Bye, Bye, Love! Hello, loneliness!

“Hold on, hold on to yourself,
This is gonna hurt like hell….
Oh God, the man I love is leaving” - Sarah Mclachlan, “Hold On”

“He’s not our kind,” my curt statement regarding a prospective get-to-know ritual a friend was about to stage with somebody I knew peripherally from college. Nipped in the bud, don’t lay the blame on me.

Let me get this straight: it’s not in condescension, more of a class identity. As a lowlife, when I say “he’s not one of us,” I mean the fellow is filthy rich, leads a life of leisure, unfamiliar with public transport, draped in designer wear and narcotized in designer drugs, eats take-outs or in fine restos, besotted with expensive gadgets, what-have-you.

Never do I get in the way of my friends’ objects of desire. Just peering from the wings, I blow a bagful of optimistic thoughts to the friendly wind. When things don’t jive, I partake in the mourning.

Break-ups are usually messy but I have learned a hard lesson not to be drawn in any tug-of-war. A cardinal rule among friends: Never ever say a truthful criticism regarding their exes, not even for the sake of loyalty. Never state the obvious that leaving their Significant Others is a good decision than any. Never participate in any bashing, it will surely haunt you round the bend.

Oh, I’ve made costly mistakes in this regard because of my propensity to be insensitively trivial than be analytically serious. In the roundtable, other friends would soberly talk about divergence in aspirations, conflict of passion, intellectual divide, artistic differences, being the nails to the coffin, so to speak, or a 3rd party which they would glamorize as “cessation of attraction,” my sagging butt, as the cause of relationship meltdowns.

Then here I go butting in about the uncomfortable hissing sound a certain Beloved makes while sipping soup; the way he picks his nose in public; having small ears or a narrow forehead indicating something fundamental, I keep them guessing what; the lengthy pause before he says something he thinks is pseudo-profound; his fervent defense of the Establishment; his preference of jazz over rock music and when asked how he likes Thelonious Monk, his greatest jazz artist we find out is Kenny G; his dislike of pop music and his love, take note, love not like, of classical music and his favorite is the prolific pianist Richard Clayderman.

And bummer, there’s a reconciliation because love sucks. I mean, because love is lovelier the second fucking time around and all your common friends remember are the trivial points you pointed out, not their in-depth analysis. And you’re screwed, big time! What ugly face shall I wear to extend a handshake to a friend’s ex who has been re-categorized as a current squeeze?Frak!

Why can’t people cut clean? Why can’t they stand their ground and break up and mean it?

As for post-amorous love friendships, it’s half-foot out of the door as I see it, specially if it’s forged almost immediately. You kinda suspect that these people are still carrying torches, nurturing illusions of reconciliation, refusing to move on.

I’m not saying you can’t be friends with your exes, I don’t believe in burning bridges, just effigies. But you gotta allow little fits of rage before coming to terms. Get real angry, murder your Beloved in your head, get past it, and forgive.

So when somebody tells me they’ve just broken up expecting some sympathy, my curt statement “that’s life” is as trivial as I could get.