the universe! I was able to make events unfold exactly how I wanted them, despite all the signs that said I shouldn’t do it, and I wound up with a thoroughly unsatisfying relationship.
  2. Being referred to as “Her” feels like I’m some evil deity. And as much as I like things going my way, I don’t really like feeling like the villain in my own story.
  3. Respect is not necessary for relationships, but it is necessary for good relationships. I didn’t respect any of us involved—the boy, the girl, or myself. I was playing with power that wasn’t mine to take, and that was a misuse of my humanity and integrity.

 

I can already hear the outrage of some of you reading this: “How could you hurt that poor girl like that?!” “Have you no shame?!” And my answers are: relatively easily, and no. Self-interest makes a lot of things very easy, and shame is a useless emotion. I did not feel shame at the time these events unfolded, and I feel no shame now, looking back. I know many people will want me to feel ashamed of my actions, but if I were a man who had broken up an abusive relationship to get with a woman, I would be hailed as a hero. If I felt shame for all these situations still, all these years later, I would not have actually learned anything. The lessons are worth more to me than self-flagellation.

Of all them, the most important lesson in my own development, though, was my realization that I’m actually okay with me making mistakes. Being the perfectionistic Virgo that I have been for so much of my life has kept me on a pretty short leash, and I think my series of sancha-ing was my own rebellion against myself—my way of proving that I can fuck up and be okay, and still think of myself as a good person overall. I can have those moments (or months) of selfishness and not think less of myself.

I recognize my mistakes, and I learn from them, but I refuse to dwell.

Author’s Note: The term “sancha” is used here as insider language, which means that because of my history with Mexican / Latino culture and because of the cultural and racial diversity within my social circle during the time of these events, I am using the permission of my own Latino-American community to call myself a sancha. This does not give White people in general permission to use such terms, nor does it give me permission to appropriate other people’s cultures willy-nilly. Feel free to continue this conversation in the comments.

Photo by Meggyn Watkins

Photo by Meggyn Watkins

Relationships

The Impending 2nd Anniversary of my 10th Birthday (and Other Concerns)

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My parents got married when they were twenty-two years young. Growing up, for whatever reason, I always knew this to be a fact and I was never informed that twenty-two is actually considered to be on the young side of marriageability. They spoke fondly and often about their blissful road trip out to California and the exciting early days of their careers, both of them riding the tech wave raging across the Silicon Valley to lucrative careers before they hit the big 3-0. To me, twenty-two was the age at which you officially became an adult and were expected to have it together. That’s the way it was for them, so that’s how it was supposed to be. So, when my twenty-second birthday rolled around a few years ago and I found myself newly graduated with absolutely zero job prospects, painfully single, and totally clueless as to how I could possibly ever have “it all”… well, needless to say, I got my quarter-life crisis out of the way early, like a kid who was forced to get chicken pox before starting Kindergarten. But then I got over it. Because I was twenty-two.

I got a dog. And a job. I moved to a new city. I met nice boys. Things have been a-okay. But just when I thought it was safe, just as I’m getting comfortable with where I’m at in life, another milestone on the horizon is ominously creeping into view: my 30th birthday.

Here’s what flips me out about thirty—similar to what flipped me out about twenty-two. It’s this idea that, as I approach that number, I’m supposed to feel differently. I’m supposed to, therefore, do things differently. I’m supposed to approach things with an empowered sense of maturity. But I expect, just like my twenty-second birthday, my thirtieth won’t really usher in any new revelations. But there is one difference between my impending thirtieth birthday and my twenty-second; by the time you’re thirty, you pretty much know whether or not you want to have kids. Right now, I have no idea. And I don’t know what’s going to change (if anything) over the next three years.

My mom was thirty when I was born. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances close to my age with children. I don’t know how I feel about the prospect of having my own kids, but I do know that I’m probably supposed to know by the time I’m thirty.

Sometimes I think that I can’t possibly be the only female in her mid-to-late twenties who has these conflicting emotions about motherhood. But lately I’ve been getting sidelong glances when I broach the subject with my family members and like-minded lady friends. “Oh, you still aren’t sure? If you don’t know by now that you for-sure want to have kids, you probably won’t ever know. I mean, we’re gonna be thirty soon.”

The worst, though, is this exchange:

“I don’t know—maybe I’ll decide in a couple years that I’m just not cut out for the baby-making thing.”

“Awww, I’m so sorry!”

As if I just lost my phone to a tragic back-pocket-toilet-plunkage incident.

