Break-ups are a bitch. A fickle, near ineveitable bitch. Despite the overwhelming pain and trauma of the actual breakup and the near-nuclear fallout of losing that “special someone” (so special that you”ve been kicked to the curb by them), the saddest part of a break-up is undoubtedly the hopeless boobdom that follows the death rattle of a relationship.
- Paul Wong
- The Earle is known as one of Ann Arbor”s most romantic restaurants.<br><br>EMMA FOSDICK/Daily
Regardless of who in fact ends the relationship, males and females alike find themselves haunted by the departure of their former “true love.” This psychosexual demonization of ourselves and our dearly departed leads men and women alike to absurdist post-relationship reflections.
In the fiery crash and burn of a relationship gone sour the most real insecurities of men everywhere surface in the smoke. These enumerating insecurities damn our will and condemn our oh-so fragile egos. Rationally, one would expect these insecurities to be about our apathetic table demeanor or our inability to ask about how the women are feeling, but realistically this is not the case.
Instead, men dwell simply on one factor. Sex.
Author Nick Hornby captures this simple truth masterfully in his 1995 novel “High Fidelity.” Readers (and more likely moviegoers) watched Rob fumblefuck his way through the end of his relationship. Hornby paints a painfully realistic image of Rob sweating in bed thinking only about Laura”s incredible post-relationship eros.
This is our first stage of grieving. We sit and ponder our respective ex having wildly incredible monkey-sex with some new man, fictitious or alleged. She”s always having the best sex of her life in our heads. The visualization skills of the male are completely reversed.
After we”ve thoroughly thought about our respective ex”s roll in the hay with some other man, we enter a second, far darker period of grief. The Condemnation. We turn to aggression and damn two parties. First, we damn the woman, we think and hope and pray that the last orgasm our Lauras will ever have is with us. Essentially, we plead with some sort of fictitious orgasm fairy to stop visiting with our former half. The orgy-fairy, if it listens to our demands carefully, will never again come to her bed. This may be a little extreme, but those who have sang the song for the dumped will understand the plight Although the fairy never seems to get it.
It goes further than orgasms though extreme heartbreak will generally warrant a far greater punishment from men. We damn the woman and hope that she never again has sex with anyone. Never. Nothing. A nun in bed. Alone, and cold forever. Of course, we (men) plan on having as much casual sex to replace our old partner as physically possible. Look at evolutionary psychology we have enough sperm for all the ladies in the world. This pseudo-intellectual convincing of their previous partners now banal sexuality is simply the male misconception.
Women are most certainly not above their own female fantasies about relationships gone sour. Instead of coping on a singular level with the loss of their man, women take a group-therapeutic approach. The proverbial song for the dumped isn”t a song that women sing alone.
This group counseling approach generally involves pints of Ben & Jerry”s ice cream and a slew of movies, some man-hating, some romantic comedy. The broken-hearted woman and her friends will jabber and gossip and come to the conclusion that the man was little more than a dick. Her friends will rise to her defense and begin to shed any former alliances with the man, all to show their near-militant loyalty to another who pees sitting down. This sort of loyalty is what results in the multi-girl versus singular man bitch-fests which most have witnessed at one point or another in their local Dining Hall.
Women may also convince themselves that the man who left them will always be attracted to them. Despite the way the relationship ended, some women may in fact forever believe that their Rob will always chase them, no matter the situation. Whenever Laura encounters Rob she will feverously toss her hair and nibble on her pinky. No, she doesn”t want him back, but she”s trying as hard as she can to make him think that and more importantly, she”s trying to make him want her.
This desperate grasp to recapture the male heart is the woman”s way of regaining power after the relationship has ended. She will forever be in control of him and his actions. The premonition that the male will always want her back is little more than a female fantasy.
The reactions and responses to breaking up are as pathetic as the people involved in these sob-stories which touch everyone, whether they are a cheap participant in the relational game or one of the girls screaming at the poor man in the name of their girlfriend. These reactions are for the weak, the ill-hearted and for everyone else but me. I”m above all of this relational politik.
But if you”re reading, girl, you”ll never scream my name in the throes of passion again, and I”ll be fucked six ways from Sunday if you think I”m ever coming back to your ass. Bitch.
Luke Smith can be reached at lukems@umich.edu.