TBID and I broke up.
I’m devastated.
Posts under ‘Lurve/Luff/Like’
The way he made me feel
I’d just sat down to dinner with a friend of mine when I heard that Michael Jackson was dead. My heart was already heavy, as a close co-worker’s ex-husband had died after a terrible terminal illness. He’d been in an out of the hospital for months and left behind two daughters, ages 12 and 17.
Earlier that evening, I was in a quickie writing class at a local Barnes & Noble. Most of the time had been spent trying not to laugh at some guy in the crowd who kept saying trite stuff in a voice that reminded me of Mike Tyson. That and learning that a fatal flaw is essential to character development.
And if anyone could be the poster boy for a really disturbing fatal flaw, something so bizarre you can’t quite pinpoint it, it would be The King of Pop.
DIY List Idea: Things someone should know if we’re dating
1. I’m going to blog about you.
2. I need personal space and time…
3. But not too much.
4. I determine what’s “too much.”
When you care too much to send a Hallmark card
Last year, TBID and I had birthdays (in the same week, mind you) mere months after we’d met. When his rolled around, I was in the process of moving from one side of Central Park to another. TBID had dinner with his family to celebrate the big day and then came over to my cardboard box-infested studio. There were no presents, just presence. He held me and said he had everything he needed.
Romantic, yes. But that doesn’t fly when you’ve been dating over a year and aren’t busy packing all your worldly possessions or fighting a devastating case of rickets or finishing a dissertation. This year I needed to have presents the day of.
I’m a sucker for extended metaphors
From Meredith Maran’s essay “Till Life Do Us Part,” featured in the anthology One Big Happy Family:
Google kind of love, or Why TBID and I are going to a shooting range
I’m really good at beginning relationships - open, adventurous, and unavailable enough to stay interesting.
The problem begins when I start to like the guy. Because people who really like and grow to love each other tend to want to spend time together. Sometimes they want to hear each other’s voices before they drift off to sleep or share the most banal details of their days and feel captivating and supported. Occasionally, they just want to be around with no purpose but to say, “I could do nothing with you all day, and it would be something.”
Are you experienced?
TBID and I are IMing at work while I edit an interview I did with J.C. Penney, my mom’s go-to retailer when I was a kid, which never had anything that looked good on me except for those high-waisted Bongo jeans.
This is how we do it
Almost every Friday, I gear myself up for the weekend by listening to Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It.” I bob my head and sing select lyrics, like, “It feels so good in my hood tonight…”
Serious business
TBID was visiting recently when nature called. He’d been working on some computer stuff with me and would need to take a bathroom break. The long kind.
The rubber anniversary
For our one-year anniversary of knowing each other, which I know is not the same as a one-year anniversary of dating or being boyfriend and girlfriend (you know we’re not going there), TBID and I wanted to do something new. There wasn’t much time to plan anything too extraordinary, so we needed something local.
At dinner that Friday night, we still weren’t sure what to do. A trip to Rhode Island was suggested. I’ve never been there, and I’m not sure what one does there. But someone does something, and I have a camera and a good companion! It was an idea.
Skydiving was also being considered. Because nothing says “I love you,” like getting strapped to a stranger and then jumping tandem out of an airplane. And potentially crapping your pants. We can’t forget that part of the milestone.