Whatever that biological tick-tock is supposed to sound like… I just don’t hear it. And to be honest, it kind of thrills me just as much as it deeply concerns me. It concerns me because I often worry that I’m going to shoot myself in the foot and wait too long if I’m holding out for a very specific emotional impulse (that may or may not even exist—who knows). More than one aunt of mine on more than one occasion has not-so-jokingly suggested that I look into freezing my eggs. But on the flipside, it thrills me because I haven’t tethered my entire future to this impending event. Some recent psychological studies have shown that a lot of women spaz in their late-twenties / early-thirties over their dating prospects and career potential because they are racing against time—against their biological clocks. As in, “Okay, so I’m twenty-six now. I want to have my first child when I’m thirty-one. That means I only have three to five years to meet a solid partner, get the career I want off the ground, save enough cash, buy a house, have a wedding, and SAVE ME I’M DROWNING, BRING ME MY WINE.” But I haven’t enforced that type of expiration date for myself, and to say that that’s liberating would be the understatement of the century. But as my thirtieth looms, I’m terrified that one day I’m going to wake up in the morning and find my entire brain has been rewired, that I will become the kind of woman I fear becoming the most—a woman with a shelf life.

Recently, I voiced these concerns to a few close family members of mine to very unexpected results. The shifty eye-contact, that forcibly gentle tone of voice used to point out to me that children are “who we build our futures for” and the blatant “you’ll get over it in a couple years” were all heartbreaking to me. I wanted them to understand, especially my female family members, that this is a source of serious inner conflict for me. I wanted them to comfort me, to tell me that it would be 100% okay if I decided not to duplicate my DNA to create future generations of freckle-faced perpetually sunburned kids with two left feet and terrible sinuses. I wanted them to hug me and tell me how badass my career would be and how jealous they would be of all the insane traveling I would get to do. Instead, my words fell to the uneasy clink of forks against plates as I broached what I realize now was a painfully uncomfortable topic for them. They all had kids in their early thirties. They had those kids because they wanted them, of course—but twenty-five years (or more) ago, they might have wanted them because they were told that they were supposed to want them. I was questioning that. Apparently, you don’t do that.

But here I am. I’m questioning it and I’m writing about it and I’m putting it on the internet. I’m not an evil barren ice queen with a heart of steel (quite the opposite—I’ve been told I’m more of an Anna than an Elsa, generally speaking). It’s just that I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this subject when the clock strikes twelve on my thirtieth birthday. I don’t know if there’s a magical switch in my brain that some mysterious force will pull between now and then. I don’t know if I’m going to start reacting to babies in strollers the same way I react to Corgis wearing raincoats. I don’t know if my relationship with some yet-unknown potential family member is going to dictate all of my decision making for the next five to ten years of my life.

But even though everything I’ve said so far essentially contradicts this—right now, I’m actually pretty okay with not knowing. And I hope that that’s okay. I’ll get back to you in a couple years or so.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Relationships

On Being an Introvert and Being Myself

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I’ve always considered myself an introvert. My policy in new situations is to listen first, speak later once I’ve gotten the lay of the land. Most kids lie to their parents so that they can go hang out with their friends. But I would sometimes lie to my friends about what my parents said so I could stay home. I’ve been to restaurants and movies by myself. I’ve always loved being able to spend hours alone in the car. Whether it was reading, listening to music, cooking, watching movies or any number of other activities, I’ve always been quite happy doing things on my own.

It wasn’t until grad school that I realized what being an introvert actually means, and it took someone else to really point it out to me. Being an introvert doesn’t just mean that you’re okay or happy being by yourself. The difference between introverts and extroverts has more to do with where you get your energy, how you recharge after stressful situations, where you feel most revitalized. Being around people, even when it is amazing, fun, sparkling and shiny, drains my energy. If you consider yourself an extrovert, these situations probably give you energy, while being by yourself might drain it away.

I was lucky in college to find friends who seemed to understand this about me. We never really talked about it much, but the answer “no thanks, I think I’m going to stay in, make myself dinner and catch up on television” was always readily accepted. Deciding to go out was always met with a certain degree of surprise. My friends were simply happy to have me along when I wanted to go, and not inclined to pressure me when I wanted to go my own way and do my own thing instead.

Even then, I still didn’t quite understand what being an introvert met. I understood doing what I wanted—not forcing myself to go places I didn’t want to go or talk to people I didn’t want to talk to. Part of moving from adolescence to adulthood, I think, is learning the difference between want and should want. In college, I learned that what I wanted most was decisiveness and freedom—the ability to decide what I wanted and the freedom to take it, whether it was curling up in bed with tea and a good book, or going to a bar with my friends and drinking one too many vodka cranberries and doing high kicks across the bridge on the way home.

So, by now, I was solidly aware of my enjoyment of alone time, but I didn’t figure out the energy thing until grad school. My college friends were few but tight-knit, so it was pretty easy to block out some quiet nights with frozen pizza, fruit, and some good television, or to indulge by heading out to a party just because we wanted to. But in grad school, I made lots and lots of close friends—we quickly became a big, amorphous group, loud and rambunctious and high-spirited. We rode that high for the first few weeks of school, and I loved it. But I could never quite figure out why I was so exhausted. I was worried about being irritable, and I was worried about missing out.

