Heartbreak Betty

At least you don't have to put up with the non-conversations I've been having with my recent ex. I ended up some time last night sitting in Justin's truck in front of the Claremont Hotel (he pulled over, said he knew I'd leave when we got to his house) listening to a tirade of questions and musings and complaints and apologies and anger and guilt-ridden confessions and on and on and I just sat and sat and stared straight ahead and finally I said "Fuck you."

"Fuck you" is something I have promised myself I would never say while arguing with anyone because it's such a petty, worthless, non-productive spurt of useless communication. I said "What the fuck do you want to hear? Let's get back together? Let's forget all this break-up stuff and head to Vegas? Sorry I had a momentary lapse of reason, I don't want to break up after all, listening to you sob and plead for the 100th time this month has made me realize I made a BIG mistake. Of course I can't say that. I can't say one more fucking thing. I've said it all. How many ways can I re-phrase 'It's not you, it's me'? I'm SORRY."

I stayed the night in his bed of guilt. I slept for four hours and awoke wanting to puke at six a.m. (was it the bottle of wine on an empty stomach or just the heavy dread sitting in my gut?)...

Bad Boyfriend Betty

I know the feeling all too well. In case I wasn't just really hungover and had actually died, I thought I better check for the toe-tag, and as I leaned up I saw my underwear hanging from a branch of his banana plant. That pretty much put to rest any lingering notions I was entertaining that maybe I just passed out and didn't actually fool around with him after all.

Once I managed to weed out the rest of my garments from his houseplants, I was ready to start the SALT talks, by now a regular part of our breakup negotiations. This is the irony of making the oh-so-adult-like decision to break up before either of us broke down. We're trying to break up together. I should know better, because I've seen these misguided attempts before, and it's ugly. You make a promise to help each other through, to remain best friends, to comfort each other when the pain of parting is too much to handle alone.

"We should probably talk about how we feel about how we've acted. Or maybe we should act on how we said we felt....Or we could do an interpretive dance to express what we mean....Or maybe we should just get drunk and have sex again" and on and on.

Soon enough, one person ends up on a year-long solo journey to Bangladesh lest they go insane trying to break the cycle of codependency. And the first thing they do when they get back is call the source of their heart's duress and ask for a ride from the airport.

Heartbreak Betty

I went home, got a call from Justin. He was at work, upset and "needing" to see me. I said no, what's it gonna accomplish? But immediately upon hanging up I felt bad, or at least I felt like I didn't want to be responsible if he ran his car off the road. I know he's rational and sane, just upset, but he has no one to talk to, I guess. So I went to Berkeley and he cried and went through it all again. He misses me, he doesn't understand what happened, he wants to know, he knows I've explained it as best as I can but he needs to know SOMETHING to stop the pain. I tell him he has nothing else to be psyched about (i.e. a job, place to live) and he's focusing all his energy on being bummed out about me. He's obsessing. We can't hang out as friends while one of us is in love and one isn't. We need some space until we are both in the same mind/heart set. It's only been two months.

He says he thinks I've gone from being in love, to not being sure if I was in love, to not being in love, to wondering if I was ever in love, to knowing that I was never in love. In a way he's right.

Bad Boyfriend Betty

I remember in the early phases of the relationship, I was so obsessed that I would follow Nick up the side of a mountain with wheels on my feet, risking, and eventually enduring, both battered knees and a broken spirit just to keep up with him. It was a classic case of two people approaching intimacy from opposite directions -- I slept with him because I wanted to be in love with him, and he slept with me, at least at first, because he could. It didn't do the relationship any harm -- besides, if it weren't for these different motivations, men and women might never have sex. Later, when we were more or less an "item", I would drop whatever I was doing to hear his band play at some of San Francisco's sleaziest and cheesiest clubs. I would hang around the soundboard and fantasize about what I was going to say for the Spin interview when they finally made it big.

"Yeah, I was with him when he was a nobody, but I always knew he had what it took." I wanted to be his Yoko Ono, a bastion of inspiration and an inseparable part of his soul. Instead I ended up his Linda McCartney, doomed to siphon my own creativity into frozen food and a nuisance to the rest of the band.

