Does it make me a bad person if...

During and after a break up, I think most adults try to move on with some (at least outward appearance of) maturity, grace and integrity. They try not to let things get too ugly, try to take the high road, be the bigger person, remain civil. Some even try to be friends. Not me.

When I feel like I've been wronged in a relationship and its aftermath, I get petty. And childish. I resort to name-calling. I actually say out loud everything mean and hurtful thing that I've been thinking. Every midnight confession, dirty little secret, insecurity, secret fear and weird quirk that the ex has allowed me to be privy to over the course of the relationship, I throw in their face. I twist the knife. I say I told you so. I go for the jugular. I burn bridges. I figure, what have I got to lose? I mean, besides my dignity, which by this point is probably long gone anyway...

There is a word, a most beautiful German word that has no English equivalent and that perfectly describes my feelings toward a few exes of mine. Schadenfreude.

So imagine my inner delight when my (very materialistic) ex recently posted on Facebook pictures of a tree that fell on his brand-spanking-new Subaru during a wind storm. Basically destroyed the roof. I smiled a little on the inside. Ok, I smiled a lot. The thought of missing out on the chance to revel in rare instances like this has basically kept me from unfriending him.

I do not think it makes me a bad person to secretly delight in the misfortune of someone who ripped my heart out and then stomped on it. Repeatedly. (This break-up was so bad, I moved across the country rather than deal with it and him in our tiny town.) However, kinda, (sorta) thinking (for a split second) that it was (maybe just) a little bit of a shame that he wasn't actually INSIDE the car when the tree fell? Jury is still out on that one...

Here's how I know God hates me

So I used to have this... let's call him a boyfriend for the sake of argument, who I dated at the end of college. We will call him college boyfriend. I was a senior, weeks away from graduating and he still had a few years left. We had already been friends for years. He was younger than me, shorter than me, smarter than me and I love, love, loved him. I could have been happy with him forever.

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I moved home and so we lived 2,000 miles away. We still talked and emailed and visited each other here and there for about a year after I graduated, but we never really discussed any specifics, like whether we were actually together or not.* In the end, the distance got the best of us and whatever we had died. Fast forward five years and I have moved to the city where he lives. Unfortunately, he now has a girlfriend.**

So one day a few weeks ago, I notice on Facebook (Facebook: ever the crusher of dreams, the informer of exes loves lives.) that he and the gf are engaged. Engaged! The horror! I send off a few texts lamenting this fact to friends who knew us as a couple, looking for some consolation, or at least assurance and validation that despite not being engaged myself, I'm still a good person, (or at least cooler/better looking than the fiancee.) I was bummed, but it was nothing a little whiskey and a good cry couldn't fix. I go into work the next day feeling much better about the situation. I'm practically over it.

So I'm on my lunch break, reading a magazine on the outdoor 10th-floor balcony of my building when I hear a voice. HIS voice. And I don't mean Jesus. I turned and there he was. What was he doing in my building?! I started sweating. At first I didn't think it was a big deal because people tour my building all the time. I figured he was on one and would soon be leaving. But then I noticed he was sitting down to eat his lunch with a bunch of similarly aged and attired people. I think maybe I can wait him out. But I've got work to do and I'm beginning to get sunburned. I start to search for escape routes, but he's sitting right in front of the only door back inside. Convenient. There's no way I can slip past him without being spotted. There's no avoiding it. I'm going to have to say hi and make awkward small talk.

So I go over and try to act all surprised to see him and pretend like I haven't been fidgeting and panicking for the last 10 minutes. I'm literally shaking. The engagement is the elephant in the room and cannot be ignored. "Congratulations," I say, hoping he will want out of this awkward exchange as quickly as I do. No such luck. He starts gushing all about how he proposed on vacation and how he ordered the nice bottle of wine and then he compared the feeling to skydiving. I had had enough. If he didn't shut up soon, I was going to sky dive myself right off that 10th-floor balcony. I mumbled something about how we should catch up sometime and ran away.

Turns out he's an intern in my building all summer. It's a good thing I like eating lunch at my desk. All I'm saying is when the whole (main) reason it didn't work out for us was because of the distance, and now we spend eight hours a day separated by just two floors, that is not irony or a coincidence. That is the universe shitting on me.