The first time I said no was a revelation. I stayed home. I watched some television. I didn’t spend any money on alcohol. I went to bed early. I felt a million times better the next day. It took another few missed outings, a few more negative responses to text messages before I really figured it out. I was telling this story to a friend of mine, and it was her response that made it all click.

“Well, yeah,” she said. “Being alone is how you rest.”

I love my friends. I love parties and I love going out and I love dinners together. I love meeting up for coffee, and studying with people in the library. But I also love quiet nights by myself. And more importantly, I need them—they are how I build up stores of energy so that I can really enjoy social engagements later. Being by myself is how I stay myself. It makes me happy. And now, I don’t even remember those things to which I originally said no. Missing out on a few social outings hasn’t changed my relationship with my friends or affected my position in the group.

It’s all part and parcel of the same lesson—knowing yourself, being honest about what you know and need, and making sure you get it. It’s been a process for me. I had to start by learning what I want and learning to separate that from what I thought I should want. And then it was important to learn why I wanted it, so I could keep an eye out for those situations in the future.

Wherever you’re most yourself, however you’re getting what you need to be your best, most invigorated self, is an okay place to be.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Relationships

Glimmer of Love

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She is my muse, love.  My life.  My soul, which I never knew or believed existed until I felt her breath… my breath, filling my lungs.  Lately words have been flowing from my heart that I never expected to hear, feel, or believe.  It is as real and as drastic a transformation as I have ever experienced.  Apparently, it is wholely possible to look forward to speaking to someone just moments after hanging up the phone – to miss someone mere seconds following farewells.  It seems that, despite all doubt, in all appearances, potentially, probably, ipso. fucking. facto. that love not only exists, but that I find myself eyebrow deep in it.  This is a first.  Many firsts, in fact.  But, certainly the first time I find myself deep in something that did not require legal, medical, or moral assistance to get out of.

I am writing this for the same reason I’ve ever written anything, because I have to.  I have written, to date, a number of letters beyond my ability to count (which is to say, I’ve run out of fingers and toes) regarding the subject of love, the subject of my love, addressed to… well, you get the point.  I have killed four pens, 2.5 notebooks, and three packs of envelopes in just a couple of months.  So for anyone wondering if The Duke of Glimmer has been writing… he has, but only for one person as of recently.  And although she prefers not to share my attention, I’m sure she’ll grant me reprieve in this case.

My love is music, for I found her through music.  My love is friendship, for I found her through friendship.  She is dance, and light, and laughter… gorgeous hot days, and long desert nights.  She is drugs – I will not lie.  The greatest (seriously, the greatest) drug I’ve ever known.  I am convinced she is the path to my enlightenment – if that is a thing and it can truly be achieved.  And if not, I’m just fucking happy.  Really happy. Happy enough to write this sappy post that you will probably read, say “awww,” puke, then take an insulin shot.  And that’s fine.

The point is that it’s real and it’s out there – love.  It’s not something you’re expecting to find, or that you seek out on purpose.  It just grows, organically – non GMO, always fair trade.  I didn’t even know I wanted it until love found me, but now I’ll fight with the passion of a thousand souls to keep it, this fire that burns in my heart.  There’s no formula, just live your life and let it find you.  It will.  Somehow it found me.  Somehow there’s a beautiful woman in this world who is just like me, but better… so much better.  Genuinely, just ask Tracy, she’s better… and she loves me, lucky fool that I am.  So for anyone struggling or lonely out there – trust me, if you’re holding the glimmer, sooner or later the universe will send someone to share the burden.

Originally published by Hold the Glimmer at http://holdtheglimmer.com/

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

 

Relationships

How to Plan a Nifty First Date

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First date jitters, you know the feeling: that gnawing pit in your stomach eating away at your confidence, making you wish you had never planned a date in the first place. Well what if I told you that you could do away with the dread and actually look forward to your date?  The first step is preparing yourself for the date, but now you have to plan the date. If you plan well, those first date jitters will not be from anxiety but excitement! Here are a few tips for crafting the best first date from my own dating adventures.

Note: These lessons are from my experience and thus lean towards the heterosexual point of view, but I hope these tips can apply to all kinds of relationships!

1) Do something fun: Save the movies for the 3rd date

Going to the movies is a classic date option, but from experience, it makes for a horrible first date. If you are meeting for the very first time, are sitting in a dark room where you cannot talk for 2-3 hours, and feel pressured to hold hands before you even know his last name, you are not in the best context for getting to know each other. Save going to the movies for the third date, when you’re starting to feel more comfortable and you can snuggle—if you play your cards right—on the couch at the local theater pub, drinking a beer and holding hands. I can tell you from experience, this is a great choice for a third date and it is best followed up by a steamy make-out session in the alley next to the theater.

