50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

The timestamp continues to screw with me. I'm not sure why blogger is convinced that I'm living in a different time zone. Apologies.

Two weeks after Eric left me, I met Kevin Rose at the Library. He had alabaster skin and black hair with a deep radio announcer’s voice. He was a bouncer at another local bar where his nickname was Chainsaw even though he was a thin pacifist from Canada. What drew me to Chainsaw, aside from the fact that he was completely not my type, was his disclosure that every girl he had ever been involved with had left him for someone else. He might as well have worn a t-shirt with a Bull’s Eye and the word “Rebound” printed on it.

So I gave Chainsaw my number, and he took me out for drinks later in the week. We met shortly before Halloween, three weeks later I knew I had to leave him. He was depressed. Apparently he had been a radio executive at some point and, the details never were clear, lost his job. Why he had become a bouncer, I also don’t know. But he had lost his life, everything he cared about, when he lost his job. I hadn’t told him about Eric, but I couldn’t help being terrified of turning into Chainsaw-some depressed lost soul in a bar.

I needed positive attention. I needed someone to tell me I was gorgeous and brilliant. I needed someone who actually smiled when he saw me. I couldn’t take the constant depression. Three weeks into a relationship is too early to be his therapist. But since he was depressed, I didn’t want to break up with him right before Thanksgiving. Two days before Thanksgiving, he called and asked if I didn’t want to come over after work. He lived close to my office, so after work I walked over. I sat down on the couch and he took my hand in his and said, “I never thought I would have to do this, but you know I care about you. I want us to continue to be friends, but I can’t see you anymore. It’s not you, it’s me.”

I was the first girl Kevin Rose ever broke up with.

I stood up. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re breaking up with me? You can’t do that. I haven’t wanted to date you for awhile but you were so depressed I didn’t want to break up with you before Thanksgiving. I was doing fucking charity work, you unappreciative asshole. You care about me? Right. You care so much you didn’t think about what it might be like for me to have to go and an explain to my family that not only did the guy I was supposed to marry left me two weeks after September 11th, but then the fucking bargain basement rebound boyfriend who was supposed to feed my ego had the audacity to leave me before a major fucking holiday because he doesn’t understand his place in the fucking cosmos, which is to be a place holder until I could find someone I could be serious about since I certainly couldn’t be serious about a pacifist bouncer with the nickname Chainsaw. I don’t think anyone ever could, which is why no one ever has been.”

The next day, I walked into class and said, “If I teach you nothing else, if you learn nothing from me this entire year, learn this-never say 'I care about you', 'it’s not you, it’s me', or 'we can still be friends' if you break up with someone."

After a brief pause, a female student raised her hand. “Yes?”

“What if it’s true?”

“Honey, it’s never true." I told her, "If it was, you wouldn’t have to say it.”