*So the year after college graduation was a pretty bad one for me. I was underemployed, bored, depressed, lonely and living with my parents. I needed something and someone to do. So I kind of started dating this other guy, let's call him K, while the college bf and I were still-together-but-not-really-together. I didn't even like K. No one liked K. He was a douche. Like I said, I was bored. So when the college bf was coming to town, I stopped returning K's phone calls and started blowing him off. This, apparently, was suspect to him.

So one night while the college bf and I are canoodling on the couch at like midnight, the phone rings and it's K. He had apparently driven to my house, peeked in the windows, seen the canoodling, flipped his shit and was now screaming at me on the phone, calling me every name in the book and vowing revenge. (Now, keep in mind, we lived in a very rural area. Cars do not sketchily park on the sides of the roads and their occupants do not prowl around houses at midnight and play peeping tom without someone alerting the residents of the house, most of all the family dog. This was how I figured out our old dog was going deaf. That fucker. Thanks for nothing, fleabag. You've got like one job and you can't even do it right.) I ran to the door and locked it. The only thing that prevented K from busting down the door and getting his revenge was the fact that my 60-year-old parents were asleep upstairs. I had never been so happy to be living with my parents in my entire life.

This little incident more than likely contributed to the demise of both relationships. I was a jerk. Lesson learned: Get a new dog when yours starts going deaf.

**I met his gf a few times at parties and such. I wasn't impressed. At this one party last year, the college bf and his girlfriend were talking about how they had done this 10k race that morning. It's a very well-known and popular race and apparently you have to submit a previous 10k time for them to seed you correctly. You have to prove you have done a 10k in less than an hour and a half.

Well, as usual, I had had a few drinks and since I was pretty sure I, or any person in reasonable health could WALK a 10k in less than an hour and a half without breaking a sweat, (I have gone a 52-minute 10k in a triathlon for chrissakes and I'm no runner) I (loudly) proclaimed that it was insulting to have to prove it to the race directors and if they wanted proof, well here was my proof: I am not 300 pounds nor am I 80 years old. I sat back and waited for the laughs. Turns out the gf clocked in at 1:21 for a 10k.

Ok, I'm an asshole. And she probably wasn't impressed with me either. But, seriously, how do you marry someone who takes 1:21 to do a 10k? That's just embarrassing.

Email Killed the Sexting Star, Amongst Other Things...

I would like to take a moment to discuss what I believe is the worst thing to happen to single women this decade other than the rising acceptance of wearing tights as pants. (All I'm saying ladies, is cover all of both buns and let there be no chance the outline of your vagina might show. It's simple.) I'm referring to text messaging. You know what? Fuck it. I mean all of it, email, facebook, twitter, google, and yes, blogs.
My recent life has been affected far more than I would like by the all mighty power of instantaneous information. There was a time when we were all forced to wonder a little bit. There was a time when I met a guy, gave him my number, and got a blissful couple days or even a week of wondering when/if he would call, what's his story, what turns his cranks. Unfortunately, I was thirteen during this brief blissful period and I have spent the bulk of my adult dating experiences thereafter staring at an ever increasing number of devices waiting for one type of cryptic message or another. I fill that initial time after meeting someone new with google and facebook searches. Invariably, by the time he calls, I know so much that I have to remember what I learned through unsanctioned internet stalking so I don't let it leak out in conversation before I should technically know it. Upon examination, this is disturbing.
Last Sunday night, while I was in the process of sleeping off that mean hangover?
My ex-boyfriend invaded my bedroom via text message. He said only "I hope you are well ". That might seem benign if you don't know me. But it's not. We broke up just over two years ago. It was the end of a relationship that lasted off and on five years. It was doomed from the start and everyone involved knew it except me. Anyway, the details are for another day. For the purposes of this post, suffice it to say, he left me. It was a rough break up and I went through a couple misguided periods of attempted friendship. Of course, we had sex during these periods. You know, cause that's very friendly, the friendliest even. He took care of my cat (which was once our cat) this past Thanksgiving. When I came back, I felt that something had shifted. I asked him if he was seeing someone. He casually replied "yes, just since last week". Timing seemed convenient there. Not to worry though, he told her we were still friends and she was cool with it.
Oh FANTASTIC, she is cool with us being friends? No one splained it like that before. Is she also cool that we had sex last week? That seems less likely. In that moment, I made a decision. That was it. I was done. I told him firmly, under no circumstances was he ever to contact me again. I deserved the same chance to move on and he was helping me perpetuate a bad pattern. He said he understood and promised to leave me alone.
His respect for my wishes lasted exactly four months, then he texted me at 1AM. That's his general modus operandi. Wait 3 months or so, then text me when I'm finally content. He has radar for my contentment. It's his gift. He texted again two days later to tell me it would never happen again. The weight of the unintended irony exploded my smart phone.
This intrusion mixed with a half bottle of red wine led me to internet sleuth him a little. He also has a blog. There is some revisionist history about us but mostly it's just a chronicle of the happenings in his life. His girlfriend is beautiful. (Run. Like. Hell. Darlin.) His pizza appears to have landed cheese up. Yet, he still wants to rock my boat every few months. Why, you (me) might wonder? Why not? It's just so easy! A few taps on the iphone keys and he's right here in my bedroom. Instant relief for him, instant crazy internet stalker for me. It burns me that I am forced to have enough will power for two people.
The phone sexter you might say would be the flip side of such technology, the happy, fun, intrusion. Well, email killed the sexting star last week. I emailed him something too racey apparently. What did I say? Well I'll tell you so you don't make the same mistake. "I want to make out with you".
His reply? "I don't know what to say when you say things that."