“Do something fun” may seem like an obvious suggestion, but my emphasis here is on doing something. Going to the movies is not really doing something, it’s watching something. Going to dinner does involve eating, but little else to do besides talk. From my experience, the best first dates are when you pick an activity that you can both do together. This allows you to take a moment from talking about yourself and talk about what you’re doing, which takes the pressure off the date and makes it way easier to have fun and connect!

One of my best dates was a night of contra dancing. Yes, instead of dancing with my date all night, I spent the night being spun around by 60-year-old men until I was dizzy, but I smiled the entire time. And when I got a drink with my date afterward, we had lots of hilarious stories from the night to tell. Other great options for doing something on the first date are bingo, trivia (if you aren’t too competitive), or an art walk. The last one is such a good option for a first date that it tricked me into thinking I liked a guy, when actually I only liked going on the date. I broke it off a couple dates later when I realized that I had just planned too good of a date. So good, in fact, that a month later I saw that guy at the same art walk with another girl and when he saw me, he grabbed the girl’s hand and walked away in a huff. And I just thought, “Good job, man. You figured out that this is the best date in town. Go have fun.” And I wish the same for you.

2) Have a time limit.

Part of picking a date where you have something to do is so you don’t spend the whole time talking each other’s ears off. If, however, you end up going to dinner or to coffee or any place where it’s easy to sit there talking non-stop, I suggest setting a time limit. I don’t mean telling your date that he only has two hours to get to know you and after that he must not say another word. I mean know your stopping point. If you’re going out to dinner, have a time you think you should head home. Or if you’re really unsure about the guy, book something after the date. I once went to coffee with a guy and we sat there for three or four hours talking about nonsense, both knowing that we’d rather be somewhere else but neither of us having an out. This isn’t to be cynical and say that you should set yourself up in case the date doesn’t go well, but that you should remember: it’s just a first date. It doesn’t have to go the whole day. If you like each other, you’ll have plenty more time.

3) Offer to pay: ladies & gentlemen!

To pay or not to pay, that is the question—a question that has haunted me at least. There is a scene from How I Met Your Mother where Ted is trying to choose between a girl who he connected with on a first date and a girl who offered to pay. And he really can’t decide. That scene has stuck with me. On one hand, I was raised on the idea that men pay for dates. That is a perk of being a girl, right? On the other, if I don’t offer to pay, will he think less of me? (Thanks, HIMYM.) Or even worse, if he doesn’t pay, is it still a date? I’ve realized over time that these questions are silly. If the date is good, it won’t matter who paid. This wisdom however was learned the hard way:

In my previous article, I mentioned going on a date with a guy who—it turns out—didn’t really think of me that way.  What I forgot to mention was that during the previous “date,” we paid separately. Rebounding from that experience, on another date, I practically forced this new guy to pay. We were again going to a movie and when I stepped up to order tickets, I freaked out. I worried that if I paid, I would be sending the signal that this is not a date. So, I stepped aside and looked at him in a “Now it’s your turn to pay” way. He looked shocked for a moment and then said “Oh, I’ll pay.” The awkwardness was palpable! Luckily, the rest of the date went fine because—get this—it had no correlation to who paid. Unless you are only in it for a free meal, then you don’t need to worry about money, because that’s not the point. The point is to see how well you get along, not who can bank-roll your next holiday.

This is why I’ve now adopted this policy: I always offer to pay. If he says no and then pays, great! (It’s always nice to be paid for.) If not, oh well. As long as you’ve prepared yourself properly and picked something exciting for you to do, you’ll be enjoying the night too much to worry about money. Remember: it’s just a first date. So have fun!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

Let’s Ask: A Thriving Long Distance Love

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Y:  The text read “Dude, Coachella is amazing! We’re all having a blast. Wish you were here! Btw, I met this awesome girl and we really hit it off. There’s just one thing… She lives in NorCal.”

I sent that to a close friend only a couple of days after meeting my girlfriend, the love of my life. Now let me back up and tell the story, because she loves it when I do (M: Oh boy, here it comes!!!). I met M for the first time at Los Angeles International Airport. She was joining me and a large group of my friends, including two mutual friends—through whom we were being introduced—on a weekend trip to America’s premier music and arts festival, Coachella (feel free to send us comp’ed VIP passes (M: for life, please) for the plug, Goldenvoice). From the moment we first shook hands, I was charmed. There is an air about her; her smile is warm and contagious, and her aura (if you believe in such things) is always welcoming. From that point on, the weekend became about more than just the music festival, it became about us getting to know one another: flirting, dancing, making each other laugh, and appreciating each show together. It was like packing 30 dates into a single weekend, and every date was even better than the last. I made it a point to look after her in a crowd of a hundred thousand people, because I wanted her to feel at ease and a part of the group. It must have made a good impression, because despite some of my more nervous moments, we kissed during one of her favorite acts, the Postal Service, and by the end of the weekend neither of us were prepared to let the other go.

