1. Of all the contemporary “I’m super entitled to have my feeling catered to” lingo, I found one I like: safe spaces ARE awesome.  I consider my writing space a safe space. I’ve always treated it as one and had to learn online blogs aren’t. Some of us are dicks though, and still treat out publically available blogs as safe spaces, and THAT’S something I admire.

2. I should hire a scottish person to tell silly people who wanna police my blog to fook off.  Scots ungreasing people who are screwey is one of the best things ever..

 

3. Riding the subway last week, and had to put my book down because two midtown gals had gotten on and were talking in that Glottal-stopping, “like like like” multi-octave way of gossiping that was too intrusive.  (I tried but couldn’t focus.)  I expected to overhear crap that was vapid gossip about their personal lives, and couldn’t help but hear out every single word.

But I got a nugget: something I didn’t expect against the backdrop of their conversation.  It started when one said “So . . . . Billy did have to move out. And he wasn’t a bad guy at all, it was just best and,”
“But wasn’t he like, reclusive and a downer all the time?”
“Well, he was going through a serious break up, you know? People are different when it’s a real break-up.”

And this crossed with an article I read recently – we break up a lot more today than before.  My stepdad-dude’s family is WONDERFUL – I really appreciate them.  I also think his dad met his mom in high school I think, and they became sweethearts and got married.  This is something that happens a lot more outside nyc.

Well, being a feely weird investing turdy year old as I am, I’ve gone through just less than a few splits.  But I’ve also gone through my own share – a lil more than usual when compared to “geet married to high school sweetheart” cultures.

And what I will note is, each heart-ache changes a person. It depends how we handle it.  Sometimes we get stuck in a phase of anger, or grief, or acceptance.  Sometimes it turns out we didn’t really care or feel attracted enough to invest in the first place and nonchalantly move on, but for those of us who form a real emotional bond .  . .. well I’ll say it is certainly a really big mutating period of time afterwards.  I’d say some people improve, some people CHANGE (increase some traits, decrease others) some people BREAK.  Like permanently lose some steam out of their self-esteeem and overcompensate, and in my experience end up being a lil less fun.  Some.

I know men (and women, but we’re less surprised about this from gals – and maybe strange media like Danity Kane’s “Damaged” is partially to blame for this) who are very withheld on really sharing themselves after break ups.  They have to get it through the break up fog – “You DO have awesome traits.  You SHOULDN’T stop evolving them, and you CANT stop sharing yourself with people who’ll have a reciprical boon for yor doing so.”   To ME they were more charismatic and gung-ho in college/high school, cause they didn’t learn how much the burn can feel.   That sort of hurt is a “OMG MY FEELINGS HURT” that’s pretty novel to a first timer at any age – I think.   And as an indirect result of the male version of “damaged” – I know dudes who game, and don’t know how to date, cause gaming is certainly safer.  (No, I don’t mean cool video games.  I mean being nothing more than a fuck boy to womenz and drawing the relationship to them line there exclusively.)  And the ways to respond to them break ups don’t end there: I know dudes who get overly attached, dudes who have serious trust issues, dudes who stalk, dudes who are lesser men than their past selves because they’re trying to prove to their selves that they’re better than that version who got dumped.

So ya, Billy was in a dark place. Billy has to find his own light.  But seeming cool to the girl gossiping about his personality on the train probably wasn’t very high on his list to Billy, as Billy probably didn’t feel very cool.

Anyway, this is all injection and anecdotal bull.  This is all my experience.  This applies to PEOPLE – both genders: I genuinely think in a culture of entitled date for love AND practicality AND because something’s wrong with you if someone’s not falling in love with you, where we live longer, divorce more, break up more, marry later, judge and react harder than ever, share EVERYTHING, have a digitized persona . . . that these livers who loved their lovers since high school are a lil less educated in heart ache.   I think heart ache is a PHYSIOLOGICAL thing – it’s been shown medically to increase cardiac stress a LOT.  Like a disgusting amount. It definitely changes the chemicals that surge our daily psychology, that’s for sure.   More dramatically: people who’ve been married to one partner most of their lives DO tend to die within a few months after losing one partner.  There are many reasons for this – and it’s not a hard and fast rule.

But what I’m saying is, heart ache is an experience.  It’s part of the human experience to form a genuine emotional bond, and it’s part of the human experience to HURT when that’s taken away.  It’s part of the human experience to change, see things more negatively, look within, MAYBE see what you ought to improve, maybe feel sad or anger around the periods of grief.  It’s absurd to expect a completely cold and cool response – so I say good for Billy! Let that fucker be a lil sad!  And good for the understanding roommate!  That was GOOD empathy that gave her insight to not be a judgemental discarder of Billy, and it completely betrayed what you might expect to hear from a gal who speaks in poly-octave glottal stops. Cause sometimes, even our best intentioned friends think you should just be positive, and I’ll wager Billy felt depressed.  People who can not make things worse are great, and it’s super important to see that in a roommate – it sounded like this midtown gal had the insight to know how to do that, and I appreciated hearing this. Even over my good book.

TLDR: I do think we have a world now where older folks ARE getting more educated in anti-ideal heartbreak.  I think the number of break-ups people in cities go through throughout their lives is increasing dramatically.   And I know from my few splits that each was different, and handled a little differently.   This makes me think we learn to adjust to heartbreak differently.  And that makes me wonder if that percentage of long-term couples who at the end of life possess near-concordant death certificates will stay the same. Only time will tell.

But that’s my rant of the day.  Back to work.