Really? Really? REALLY? I have nothing further on this. I'm mystified. Apparently, sexting is like Pretty Woman. No kissing on the mouth, too personal. Write that down.
Then there was all my sleuthing of last weekend's fling. I wasted valuable moments of my life checking to see if he tweeted or blogged about our encounter in any identifiable way. You know, the usual. I feel like women, myself included, lament the fact that no one ever "calls" us anymore. Well the fling called, and I saw his name appear on my phone and almost threw it across the room. The other half of someone calling you, is you having something non-crazy to say, or a series of those things even. I think maybe I only pretend to miss the good old days when people actually spoke to each other. In reality, I'm just hoping for the text so I can carefully craft something coquettish and droll to say in response. That's a tough combo to aim for, but with the right amount of time and thought I've achieved it. I swear.

After a very emotional Sunday, I have decided to try something new. I am going to ask for what I want. I came in to work this morning and told the phone sexer (via combo instant message and text message of course) that I was tired of the men in my life reminding me not to expect too much. Time to throw that recording out. It's been skipping far too long. He respected me for being honest about how I felt and I feel much better. The new me is emotionally unfiltered. Life is too short, hug everyone. You're all getting an electronic hug right now, can't stop me, here it goes.... xoxo - Gossip Girl.

(That pop culture reference was shameless and inexcusable but I just couldn't help it.)

Valentine's Day Retrospective

So it's Valentine's Day. You probably expect a nice little commentary, tinged with bitterness, punctuated with mildly embarrassing and self-deprecating attempts at humor. But you'd be wrong. What we have for you instead is kind of an open letter to my past loves. This is my chance to say all those things I never said that I wish I had. Valentine's Retrospective: a look back at the boys I've loved before…punctuated with mildly embarrassing and self-deprecating attempts at humor.

Boy #1:

You were the love of my life. For a while. After we broke up, it took us years to get to the point where we did not hate each other and could have a normal conversation that didn't involve thinly veiled insults or degrading the other's current love interest or career choice. We are finally friends and I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. Which is why you must stop asking to spoon with me. And please get your hand off my leg…

Boy #2:

Although it was not the first indication that we would never live happily ever after, looking back I think it was the most obvious: your collection of nutcracker dolls. Especially the four-foot tall one. They gave me the creeps and weren't even functional for cracking nuts. I understand that they were gifts from your grandmother but that doesn't mean you should display them year-round. But I was not very nice to you, and for that I am sorry. Please tell your sister to stop giving me the stinkeye and intimidating my friends in bars. It's been two years. Talk about holding a grudge. I said I was sorry. Sheesh.

Boy #3:

I still can't believe you picked that other (not as cute) girl over me. I thought things were going well. It was a real shock (and blow to the ego) to find out that you can't always get by on your good looks and guys actually want to date a girl who is a good, nice, caring, compassionate person. And I am not that person so it's probably for the best. Anyway, when things don't work out with the nice girl, you have my number.