M:  It’s true. He took care of me all weekend in a group where I only knew two others and that was more than enough to keep me interested. He was pretty much assigned to take care of me before we even knew each other and didn’t sweat about it even once. He also took me to see my favorite musician when no one else wanted to go, even though he didn’t know of him. Consider it our first date. I tried to return the favors as much as I could but really, it wasn’t enough; he was on point with everything. He even played Radiohead for me every drive back from the festival so I could sing off key. After the festival was over, I promised to introduce him to my favorite band, Tool and well, let’s just say he was most impressed that the song had a sound bite featuring Bill Hicks, one of his favorite comedians. Last weekend, we returned from our first anniversary celebration, guess where? Coachella! There is no other more perfect scenario for us to celebrate our love: music, dancing, great friends, amazing art and good food. Sums us up pretty well.

Here’s something we’ve both heard from other people more times than we can count…

“You’re in a long distance relationship?” *deep nervous inhale* “Wow, that must be, like, super hard.  I could never do that.  Good luck…”

Oh gee, thanks but I actually don’t need any luck because I’ve never been happier. In fact, we’ve been in an incredibly successful, unicorn-tears kind of magical long distance ‘agreement’ (Y: as she likes to call it) for a full year now.  The distance?  Exactly 300 miles between NorCal and SoCal.  Luckily there isn’t much of a sports rivalry as I like ice hockey (SHARKS TERRITORY!) and he prefers basketball (Y: LAKERS BABY!) Though I did drunkenly lash out on him being from LA when the Kings knocked the Sharks out of the playoffs last year. And how did he respond?  By sending me a beautiful bouquet of flowers to my office with a note that read: “Dear M, my deepest condolences for your loss. I hope these flowers brighten your day the way you do all of mine. Can’t wait to see you again. Yours, Y.”. Chivalry… not dead, my friends. And that is when it really sunk in that I need to hold on to this amazingly special gentleman.

Y:  WARNING: Here’s the thing about long distance relationships—they are not for every couple. Really, they aren’t for most. People are wary of them, including us. And for good reason: they don’t typically work. I had never been in one before, and she had tried it twice with really poor results over half a decade ago. All it takes is half an instinct of insecurity to hit you, coupled with a dead cell phone battery, maybe a half bottle of wine, and/or some Facebook stalking, and next thing you know you’re in world war relationship. M and I, insecurities and flaws aside, trust each other implicitly. Even more importantly, we love each other (queue the feign heaving and eye rolling) unconditionally (M: so far, so good ;) ) . We’re both independent people who are incredibly social and have many loved ones to tend to. We understand that we each need space and time to pursue our own interests and have our own fun. There is a genuine exchange of mutual support for everything we do.  So above any tips, tricks, or special anecdotes we share, remember that if you’re not continuously head over fucking heals in love with your long distance love, your relationship is headed for the rocks. That’s not to say we don’t fight (I am a man, after all, and it’s my first real relationship as an adult: I’m bound to fuck up a little) but we’re quick to make amends, and always show each other respect.

M: ^What he said… and it’s not about the distance, it’s about the people involved in the relationship. We’re grateful to have each other regardless of the constant physical presence. But of course it’s tough for us sometimes. It’s standard procedure for me to bawl on him before we part after yet another incredible visit. It’s not being able to partake in the mundane everyday activities you’re ‘supposed’ to do with your partner that makes long distance as hard as it’s hyped up to be. Also, not being able to be there for each other physically in tough times or special moments (doctors’ appointments, him moving into his new home, holiday parties, even actual birthdays—thanks for being born a day before Thanksgiving, guy…) can easily strain a relationship, so you need to get creative and accept the reality that you will have to celebrate it a different day to compensate.. But luckily we are always looking for excuses to party so we never skip occasions.

The good news is we take each other for granted much less. Every time we see each other, it’s a mini blissful vacation and we are just with one another 100% because our time together is so precious. Menial tasks like groceries and laundry become enjoyable. But then again we are party people and sprinkle fun into everything so perhaps that’s just us. We rarely ‘fight’ because neither of us can show up at the door to kiss and make up… it’s exponentially more painful being away from each other and not communicating because both parties are being stubborn about coming to a truce. Luckily he is practically ego-less and I can’t stay upset when he keeps showering me with warmth and love.

One time the Mr. was having an extremely hectic Murphy’s law kind of day, so I stole a genius idea from a friend: I called a nearby massage parlor and booked him his first ever hour long deep tissue full body rub down (I threatened the masseuse not to go near his-MY goodies), paid for it over the phone, and called him to tell him he’s to show up there immediately after work.  And the moment he arrived back home, a delivery guy arrived with Thai food. I scored big time.