But the novelty of being "with the band" wore off, and it dawned on me that those band-boyfriended girls who I envied so much in high school probably weren't as smugly smitten as I had suspected, just bored. The "I'm going home with him tonight no matter what, see, so you silly gyrating groupie girls can just swivel your hips on home" schtick wore off quick, and became instead "how many times can I possibly listen to these same songs over and over again and still consider myself a cut above the average Deadhead?"

Bitter Betty

I gave up on supporting someone else's bad art a long time ago. That's why I have decided to trade in cool guys and dorks alike for this new guy Mark. (Caution: This assessment based on a one-week affair. Major decisions based on this information not recommended.)

Everyone else I've met since the last Mr. Coolio has either been so overflowing with ego I could barely stomach it, or so devoid of ego that I had free reign. I am dangerous when I have free reign. Mark's smart, he's good-looking (his body is the best I've seen since the Cool Guy years) and he puts out! Ha Ha Ha! Ha. Damn, the boy is so delectable. And, he's a damn med student, how very practical. He's 3,000 miles away, in Philadelphia, how very impractical. But I've searched far and wide to find someone who embodies the best of the Cool and Dork worlds, and I think I may have found it.

But, it troubles me. Being into someone troubles me. I don't know how to do it. I haven't been taken with someone in a long-ass time. Two and a half years.

The thing that bugs me is the second I think "This is great! I'm really having fun with this person!" this sports announcer shows up and starts blasting a running commentary on my every move into my ear until I just shut my mouth or stutter stupidly from time to time: "Oh, she's talking about her body! Bad move, back up! Back up! Oh shit, she just scratched her nose in the most repulsive way! Is he sickened? Yikes! Uh oh, she's distracted by us, Bob, and she can't tell what he's saying right now! Bad Listener! The worst kind of foul! He must be truly disgusted!"

Do the words paranoid schizophrenic mean anything to you? They mean so much to me! It's so nice to have the time of your life for one night and then wake up crazy. The insanity that lingers just below the skin, always ready for a chance to emerge!

Heartbreak Betty

I think I may be manic-depressive. I went from all-time low to all-time high in the space of two weeks. Monday, I went by Ben's warehouse. It's been eight months since we broke up and I figured I'd drop by in a carefree kind of way. He wasn't around -- in Carmel with his new girlfriend, apparently. I knew they were into each other but when Ben's friend Zack said, "They're hot & heavy," I got that heavy-chest feeling... the crush on Ben lingers on.

Anyhow, I left, went home, then back over to the warehouse and Zack and I went to "Mom is Cooking" for dinner and margaritas. I've always liked Zack, I remember him from when I was first dating Ben and I went to the Warfield with Zack, Ben and Slacks to see some Dead-ish band I can't remember the name of right now. I remember Zack telling me I looked nice. Not a significant remark, except that it was the kind of easy-to-say, fairly meaningless comment that I felt like I was always waiting for from Ben.

So, I'm walking in the warehouse thinking "Zack's pretty cute" and if I'd thought beyond that it would have been "too bad he's Ben's friend or he might be fun to do a little schnick-schnacking with." But since he's Ben's friend I'm not even toying with the idea because I'm sure the same idea wouldn't be crossing his mind. There's some unwritten rule that you shouldn't get together with your friend's ex-girlfriends, especially when that particular ex-girlfriend was the one to do the dumping. This can be nice since it breeds a certain comfortable familiarity. I can ask him about girls he's been dating, his broken heart etc., because we don't have to worry about what vibe we might be giving or getting cause there's a sign posted that says "No vibes allowed."

This is why I was mildly astonished to get an inkling of something from Zack that could be interpreted as breaking those aforementioned rules.

OK, so maybe I was liking the flirtations going on, and I was pretty buzzed (that's right, blame the liquor). We went to dinner and when we came back to the warehouse I was hesitantly leaving when Zack said, "Let's continue to go out." So we went to Paradise Lounge and had a beer and played a game of pool till they kicked us out.

We went back to my place and sat on the steps outside my door (I couldn't invite him in, I didn't want him to think I was some kind of brazen hussy). He mentioned having to go to the bathroom. Luckily I happen to have one, so then we were inside. We talked on the couch. He got on top of me and tried to kiss me but I had to laugh at the awkwardness of the whole situation. Of course we ended up doing some foolin' around (fully clothed and away from the bedroom).

Later, we put ourselves in everybody's shoes and no matter how you sliced it, Zack was knowingly doing something that his best friend Ben would be bummed about, so he left at 5:30 a.m. hoping to get home before anyone in Ben's house woke up and noticed his absence.

