essay

How to Fall Out of Love

First, fall apart. You will stay in bed for three consecutive days, only getting up to refill your water glass and empty your bladder. Watch television until your eyes hurt. Listen to Rufus Wainwright until the music feels like the soundtrack to your misery. You will decide that you’re never getting out of bed, even when you’re supposed to go back to work, but you won’t mean it.

When you finally crawl out of bed because you cannot have dirty hair for one more second, you will get in the shower and immediately begin sobbing because he left his shampoo behind. You’ll open the bottle to smell the shampoo and think that you will feel better if you use it because then your hair will smell like him. This is a bad idea. Resolve to throw it away. Stand in the shower with your forehead on the tiles until the hot water runs out.

You will invent a variety of theories as to why he is no longer in love with you. He has commitment issues. You have commitment issues. He met someone else. His mother doesn’t really like you after all. He hates your cat. He hates your taste in television. You’re too needy, not needy enough. He was really a CIA agent and, though madly and deeply in love with you, he loves his country more and accepted a dangerous mission that was likely to involve spending ten years under deep cover in a foreign city, probably in the Middle East. He wanted to tell you,but could not because telling you would have put you in danger. You will wonder if you’re losing your mind.

On a daily basis, you will think of something funny and pick up the phone to call him. Hang up when you remember that he doesn’t want to hear from you. You will cry.

Change your MySpace status to “single” and delete his photos from your page. You will also delete his photos from your computer hard drive, but then change your mind and move them back into your pictures folder. One day after you re-activate your Match.com profile, you will get an e-mail from Match.com with your top matches. He is the first one on the list. Delete your Match.com profile.

You will call your best friend more than one-hundred times to dissect his leaving. When you ask her again what she thinks he meant by “loving you makes me hate myself,” she will tell you to stop obsessing. Say that you will,but understand that you both know you’re lying. When she suggests that you“see someone,” you will laugh and tell her you need a drink, not a shrink.

After two weeks, you will start sleeping in the middle of the bed. You will no longer be able to drink Irish whiskey because it was what you drank when you were together. Every time you have more than three vodka tonics,you will want to call him. This will happen most often at two o’clock in the morning. Call your friends instead and cry. They will get sick of you. You will hate him for not calling to see how you are.

When he finally does call, you will regret answering the phone as soon as you hear his voice. You will wait to hear “I miss you” and “I want to come back,” but instead you will get “I’m worried about you” in a concerned,fatherly tone. You hate your father. You hate him more. You will press the“end call” button on your phone so hard that it leaves an imprint on your thumb.

Three months later, you will run into him at a wine bar with his new girlfriend. His arm will be around her shoulders and she will be laughing.You will freeze and pray to every god that you’ve ever heard of that you can leave before he sees you. When he does see you, pretend that you’re engaged in conversation with the total stranger standing next to you. When the stranger walks away and your ex is standing in front of you, tell him that you’re on your way out. When he asks if he can walk you to your car, point at the better you he traded up for and say, “What about her?” You will feel intensely self-satisfied when he says, “She’ll wait.”

Outside, you will tell him you have a new job and a new car. Say,“Your leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me.” When he looks hurt, you will get a knot in your stomach that will not go away for a month.This is normal. When he tries to hug you, block him with one arm and turn your body away. When he asks if you’re OK to drive, tell him you’re fine, that you’ll be just fine. You will say “fine” three more times before you get in your car. You will spend the rest of the weekend in bed, crying into your cat’s fur. Wonder if you can really die from grief. Remember that Johnny Cash died four months after June Carter Cash. Cry until you get the hiccups.

You will find out through mutual friends that his new girlfriend never went to college and you will feel superior until you remember that she looks like she wears a size four. You will wish you could trade both of your college degrees to be a size four. When your mutual friends tell you that he still talks about you all the time, act like you couldn’t care less. Tell them you hardly ever think about him anymore. Tell them you threw out his winter coat because it was taking up space in your closet. Before you leave, casually say “I wish him the best” as if you really mean it.

You will decide to sleep with the first man who comes along and seems interested. You will change your mind as soon as you meet someone who is interested. One night, drunk, in a bar, hit on one of his friends and end up going home with him. Leave before the sun comes up and never return his calls. But you will hope he tells your ex.

You will dream about him less often. Realize that you’ve forgotten his cell number. Six months to the day after he left, you will forget that it was six months to the day until a week later.

The very last time he calls, you will not have seen or heard from him in nine months. Agree to meet him for a drink. He won’t stop talking the entire time. You won’t hear most of what he says because you’ll be wondering why you were attracted to him in the first place, if he was this annoying when you were together, and how soon you can leave without seeming rude. You will hope that he wasn’t going to suggest getting back together. You will excuse yourself to go to the ladies’ room when he asks you if you’re seeing anyone and ask for the check on your way back to the table.

Before you leave, you will tell him “I wish you the best.” And this time,you will mean it.

~Kelly Love Johnson

Kelly Love Johnson is writer and managing editor for skirt! E-mail her at kelly.love@skirt.com