Y:  It was by far the sweetest and most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.  Take note ladies, don’t go by those bullshit tips in Cosmo, This is how to keep your man happy.  Anyway, that following afternoon, she wasn’t feeling well and had an unpleasant doctor’s appointment, so I returned the favor by having pizza, pasta, salad, peach soda, and two different desserts delivered to her home.

And while we’re on the topic of food—one of our favorite things to do is stuff each other’s faces.  She will literally have a spoon full of food in front of my face while I’m still chewing the last bite. While she is vegetarian and I am… well, not, I still love sharing food with her, because it’s such a pleasurable experience (with acceptable public moaning to boot) that we get to immerse in together. We even eat together over Skype. Shared pleasures should go beyond the bedroom, and certainly should be relished together even if from afar.  Like communication and-

M: -LAUGHTER! Jinx, you owe me a soda! I win. It’s important to be connected constantly and to share a great sense of humor.  We’re lucky this works for us because we are of the kind that despise constant texting/phone calls. But, our sheer adoration of each other trumps that hard. And we are always laughing, oh man do we laugh… like hyenas on meth.  Why we are glued together from a 300-mile distance is because the hilarity makes the constant contact much more appealing.  We’ve had an ongoing conversation for the last year now: emails, chat, texts, phone calls, Skype, and, get this, over a 100 handwritten letters (multiple every single week)…  I mean, how can you not die laughing (warning: grown up jokey time): Y was on speaker phone while I was doing yoga, and I said, “I’m lying here in child’s pose for 15 minutes because my health guru told me so…” and he goes “Why don’t you come here and get into adult’s pose with me?”  Needless to say I keeled over in a perfect transition from child’s pose to fetal position guffawing. There is also a lot of shit talk, which leads to hilarious conversations we wish we could record to share with the world. I was teasing him about how I annihilated him playing foosball on an epic bar arcade date we had one night (we tag teamed killing zombies and yes, he died first. Milla Jovovich taught me some tricks… He’s lucky I love him enough to protect him during the apocalypse. Y: I sacrificed myself for you, chivalry does still exist, remember! M: See what we mean about shit talk…), and I started laughing maniacally, followed by heavy coughing due to diseased flu lungs… and I said to him, “You’re choking me from afar.” And this Star Wars newbie (it’s true, he watched it at the tender age of 28 thanks to yours truly) responds, “I find your lack of faith disturbing.” To which I retort, “I find you fucked up!” To which we both responded with fits of laughter. You get the point. We’re pretty quickwitted folk.

So the bottom line is that apparently you can fall in love and make it last at a music festival and in long distance… with humor, creativity, constant communication, distance pampering, and truckloads of love. Oh, and to end… here’s 2 nightmare-ish pictures he drew of us (Tim Burton would be proud) because he thought it would be romantic. We’ll let you decide which one is attempt #1 and #2. In the words of the Moldy Peaches, we sure are cute for two ugly people…

1 & 2

1 & 2

Long live (long/all distance) love,

Y&M

Relationships

How to Get a Nifty First Date

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Raise your hand if you’ve had a bad first date? I’m guessing that most of you have. Well, my friends, so have I—many, in fact. And it is through these trials and tribulations that I have come to realize a good date is all in the preparation. You don’t have leave the fate of your date up to, well, fate. There is a lot that you can do to ensure a more successful date before departing on your romantic rendezvous. Let me tell you how with a few of my misadventures in the dating world.

Note: These lessons are from my experience and thus lean towards the heterosexual point of view, but I hope these tips can apply to all kinds of relationships!

1) Be clear that it’s a date.

You know how, in movies or TV, someone seems to always have the tenacity to ask “Wait, are you asking me out on a date?” with a sly smile and a knowing look? Well, I’d never have the guts to ask that and, if I did, it would probably be a shy awkwardly stuttered sentence like: “Date. ME?” If you’re like me, then it can be hard to be sure you’re either going on a date or (often in my case) clarifying that you are in fact asking someone on a date. For the latter, I find asking someone to an obvious date-like activity, say dinner and movie for two, is helpful. However, that doesn’t always work. I bring you exhibit A:

I had a crush on a guy who was kind of a friend, or at least had dated one of my friends (always a good place to start). We had started hanging out and I wanted to progress things to the next level, so I thought, Hey, you know what’s a great idea? Asking him to a movie via text, that’s what. This was my first mistake. A text is never a good way to transition a friendship to romance, let alone obviously ask someone out without the gratuitous use of winky faces. So, when I showed up for this so-called “date,” guess who was surprised to see only me standing at the door and tried to invite his roommate along? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me. If you would like to avoid this fate, I suggest you make your intentions as clear as you can.