Bad Boyfriend Betty

Giving up on my boyfriend feels a lot like giving up smoking, and now I realize it was a dumb idea to try to quit both at the same time. By quitting smoking, I have basically acknowledged for the first time that I am no longer immortal, that my days of death-defying stupidity are numbered. But wouldn't it follow that if I'm no longer trying to kill myself, I'm no longer really living?

Same goes for quitting him. When we broke up, I gave a not-so-fond farewell to nothing less than my adolescence, my entire belief system that true love is supposed to be hard, it's supposed to hit you over the head and leave you stunned, not to mention slightly disfigured. It's supposed to be forbidden and make your parents miserable.

I've cried me a river when I thought my love was unrequited, sailed through the stormy seas of infidelity, embarked briefly on a lovers' cruise and now that it's all water under the bridge, I want to believe that we can row gently down the stream of friendship. But it's just not that simple. We both agree we're not right for each other and know that we should commence that quest for that not-so-special somebody who wants the same things out of life, but neither really wants to. And even though we've reached that fork in the road that has been a long time coming, maybe we'll just park here for a while before we go our separate ways.

I think I'll have a cigarette, just for old time's sake.

Heartbreak Betty

So I guess, looking back on my night with Zack, I had kind of a '90s date. Dinner, drinks, a game of pool, some extremely safe "sex" (two layers of cotton, a double dose of denim, and a leather belt ought to do it) and a phone call the next day "just to say hi." It's not how our parents would have done it. Of course our parents wouldn't have been going on a first date at the ripe age of 27. They'd be trying to find a sitter to watch the kids so they could go see their marriage counselor about why they don't like each other anymore. Could it be that they never got a chance to know each other before the vows were said and the shackles were on and it was too late to turn back?

So now us children of divorce (sounds like a horror movie, CHILDREN OF DIVORCE -- don't fall asleep or you may find yourself INVOLVED with one, aaaaaaahh) are very cautious about all that marriage stuff. We won't make the mistakes OUR parents made. No way. We're too smart for that. That's not LOVE dummy, that's CO-DEPENDENCY, have you not spent ANY time in the self-help section of your local library?

Perhaps the mighty pendulum has swung too far. Now we're just a pack of paranoid, wanna-be-independent, 20-somethings trying to find our deep inner selves, running around seeking out red flags. I've only known him three weeks and he's been out drinking six times! Red Flag! He's an alchoholic! He's going to suck me down into his mire of self-doubt and abuse! I must break free! I must do what's good for ME.

I mean really, how can anyone be expected to have a normal, healthy relationship with all the information we now have about family dynamics and emotional intelligence? That's why I'm on the six-month relationship cycle. Rapid turnover rate, keep it light. Kind of like eating popcorn.

Bitter Betty

If you've been eating popcorn, I've been starving for months and then binging for a few days, becoming violently ill, and starving again. And there's this four-course meal being made for me in Philadelphia. I know I can keep that one down, but if I keep waiting until it's ready, I might starve in the meantime. Or the delivery boy might get the address wrong and serve my steak to some other gal, maybe someone who's not 3,000 miles away.

I can just see her. Sitting next to him in Pharmaceuticals 101 or whatever. He likes her hair. She likes his ass. So do I. Whimper. Next thing you know, he's a damn surgeon or some nonsense, and they're deciding whether to use the fish-shaped platter they got from Aunt Melba to serve the caviar.

I would go ahead and feast on the local flavors, I want to, I'm even trying, now, really. But they all end up tasting like shit.

I met a guy this weekend. He had all the right moves: good jokes, loaded pipe, and three candy bars in his pockets. And he's a damn MASSEUSE! What more could I ask for? I'll tell you what more: that he gain 20 pounds, pronto, and delete the words "healing" and "energy" from his vocabulary. Tofu, yuck. I want my goddamn steak.

Let's be realistic. I live in California, I go to parties in the Haight-Ashbury, and I expect to meet non-sticklike, yet ego-free, moderately ambitious (or at least undeluded), sentimental yet cynical men who will have absolutely nothing to do with New Age movements? Fat chance.

So I guess it's back to the fast. It's really not that bad. After a while, I stop thinking about the whole thing.

I guess I'll go get that box of chocolates.
Feb. 9, 1996