Excerpt From:
Your Bitter is My Sweet
By: Chloe Mitchell
Things used to be, now they not
Anything but us is who we are
Disguising ourselves as secret lovers
We've become public enemies
We walk away like strangers in the street
Gone for eternity
We erased one another
So far from where we came
With so much of everything
How do we leave with nothing?
(L)ack (O)f (V)isual (E)mpathy equates the meaning of L-O-V-E
(H)atred and (A)ttitude (T)ear us (E)ntirely
I’m going to be straight with you guys. This won’t be a blog post, this pretty much will be a rant about something that’s been keeping me hostage for some time. ThatDude’s gonna get sentimental for a minute. I’m gonna talk about relationships and breakups.
The Pre-Relationship
Let’s start off with the relationship, shall we. When a relationship is beginning to flower it truly is a great experience. Butterflies engulf your stomach at the mere thought of the significant other. You stare down your phone waiting for the anticipated response, and if a response takes some time, it’s the most agonizing moment of your life. I remember when I first told a girl, let’s call her Ariel, I liked her through text. I tossed my phone as soon as I hit sent, ran downstairs and played basketball until I was sure that a response must have arrived. In case you’re wondering how that played out for me, I got hit with “I like you as a friend” bullshit, but that didn’t hold ThatDude down. To him that was “alright, I see you, you just need some more time to marinate in my personality and smell the whiff of my charm.” Within a couple of months, I exchanged that friend card for an all-access exclusive boyfriend card but let’s not skip ahead. When you’re in the “flirting” process, you’re walking on eggshells. You need to play your cards right. You can afford the occasional screw-up, but if you gamble at the wrong time, you might as well fold your cards and find a new table. You can’t seem too eager, but you also can’t seem disinterested. When I was talking to the aforementioned girl above, when that phone vibrated with a text, my face lit up. I would yell “YEAHHHHHH” to the top of my lungs and then patiently sit for two minutes until I would respond. To be honest, I would have my responses done pretty quickly after the text, but my thumb was slow as hell to hit that send button. Texting, however, is only half of the equation. The other half is face to face interaction. Looking back, I was pretty damn awkward when first interacting with Ariel. To be fair, I had her ex breathing over my shoulder like a hound and trying to cause shit, but still, I could have been more suave. One instance makes me laugh to this day. She told me “I want a surprise hug one day.” In my head, I was thinking “what the hell is a surprise hug? This girl want me to hide inside a cake and pop out, I don’t know.” But ThatDude played it cool and told her that he has it covered. No problemo. And then walks away, back towards her, with his face looking like a puzzled Charlie Brown character. After hours of interpreting what that could mean, I went for it. I saw her talking to her group of friends, and I walked up behind her, doing all I could to not get her attention and when I finally did, wrapped my arms around her. Now everything I did was fine, it was smooth, calm, and cool. But boy that hug was awkward. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and close to her neck like I was about to take her down. I made a slight mistake, but it wasn’t bad enough to cause any real damage. It was like taking a math test and taking one route when you should have taken another, but still getting the right answer. The flirting stage is an awkward one, and you will look back on it as to “what was I thinking/doing”, but boy is it a fun stage as well.
The Relationship
Now let’s enter the actual relationship. I don’t know about you, but establishing the relationship “as a relationship” is weird. “Will you be my girl/boyfriend?” is about the weirdest question to ask. It doesn’t flow out of the tongue nicely, in addition to the fact that it isn’t exactly an easy question to ask. Fun fact, when I asked a girl to be my girlfriend (even typing that just felt wrong, can we think of a new way to go about this?) it was at her grandfather’s retirement home. Sexy, right? Going to have to copyright that scene before Nicholas Sparks gets a hold of it. To everyone out there, let this be a word of a warning: A SIGNIFICANT OTHER IS NOT CHEAP. Especially if you’re still in school, there are so many holidays that require a present, in addition to the random gifts that you give because you want to make them happy. And that’s just gifts, then you’ve got the dates. I was lucky. Ariel was not high maintenance. Denny’s and a movie that she seemed to always have a free ticket for were enough to satisfy. Hell, for our 2-year anniversary I took her out to a nice dinner at Taco Bell. They used the finest fake meat available in combination with perfectly stale tortillas, with tomatoes that contain enough GMO’s to last you a lasttime! (Long story, I had a big romantic dinner planned out, but as they say, shit happens). But even with that, she was perfectly happy. Other people aren’t as lucky. So word of warning, if you’re going to enter a relationship, you better be in the Steady Income Club. All relationships have a time period called the “honeymoon” phase. Basically, your world revolves around them (Fuck the sun, right?). They are the first thing you think of in the morning, the last thing you think of before you fall asleep, and everything you see reminds you of them. “Omg, a shoe, *insert name of significant other* also wears shoes*. To people around you, this is annoying. To people who had just broken up, they want to tear you to pieces. But to those in the phase, it is one of the better moments of life and something everyone should experience. I would think about Ariel every living second during this stage. There was one day where we talked on the