Boy #4:

We sure had some good times together, didn't we? Like, remember the time, months after you had broken my heart, when we were hooking up over Christmas break and you said that we had to stop because your (fun surprise!) girlfriend at school, the one whose existence you failed to inform me of, was coming for a visit? And then remember how just mere hours after you had left my bedroom, you were dumb enough to take her to our favorite bar and I happened to be there too, drowning my sorrows? The look on your face was priceless as we made eye contact. I get all choked up with nostalgia remembering how you were sweating bullets and wondering what crazy scene I might cause. Watching you squirm and then practically tackle the waitress in your haste to get the check ranks in the top five all-time best 15 minutes of my life and I would pay a lot of money to relive it. Thank you for your unbelievable stupidity.

Boy #5:

I didn't treat you very well either and I'm sorry. But now that we are older and more mature, maybe you'd like to give it another go? I really think we could make it work this time. I know things got kind of complicated there for a while, but this time I'll make it really easy for you. How about we just make out a little? No? Snuggle? Ok, you're right. I'll stop now…

Boy #6:

You were hot. Somewhere between Calvin Klein and J. Crew model with a dash of preppy. And we shared a wonderful love/obsession/addiction for coffee that will never again be equaled with anyone else in this lifetime. Too bad you only wanted to be my boyfriend after 10 p.m. I tried to meet you halfway. I was willing to overlook the fact that you enjoyed romantic comedies and wore sweatpants in public if you would have just called me when you were sober. I'm not saying I'm above a booty call, but let's not be ridiculous. I do require a little advanced notice. Don't call me at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday just because you're drunk. I've already been asleep for hours because some people have jobs. And you've just sacrificed the last shred of your dignity. The final remaining shred that you miraculously didn't lose by confessing that Notting Hill was your favorite move. Gone.

Unfriending your ex

So apparently today, Feb. 13, the day before Valentine's Day, is Annual Break Up With Your Ex Day. The website YourTango.com encourages people to sever cyber ties with former lovers, partners and spouses by unfriending, unfollowing and deleting on this day.

I will admit that far more often than can possibly be healthy I have caved to the urge to check exes Facebook pages. The word "compulsively" comes to mind. And it would probably be better for my mental health if I didn't see what's on there: one ex is having twins with some new flame, another ex has a rapidly rotating series of flavors of the week that show up in pics and wall postings.

So why don't I unfriend them? Why don't just wipe the slate clean and cut these people that have hurt me out of my life? It's not because I enjoy torturing myself with the masochistic little guilty pleasure of cyber stalking, (even if that's true). And it's not because I want to maintain contact with them or harbor some secret hope of reuniting with them. I don't even talk to these people anymore and I certainly don't want to get back together with these shitheads. But I won't unfriend them because unfriending is petty.

This weekend one of my friends, a former (kind of) romantic interest admitted that he had unfriended me. And that stung. And it also made no sense. This guy and I had what can barely be described as a flirtation. He may have liked me at one time, at least that's what I heard from mutual friends. It was all very high school. But he never made a move and so I moved on. He actually stood me up and cancelled plans with me on more than one occasion, proving that he was not only not boyfriend material, he wasn't even friend material. But I had no hard feelings toward him. Just figured he was immature and I felt glad I didn't end up dating him.

So when I noticed I had been cut from his Facebook friends, I jokingly confronted him about it, expecting him to say there was some computer glitch or something. But he straight up said we had "gone through a rough patch" and thus, the unfriending. I asked him to explain, but he wouldn't. But the thing is, we see each other on a fairly regular basis. We have mutual friends and are in the same book club. He never made any attempt to talk to me about this supposed "rough patch" when it was happening, and I'm still not sure what he was referring to. Whatever happened between us happened only in his head. But he just passive aggressively cyber deleted me. And now who looks like the psycho? Not the girl who is still Facebook friends with her exes, even if she might check their profiles a little too frequently for her own good.

I won't unfriend my exes because it would make it seem like I care more than I do, that I'm actually still bothered by them. It would make me seem weak. And they would win. Being cyber friends with exes maintains the illusion that I am the bigger person because I'm mature enough to have a superficial relationship with someone I have every right to cut out of my life. It's about proving a point. It's about keeping up appearances. And it's all a facade. But it's an important one. I mean, when your hatred of someone outweighs your desire to save cyber face, that's when you know you have a problem.