Like most people in their early forties late thirties, I’ve been through a number of relationships. And relationships don’t begin with the snap of the fingers and end just as abruptly. There’s the fade in as you slowly blend her into your life, and when it’s over, she’s slowly dissipates like a well-timed fart in a corporate meeting. When the girl is gone and the dust has settled, I feel myself longing for connection and distraction; the house just feels empty.
I miss her curves and the crisp lines; I miss the way she would click to life every morning and wake me with her low dull hum. I miss the way she kept my friends and I occupied for hours on a Saturday night as we shuffled her around. And how I’d run my fingers across her buttons while at home alone. And I’m not talking about my ex. I MISS MY STUFF.
With any new relationship, there come the different levels of progression. The first date eventually transmogrifies into the exchanging of keys, the making of room in the medicine cabinet, and the migration of all my stuff to her place.
Over time, I left some of my stuff at her place and she had some of hers at mine for the sake of convenience more than anything else. Sometimes I just didn’t want to drag it home just to bring it back the following night.
Since you never know when the relationship is going to start and when, exactly, it’s going to end, she ended up with some of my things and I got some of hers which sounds like a fair trade but it really wasn’t.
I left behind a laptop, a coffee maker, and my ‘Apples to Apples’ family game; and not just the original version but the coveted Apple Crate Edition that’s packed in an actual apple crate.She left behind a little black dress, moisturizer, a drawer full of camisoles and, ahem, feminine sanitary products.
I’m not saying I was a mark and taken advantage of or anything, but as I go through the normal process of dating, and of the course of breaking up and moving on, I have less and less stuff. And I’d prefer it if I were robbed at gun point as the robber would have the decency to pull a gun so I’m not giving my stuff away willingly.
It all begins innocently with a well timed comment like “Since you’re going to be spending the weekend at my place, you might want to bring your coffee maker because I don’t have one.” Or, it starts with the compliment: “You have the best movies. Bring a few by on Friday night and we’ll order in Chinese.” And you can’t say ‘no,’ especially when it’s a new relationship. You have to figure you’ll be together for a while, or just long enough to get your stuff back.
I’ve never asked for my stuff back after the first breakup because the first time never sticks. Like Jerry Seinfeld said, breaking up is like knocking over a Coke machine. You can’t do it in one push. You gotta rock it back and forth a few times.”
Usually a week or two slips by and you go on to round 2. This is the time when her friends tell her she could do better and your friends help you compile a list of the women you could be sleeping with if you dump her for good.
We all know relationships don’t just end like they do in the movies where there’s this blowup where one of you says “IT”S OVER,” and it actually is. Life isn’t that black and white and technology doesn’t really help with this.
It’s gotten so you can’t even end a cell phone conversation dramatically. Those old fashioned tabletop house phones we all grew up with that were like an anvil where at the end of the argument, you could slam the phone down like a sledgehammer hitting steel and the windows would shake and the dog would hide behind the couch. Angrily hanging up a cell phone is about as dramatic as slamming a curtain closed. You shout “IT’S OVER” and then you have to find the ‘end call’ button and ‘beep’ it off in dainty fashion as if a mouse were providing the sound effects.
I’m single for now and I’m really not ready to begin dating and give it all away again; especially since I had to buy all new stuff. For now, I have her Uva Moisturizer and I can honestly say, my skin has never felt smoother.