2) You don’t have to lay it all out there, but don’t be completely opaque.

As you prepare for your date, you might find yourself worrying over what you’ll talk about. What if you say something awkward? Or you don’t have anything to say? Or, in your fear of silence, you talk too much? This last one is my biggest downfall and why I advocate keeping the first date light and fun: no midnight confessions or blood oaths. Now, I am not saying for you to hide your true self away until you’re sure he/she likes you and then reveal your deep-seated love of unicorns. All I mean is you don’t have to tell all on the first date. Take it from someone who invited a guy on a first date to a poetry slam and thought it would be a good idea to sign up. I had just met this guy, and here I was standing in front of an audience performing a poem about my parent’s relationship while he squirmed in his seat. Talk about vulnerability. You do not need to do this. In fact, just don’t.

Though, you do need to be somewhat vulnerable. You have to share something about yourself, but more importantly you have to reveal your emotions. The only way the person is going to know that you like him/her is by showing it. Now, I am horrible at flirting, so I usually go with the more direct “I had a good time. Let’s do this again” approach. But even that can be confusing if interpreted as a line. So make sure to send a flirty text later or, better yet, set up the next date. Nothing says “I like you” like I want to see you again and maybe this time I’ll tell you about my unicorn obsession.

3) It doesn’t have to be romantic.

The first date is exactly what it is: a first date. Whether you’re looking for your soul mate or just someone to date for a while, the first date is like a test drive. And since it’s just a test drive, you don’t need to go full throttle (unless you really want to: #punalwaysintended). What I mean is it’s perfectly fine if you do not touch on the first date (I would consider that normal for meeting a stranger).

In the past, I had this ideal that the best dates were the sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic ones and every time I went on a date that didn’t reach those standards, it felt like a failure. And yet many of my most romantic dates ended up being assholes later or just looking for sex. One guy invited me to the top of his roof and as we were sitting there overlooking the sunset, he swept my hair out of my face and asked me what I wanted most in the world right now. I kissed him because that seemed like the most romantic gesture. Guess who never heard back from him? It was a great moment, but it taught me to re-evaluate my standards. These days, I don’t go into the first date expecting to find sexual tension right away; I save that for later. Right now, I just want to know if we can hold a conversation without it being painful.

4) Check your expectations

And this brings me to my final pre-date prep tip: remind yourself that you don’t have to decide right away. As I said, this is a first date, not a life-time commitment, so don’t treat it as such. If you are unsure about how you feel at the end of the date, that’s fine. You can go on another date and continue to test the waters. On the other side, if you find yourself falling for someone on the first date, you should also check yourself.

I have been on both sides of this spectrum. On one hand, I stopped seeing a guy because I thought I didn’t have time to date anyone I wasn’t sure about and in retrospect realized he could have been a great match for me. And then I have gotten my heart broken over a single date. It didn’t help that I was already obsessed with him before I even went on the date, but I could have saved myself some pain if I had followed my own advice.

This is why I say I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do believe in heartbreak at first kiss. Be careful with your hearts, my friends. And try to remember: it’s just a first date. So have fun!

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

The Friend Breakup

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All relationships come to an end. Parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, romantic relationships and friendships: all end at some point. Sometimes they end with death, sometimes they slowly peter out over time and distance, sometimes they end in a fierce, burning crash, and sometimes they come to a pointed, purposeful conclusion. A break-up. With the end of especially important relationships comes grief: a complex emotional process. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has outlined five stages of the grieving process, which are typically listed in the order in which they’re “supposed” to happen, but really, these stages mix and mingle as much as cows caught in a tornado. Friend breakups may feel especially difficult because we don’t have a script for those. At the end of a romantic relationship, we have a whole potential process that can be lined out: lots of crying followed by throwing oneself into work or exercise or school, and then, finally, we get back on the dating horse, usually in the form of a rebound. But friend breakups don’t have a script—“friends forever” right? This can leave a person wondering how to deal with the loss of such an important relationship. I’ve had a few significant friend breakups in my life, and I’d like to share the process I’ve gone through, in hopes that it may help someone else out there dealing with something similar. My process pretty easily follows the Kubler-Ross model, but it starts before the actual end of the relationship.

Denial: Denial comes first for me. It’s when I’m feeling hurt in the relationship, but I keep excusing my friend’s behavior. “She didn’t mean to imply that I’m totally unimportant to her.” “He’s not trying to hurt me; that’s just how he is. I know he loves me.” Part of me knows I’m being treated like crap, but I don’t want to acknowledge it, because I don’t want to think that I’m the kind of person who lets her friends treat her like crap. Denial pairs well in a circular relationship with Anger.

