You and I have a pretty good thing going here. Every other week I bring my observations, my ideas, my "highlytes," if you will, to the University community. To my continual surprise, you keep reading them. To my delight, you often tell me you enjoyed my column.
Like I said, we have a good thing going.
So what if I told you I needed a little space, a break from our relationship? What if I said it was nothing personal, or gave you the standard line, "it's not you, babe, it's me?"
Welcome to my life. In the last two weeks, I've had to deal with the break-up of my two-year long distance relationship. Now that the nights of crying, pillow punching and binge eating have subsided, I thought I'd do what I do best: give you the highlytes.
It's fairly ironic that I would refer to highlights when talking about such a painful experience. Generally, we think a break-up involves two kinds of days: bad and worse.
It's taken me two weeks to see the silver lining in the situation, and I'll be the first to admit that the silver lining only reveals itself thread by thread.
Oh, and I lied about the binge eating being over. I went through an entire jar of peanut butter in the last two days.
But after the last pillow has been punched and the final tear dries, life goes on. My Comm School classes go on. Honor trials go on. The Cavalier Daily goes on. And they expect me to be there, both mentally and physically intact.
So now that I'm feeling like a seasoned veteran, I thought it was time to make the clarification that not only does life go on, but does so with laughter. When it comes right down to it, I'd much rather laugh than cry, and given the choice, I want you to laugh with me. I'm also running seriously low on Visine eye drops, so the red, puffy eyes have just got to go.
I've received some of the best advice in my life over the last couple of weeks. Some of it inspired me, some comforted me and some made me laugh out loud.
One friend, an economics major, decided that my break-up was just another lesson in economics. When he heard me lament how I'd invested so much time and effort in my relationship, he wrote it off as a sunk cost.
A sunk cost, he explained, cannot be recovered and shouldn't effect your decision on which step to take next. According to the philosophy of economics, I needed to cry a river, build a bridge and get over it.
My friend didn't seem to understand how I thought this was easier said than done. He said I couldn't reach back in time to reclaim the effort I expended in the last two years. So now I had the choice to wallow in the sadness or apply the laws of economics and move forward
At this point though, I couldn't see the relationship as the textbook definition of sunk cost. It just seemed plain old sunk to me.
Enter my roommate. Thank goodness, she's not an econ major. She understood that I was not only feeling hurt but also a little angry. After all, I'd given everything I had in me to this relationship for two years. I'd been honest, sensitive, patient. And, gosh darnit, I had watched a lot more football than I'd wanted.
My roommate understood all these emotions and decided we could vent some of them via humor. Our first stop -- www.BoysSuck.com.
Harsh? Yes. Gross generalization of the male gender? Maybe. But at the time, it took the words right out of my mouth.
The Web site actually promotes a band called BoysSuck. I wasn't really interested in their music, but that didn't stop me from wanting to order the T-shirt.
Their T-shirts have stick figures of a man and a woman, equivalent to what you might find on a bathroom door denoting men's and women's restrooms. Except that there was a big red X through the male figure, with the words "Boys Suck" underneath.
Given the mental instability of my post-break-up state, it's surprising that I didn't actually order the shirt. That's not to say I didn't think about it. For a few minutes, I discussed getting a group order together and maybe a bulk discount. I went so far as to ask my other roommates what sizes and colors they wanted.
That's when one of them suggested I needed to get out more.
Maybe the Internet wasn't the best place to mend a broken heart. Another friend suggested I consult a certain book on relationships and pay special attention to the concept of "total boundaries."
According to the total boundaries idea, when two people break up they should cut off all contact. This situation, of course, benefits the wounded party because it forces them to move on. If I enforced total boundaries with my ex-boyfriend, I would reclaim a little bit of power. Since I could forget about ever regaining my dignity after days of begging him to reconsider, I thought power might be a good asset.
It was a decision I had to make for myself, and he would have no choice but to comply. My friend explained it was something I just had to do for my own sanity and self-worth. He liked it because it was decisive and confident. I liked it because I got to flip the old line on my boyfriend and say, "It's not you, babe, it's me."
For those of you who have been through a break-up, you know about the ups and downs. Although you can laugh about it after some time, the tears ultimately have to come first. But everyone reaches a point where they have to put down the Visine and the peanut butter and move on. It means you have to act like an adult and handle the situation with maturity.
But I still think boys suck.
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