phone with each other for 8 hours. Just thinking about that makes my mouth dry and begging for a glass of water. Enjoy this moment, it lasts different lengths of time for different relationships, but it will not last. After this stage, and if the relationship is still going strong, you still care deeply about the person and you spend most of your day thinking about them, but fights begin to happen. This is something I really want to talk about: meeting the parents. That is one of the more stressful environments that you can be placed into, especially a boyfriend meeting the girlfriend’s dad. They know how most young boys are. Doesn’t even matter if you have the purest intentions, to them, you are a person putting your dirty fingerprints all over their prized possession. Despite this, you need to put on an impressive display for the in-laws, and keep that display going for the length of the relationship. If they don’t like you, they can make your relationship a living hell. If they like you, you’ve got some elbow space, but you still, and will always be walking on eggshells. I had an interesting relationship with my in-laws. It started off well, remained pretty good for most of the relationship, and plummeted fast within the dying months. I always had a tough time getting along with the dad. He was a very strict fellow, and that was cute when were still fairly young, but as we got older, I felt like he wouldn’t give any more freedom. Ariel was extremely into Disney and I know Disney has a thing with girls being locked in towers, but damn, that’s fantasy. I honestly felt like I was slaying a dragon and climbing a 200ft tall building just to get to her. When we first started dating, There was one time where her father was purchasing some chairs on Craigslist and he needed to go meet with the person selling. At the time, I was over their house and it was just me, Ariel and her father. So that we wouldn’t be alone in the house together while he retrieved the chairs, he took me along . . . just me and him . . . on an awkward 20 minute drive with sad attempts from both parties to make small talk. “So… you see the game last night?” I get it, you don’t want us to be alone in the house, that’s obvious and a given, but could your daughter at least have come. I would have also GLADLY stayed outside in the house while you and Ariel went. It was just an awkward experience. I also remember another time where we kissed and he happened to see and I hear the agonizing groan of “OMG, Ariel!” come from her dad. I get it, she’s your daughter. I respect that, but give me some wiggle room, dammit! I dated Ariel for close to 3 years, the amount of times she went to my house I could count on two hands. In addition, many of those times that she did come over, I had to either pick her up and/or drop her off, while for me, I was on my own for 90% of the times. Her mother was a lot more liberal. She was fine with us kissing (she caught us making out more often than not and was pretty chill about it), and generally was pretty cool. On top of that, that woman could cook her ass off. Honestly, I was lucky with her mom because she made the in-law relationship a lot easier. Mrs. Ariel, if you’re reading this, I miss your queso dip. I just had one instance that irked me with her and goes back to the idea that a parent can make or break your relationship. After graduating high school, we went to different colleges 5 hours apart, so the long distance thing came about. We were having major problems and she wanted to end things. She sent a text to me basically saying that we’re done, but I was like “girl, it’s been more than 2 years, you’re not doing this through text.” So I traveled 5 hours just to get dumpedJ. Anyway, before I did, I sent a text to her mom saying I was coming down and hoping to surprise her daughter so we could talk (this was before she basically ended it through text). I did not get a reply until the day after we broke up. The text basically said sorry that her daughter and I broke up, wishes me success, but also wishes I did things differently. For example, the last text I sent her was rude, that I was demanding to see her daughter. I was at my bro’s house when she sent this and honestly I was livid. I looked back at that text and saw that I wrote “I am asking for your permission to see her, I don’t want to show up to your house unannounced” (Most likely not verbatim, but fairly close enough). So, to defend myself, I responded saying that I specifically remember asking her permission, but that I am sorry if I came off as rude, it wasn’t my intention, and that it was a misunderstanding. She responds with, and this is verbatim, “. . . let’s just call it a misunderstanding then.” IT FRAKING WAS A MISUNDERSTANDING, WHAT DO YOU MEAN “CALL?” It may be hard to see what’s wrong with what she said, but there was a tone in the text, especially if you knew the mother, you would understand. I’m not trying to say Ariel’s parents, or in-law parents are bad people and are just hell, they’re good people, but you aren’t always going to get along with them, but at the end of the day, they’ll always be with your significant other. You have to learn to live with them. I made plenty of mistakes on this part, but it happens. If you do the same, you learn from it for your next relationship. For the most part, asides from parents and the honeymoon phase, a relationship is two people who genuinely enjoy being with each other. Each other’s company is welcomed with open arms and looked forward to. When you’re alone, you crave to be with them. When you are trying something new, you want them to be part of the experience. When something exciting happens, they are the first you want to share the news with. There are times still where something exciting happens to me and I think “I really would like to tell Ariel about it” but can’t. That’s what a relationship is about. It’s about sharing new experiences. It’s the definition of “Oh, what a time to be alive.”