Anger: “I can’t believe she blew off my birthday/ holiday/ graduation party to console her ex! They’re broken up, for f***’s sake!” “I freaking hate him. I hate him I hate him I hate him.” This emotion usually follows some break in the rules of our friendship (like, Rule #1: don’t treat your friends like crap), and is usually accompanied by me yelling into my pillow or journaling swear words fiercely in red pen. I tend to avoid people when I’m angry at them, because I know I run the risk of acting like one of the Plastics from Mean Girls. I take time to simmer down, and then when my friend and I sit down to hash out whatever it was that triggered my anger, I run into Bargaining.

Bargaining: “Okay, we talked about it, and it should feel ….resolved? But it doesn’t. Yes, it does—we talked about it.” In this stage, I argue with myself over whether or not our latest fight was productive. What frequently happens with my dysfunctional friendships here is that I express my concerns, the other person hears them out without actually listening, and I make the mistake of thinking everything’s going to get better, and that whatever disrespectful thing happened in the first place won’t happen again. Sometimes I even agree that I somehow caused my friend to treat me badly, and I think that if I just don’t do whatever my friend will treat me better. Denial-Anger-Bargaining make up the circle that usually has to repeat itself several times before I catch on to the pattern and realize the ugly truth: we have to break up.

Grief: This is where I finally acknowledge that the bad stuff isn’t changing, and may even be getting worse, and I finally call it quits. I meet up with my friend (ideally in neutral territory, but sometimes my place or theirs) and say, “Look, I’ve had these problems with our friendship. I don’t feel loved/ respected/ wanted/ cared for, and I think we need to break up.” Yes, I use the words “break up”. The friendships I have ended purposefully have been best friend relationships—people that at times felt like family. Friendships of lesser intensity usually just taper off of their own accord; it’s only the very intense, very unhealthy friendships I find require an actual break up. During the Grief stage, I experience a lot of sadness and a large sense of loss, but it usually runs parallel to Acceptance.

Acceptance: I know, underneath all the pain and sadness, that I made the right decision. I keep making and re-making a commitment to myself that I deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, and I know that by ending this friendship, I’m renewing that commitment. I know I’ll be better for it, and who knows, if we both change enough, maybe someday we might even be able to be friends again, but I don’t hold out for this possibility.

As I grieve and accept the end of the friendship, I usually circle back around to anger at least a few times. I think that’s normal, because I’m still hurting. Ultimately, though, I can come to a place of acceptance without the grief and anger, and that’s the final, healed stage for me.

Each of my ex-friends has reacted differently to my actions throughout these stages. The first one, before I had all the savvy communication skills I do now, was probably the messiest. I brought up that I felt like she treated me like I was not important, but I didn’t do it very well, which let her brush it off. Finally, when she said something blatantly homophobic (I’m queer), I got angry and left. When she tried calling me, I told her I was angry about her remarks and not in the mood to talk. She apologized, then tried to explain the logic behind her homophobia. (Folks, don’t do this.) She felt like I was overreacting, which in her eyes, I was. I was breaking off contact based on one little remark, from her perspective. But from mine, I’d been treated like I didn’t matter for two years, and now she had the nerve to straight-up tell me that I was less-than by default. She didn’t bother to ask if there was anything else that contributed to that fight, and I was too angry at having all of my attempts to bring up the “chopped-liver” feeling dismissed, so I told her not to contact me again. So far as I know, she’s still confused about why we broke up.

Another big friend break-up in my life happened four years and much introspection after the first one. He and I had been very close for about three years but in the last year of it, we’d started some pretty dysfunctional ways of interacting. He loved to party, but I hated when he was cross-faded, and as the night wore on, he would get annoying and I would get just plain mean. I told him at the end of one summer that I thought we were dysfunctional, and maybe we should break up. He agreed we weren’t in a good pattern, but he wasn’t going to be the one to leave. He told me if I had to leave for my own health, he would support me in that, even though he would miss me. A few months later, after an infamous night and the most violent my pacifist self has ever been, I called it quits. I officially hated who I was with him. We disagreed on some of the reasons behind the breakup but we agreed that we’d gotten to a bad place. We parted calmly, and I went home and cried. We run in the same circles still, so for several months after that night he was a little cold during our exchanges. Now, we interact like civilized divorced folks: not necessarily sweet, but nice enough.

Breaking up requires insight into the patterns of behavior expressed in a friendship. Frequently, when we’re doing something that’s bad for us, we ignore the signs that say it’s bad for us because we want to keep doing it; the same goes for friendships. I know that I always want to believe the best of people, that they (and I) can change and that we can work through whatever fight we had, but the truth of the matter is that if I am feeling mistreated on a regular basis, I owe it to myself to get out. Unhealthy patterns in one relationship don’t automatically equate to the people in them being bad—sometime’s the chemistry’s just gone sour. But both parties owe it to themselves to end a relationship that’s damaging someone. I am a human worthy of respect and love, and so are the friends with whom I’ve broken up.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery