Got To Get You Off My Mind
In honor of just finishing High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (for those of you who have seen the movie with John Cusack you should really read the book although they’re very much the same) I’m doing my top five all time worst break-ups in chronological order. Bear with me.
- Matthew Edwards — Beginning of freshman year, second day of school there was a meeting for everyone interested in joining the theater group. That was the day that we met Matthew, a senior and an Actor. My best friend Emily and I both immediately developed intense crushes on him. We spent the entire year going back and forth over who he liked and he couldn’t seem to make a decision until finally, over the summer following his graduation he picked me. We spent a beautiful month talking on the phone and making out in his parents living room. Then he told me that he’d be starting college soon (the local community college that he’d be commuting to while still continuing to live with his parents) and that we should break up. I was crushed and Emily, being my best friend and trying to be supportive, caved in for me and called him to find out exactly what went wrong for me. Then they started dating. For five months. Devastating.
- Dave White — This is a tricky one because I had a crush on PK’s father at the end of my senior year and I went to visit him at the video store where he worked. That’s where I met Dave who was the manager. I was smitten. After the store closed we all went to the Denny’s and drank coffee and talked all night. We were the last two to leave the parking lot and before I got in my car he kissed me. That night he called me and we stayed on the phone all night talking about life and love and books and music and when 5am rolled around we hung up and I slept for an hour or two before heading to school. I floated through the entire day with a stupid smirk on my face. That night we talked again, but this time he only wanted to tell me that it just wouldn’t work out. That was it and it was over. The next day at school I don’t recall looking up all day. I cried during passing periods and that evening at work I got sent home earlier because my manager thought I was going to fall over. I still don’t know what happened there except that he was a real jerk who apparently did this to quite a few girls. You’d think I would have learned…
- Eric Wawrzynek — Technically we never “dated” but it came to my attention much later than it should have that we should have. I was stupid. He was wonderful. He was my best friend in my post-PK’s father years. He listened to me rant about the unfairness of life and love, he drove me home when I was drunk without ever trying to take advantage and he taped episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for me when I had to work on Tuesday nights. He was, all in all, the best chance I’ve ever had with anybody for real happiness. I couldn’t see past myself and how hurt I was losing PK’s dad though and I treated him so shabbily that I’m too disgraced to even discuss the fight that finally ended it all. According to google he has since married the girl that he started dating at the tail end of friendship and while I’m happy to think that he’s living the life he deserves it is bittersweet.
- Danny Goldman — If this list was in order of the most heartbreaking and emotionally crushing break-ups this one would be first. Danny did a number on me that I fear I will never fully recover from. He wooed me for months while I insisted that it would never work because we were too different. Then the silly Jewish boy played Stellar (by Incubus) for me, gave me a guitar and told me he loved me. I was sunk. And then he had me and became detached. It was and and off, up and down and crazily manic depressive. At one point when we were broken up he still joined my family to visit my brother at school in Indiana and on the drive home he screamed at me that he’d come because “I love you you stupid bitch!” Yes, that was a fun night. Eventually he would move back to his hometown in Maryland, break promises to come back and finally when I was pregnant with SB (just to clarify, SB isn’t his) and he had told me that he still loved me he deserted me for the final time. Bastard!
- Darek Solarczyk — I thought Darek and I would get married. The boy had so much potential but he spent so much time flushing it down the toilet he didn’t realize there was more out there. We wanted the same things, just not at the same times. The last six months were miserable for me waiting for him to pick me over all his other hobbies but it just didn’t happen. I finally threw in the towel and that’s when he realized that he didn’t want to lose me. When he showed up at my house a month later to win me back it was just too late. Turning him away, even knowing it was the right thing to do, is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This one will always have a footnote. What if.
The difference between me and Rob is that I know, at least vaguely, why each of these ended. I picked the wrong guys. I’m working on that.