The Breakup
When you stop enjoying each other’s company, however, that’s when things begin to fail and the breakup is looming. A breakup is probably the toughest thing to go through. In “Heartless” by Kanye West, he says “you’re bringing out a side of me that I don’t know.” While going through my breakup, I would scream that line. I was doing shit I would never normally do, and look back today like “what was I thinking?” You say things you don’t mean, you do things irrationally, and you’re just generally petty as fuck. Chance’s verse in “Baby Blue” sums up the pettiness. “I hope you never get off Fridays, and work at a Friday’s that’s always busy on Fridays.” Emotion unchecked can become a dangerous thing. A breakup is like a snicker’s commercial. You’re not you when you’re going through a breakup, get a hobby. A breakup is simply a petty fuckfest (on both sides). I was petty. I burned one of the letters that I wrote to her but never got to give her. (Fun Fact: that letter ended up burning into the shape of a heart. I snapped a video of it to my 3 bros and they each responded “bro, that’s a heart. Lmao”) She did petty things. There’s a snapchat called “beautyandEddie.” Referring back to what I said about her being a Disney fanatic, she’s basically saying “I’m a beast.” It’s just part of the game. Pay no attention to it. She texted my bro once saying that he’s a great writer and that I’m “okay.” It hit a nerve and I let it get to me. I didn’t explicitly call her out, but on my IG bio I said “More than an okay writer.” Nothing too bad, didn’t mention anything that it was directly about her, but she saw it. After I cooled off, I deleted that from my bio, and hoped that she didn’t see it, but she did and I looked weak. Don’t let things get to you, shrug it off. Now at some point, one of the two will enter a new relationship before the other. To the person still single, this will sting. You will feel like a swarm of bees just enclosed your body and stung you at once. You are going to feel betrayed, and hurt. By the way you act, a person who didn’t know the situation would think the world was coming to a close. It will suck, and it will hurt for a long time. In my case, it’s been close to a year and I’m still hurting. Don’t confront them about it, it’ll only make things worse. I made that mistake. Ariel and I officially broke up on December 17th, 2014. On March 17th, 2015, I found out she was dating someone new. I was hurt. We were close to dating for 3 years and within 3 months you have someone new? That killed me. I called her. I wanted answers, I wanted closure. I asked her who he was and she told me that they’ve been talking recently and only gone out for one date. I got some answers, but obviously I was still unhappy. Let’s fast forward a month when I Facebook stalked the new kid. I’m not ashamed to say it, I did it, and if anyone says they haven’t done research on their ex’s new one is most likely lying. Turns out that they had been dating since Valentine’s Day. This leads to the conclusion that A) Ariel had lied to me, B) she moved on a lot sooner than I originally had thought and C) Either she started dating this kid pretty damn quickly after meeting him or they were talking while we were still technically a thing and having problems. Either way, because I confronted, I got more hurt than I needed to be. Let them be and leave it be. Which brings me to social media and break ups. UNFOLLOW, BLOCK, UNFRIEND, etc., do what you need to do. Following your ex on social media is asking for problems. Bite the bullet and do it, at least for the first couple of months until you’re a rational human being again. I blocked my ex. Not because I hate her, as she believes is the reason (or at least that’s what my homie says she thinks, which btw I don’t) but because of me. I couldn’t stand to see her pictures on my feed. Even when I unfollowed her, I would see when people liked her pictures and I would just find myself on her page again. Social media does nothing but make things more difficult. You may think you can handle it, but more often than not, you can’t. Do what needs to be done. There’s a lot more about breakups than what’s mentioned here. It’s an emotional period. And shit will go down that you wish hadn’t. But just get through it. Play some 808s and Heartbreak (which is hands down, without question the best breakup album of all time) and do you. We’ll talk more about this in the summer, hopefully.
Dedication
This is dedicated to the aforementioned Ariel. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and happy belated (by more than 2 months) birthday. I hope you're doing well.
