Things We Can't Talk About

I’ve come up with a list of things we can’t talk about if we’re going to maintain any kind of friendship. If you really do want us to be friends, and that wasn’t just break-up jargon, then I hope you’ll avoid the following topics:

1) The Actual Break-up. It happened, and although at times I may want to know your reasoning—-even if you’ve explained it to me before-—it would be best if you never brought it up-—especially if you’re going to try and make it sound like it went well—-because it didn’t--or that it was the right thing to do, because though it may have been, I didn’t think so at the time, and it will only serve to remind me what an absolute idiot I was, not just then, but for the entire duration of our relationship.

2) Your New Love, whoever that poor, sad, unlucky soul may be. I also don’t want to know about any dates you’ve been on, who you have crushes on, who you find attractive, what you hope to find in another person, or new things you’ve discovered about romance since we’ve broken up. As far as I’m concerned, your dick dried up the moment we split up, and for what you’ve done to me God has made it impossible for you to ever find true love again. In my mind, you’re nothing but a lonely soul wandering through the desert of life incapable of joy or happiness…however…should you start seeing someone, and should they do to you what you did to me-—or worse-—please inform me of that, as it will be incredibly cathartic.

3) Your Thoughts on Me. You are no longer allowed to have an opinion about what I do, where I go, who I’m with, who I date, what I wear, if I drink, and if I drink, which I now do because of you, what I drink, what I smoke, what pills I take, if I’m feeling well, what my plans are, who I’m fucking, why I’m fucking them, why I say the things I say, act the way I act, or believe the things I believe. The only thing you’re allowed to think and tell other people about me is that I was a saint who put up with your bullshit for far too long, and you don’t know what I ever saw in you. Basically, throw yourself on my mercy every time we talk and don’t ever—-EVER-—try to criticize me or anything about me. My friends can do that, and you are not my friend.

4) Our Relationship. Our relationship has been evaporated. And although there are certain memories I may find hard to let go of, as far as I’m concerned, I was living in a fiction novel for the past two years. I don’t even want to look back fondly on those two years with you. I don’t want to recall good times. I don’t want to remember when. I want to pretend what happened between you and I never existed, and if you or any other hipster psycho-babble bastard wants to tell me that’s unhealthy, I’ll punch your front teeth in, and theirs, because I don’t want to be healthy. I want to be bitter. I want to pretend I spent those two years in Tibet studying with monks or in Nashville recording country music singles like ‘I Wish I Liked Women’ and ‘Stupid Me (Yeah Me!)’—-in parentheses. I want to think that part of my life was meaningful and honest, instead of what it was, which was anything but that. So don’t ever bring up you and me again, and finally—-

5) Getting Back Together. We will never get back together-—ever. We may sleep together a few more times in our lifetime; it would be stupid to think we won’t. We may make out a lot more times. We may even attempt to date again and make all our friends cringe with discomfort and disappointment, but we will never be truly back together, because the person I thought you were doesn’t exist anymore. That person is gone, and although I will miss him every day of my life, I have to accept the possibility that maybe he was never even there to begin with, and I have to move on with that awareness. So don’t ever talk about us getting back together, because there is no ‘us’ anymore. There’s just me. And if you want to be friends with me one day--not today--but one day, then you have to do everything I ask you to do and respect the fact that I may be an evil, hurtful, disgusting person right now, because all my friends know that and they’re still hanging in there cause they know I’ll get better, because that’s what friends do. Can you do that?

I guess we’re both not who we were…

But hopefully one day we’ll get to the point where we don’t have to talk about it anymore…

We’ll just understand.

God, wouldn’t it be nice to just

…Understand?