The Question:
What was your worst breakup? Answer may include a breakup song.
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The Reponses:
Take her down to a river.
Seth: I haven't had enough long term relationships to collect the associated bad break. There was a never-was that ended with me taking a very long walk in the wee hours in winter and learning a thing or two about whiskey, but I can't really share it. And my longest relationship before my wife was a most-of-high-school thing that ended amicably.
My best breakup story then is more of an airline story. When my brother met his wife she had a best friend in the same grad program at Michigan whom I dated for a time. The problem was I had this whirlwind trip coming up: Vegas for a trade show-->Paris for 10 days with my parents-->home. The Vegas-Paris leg, because I was a master at flying in my trade show-attending youth, had a 19-hour "layover" in Detroit.
Well you can't really invite a girl you've been dating 6 weeks to Paris (with your folks!)unless you're already of a mind to keep doing so 'till death do you part. On the other hand she was really smart, and had Michigan hockey tickets. But it fell on her "spring" break, so I was really put to a decision here. I did the only thing I could to not end the relationship prematurely without committing fully: nothing.
With no Paris offer forthcoming she committed to flying back home--North Carolina--and got me to commit to driving her. Like an idiot I'm all: okay, I'll get back from this Vegas thing, we'll spend the "layover" together, take a car to the airport at the same time, then have a week apart to figure out our feels.
Here's where this plan went sour: she booked a 3pm flight to NC, and my Paris flight wasn't until 9 (and I wasn't about to leave a car there that whole time). So my glorious layover is now drive home from the airport after getting home on a red-eye, get a few hours of sleep, take the girl to airport, drive home again, then go back to the airport for Paris.
I got home from Las Vegas at about 7am, passed out for five hours, and woke up to find her already dropped off at my place. We hung out a little, I gave her a (very nice) Valentine's Day gift, jumped in the shower at the right time to be ready for the airport run, and when I got out she dumped me.
So you tell me: would you still take her?
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[After the jump: more crutin]
David: So, if you're interested in an actual break-up, this might be the time to scroll down. My story is not an actual break-up. It's more of a sense of increasing apathy leading to appreciating something potentially better?
Since the early 90's, one of my favorite professional sports teams was the Phoenix Suns. I followed them about as closely as I followed Michigan sports...if not closer during some years. But in the last decade or so, its slowly dropped off.
Starting with the sign-and-trade of Joe Johnson -essentially shortening the life of Seven Seconds or Less basketball, I became increasingly frustrated with Robert Sarver and some of the front office in Phoenix. I was still very engaged during the peak Nash/Marion/Stoudemire years of 05-07. When Marion was traded for Shaq (despite there being a couple of semi-defendable on-court reasons), it was all but over. Their magical run to the Conference Finals in 09-10 was a more of a great ride than it was a repeatable process. A throwback year for Grant Hill, the revelation of Goran Dragic, and some endless energy of Louis Amundson were all a fun watch. I stuck around until the Nash trade (basically the last possible way to benefit his team). After that, it's been rather difficult. A couple different coaches, bad contracts, players with too similar skill sets, locker room fights, poor trades...just a handful of bad decisions and even worse basketball.
I still consider myself a Suns fan, but I don't pay near as close attention as I once did. However, since Nash left, I've had to grow my basketball fandom and appreciation in order to stay involved in the NBA. Instead of focusing on rooting for one team, I've learned to appreciate the game and the intrigue of the Playoffs as a whole. Watching the Spurs move the ball (whom I HATED for years as a Suns fan), Lebron growing up in Game 6 in Boston, the Splash Brothers shooting sprees, Russell Westbrook making triple-doubles mundane, the Grizzles frontcourt, and CP3 are all things that I probably wouldn't have appreciated as much if I would have primarily focused on one team.
I do hope Phoenix gets better and contends for titles like they did with KJ and Barkley and then again with Nash and Co, but until they start making better decisions and figure out who they actually want to be as an organization, I will be enjoying Steph going bonkers, the Thunder fans, San Antonio defying father time, Cleveland trying to finally get one, Atlanta winning without a star, and KD+Russ...and I'm completely fine with that.
Maybe it was a breakup after-all.
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BiSB: None of my romantic relationships have ever ended in an interesting or amusing way. Usually it was some variation of "eh, this bores me" from one party or the other. But I was once rejected from a job I hadn't applied for.
I graduated from law school in 2011, right on the heels of the worst part of the recession. As you may remember, this was a difficult time for most unemployed people to land a job, including for new lawyers. I had applied to an internship at a law firm the summer before, and had gotten the usual, "thanks but no thanks, but we'll keep your resume on file." This was one of dozens and dozens of such letters I received, so I didn't think much of it. So the next year, as job applyin' time rolled around, I receive a letter in the mail from the same firm. The letter made very clear that they *still* had my resume on file, and they *still* did not need my services, so I was to please not apply for a position with Jackass, Jackass and Jabroni, LLP this year.
They could have re-reviewed my new resume if I re-applied. Or they could have just chucked my new application when it came in. But instead, these guys spent ink, paper and postage to make very clear that it wasn't them, it was me.
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Adam: I could write about how Nick Lidstrom's retirement led to the kind of slow decline in interest that leads fans to break it off with their favorite team but Dave already wrote about that, so let's get uncomfortably personal.
This may shock you, but breaking up with a girl and then dating her best friend a few weeks after you broke up is not a good idea. I mean, I guess it's an okay idea if you're looking to tear apart long-held friendships and create animosity within a group of (former) friends, but I can't really think of a circumstance in which that's all that necessary. Your mileage may vary.
Things were awkward not just between my ex and I ("silent" and "acrimonious" are more appropriate than "awkward," really) but between a whole group of people that used to be really close. Eye-contact aversion and double and triple checking who was going to be at every social gathering was a way of life for a couple of years.
And then it happened: my ex and I ended up in a class together and started talking again. Her friendship with former-best-friend-whom-I-left-her-for simultaneously re-developed, and suddenly what was once a friendship that ended with the ferocity of the apocalypse was just mildly uncomfortable for a bit.
As for me, the breakup worked out for the best. The girl I broke up with my ex for? We're married and have an 18-month-old. My ex and my wife are also best friends again, my ex's husband is one of my closest friends, we bought houses down the street from each other, and we had kids at almost the same time. Hmm. Maybe this doesn't fit the "worst breakup" theme. Uh, so there once was a defenseman named Nicklas Lidstrom, and he was the greatest defenseman in all the land...
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Heiko: The breaking up of the Antarctic ice shelf devastated me pretty badly.
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Ace: After focusing on other aspects of my life for a long time, I waded back into the dating pool last year, and apparently the only way to effectively do that these days—especially, say, if you work at an online-only outlet comprised entirely of dudes—is to try the online dating scene. I was surprisingly not terrible at it; apparently I’m one of a select few capable of interacting with a single woman online without devolving into a neanderthal. Thanks for lowering the bar for me, fellow men? (On second thought, I take that back.)
Following a couple two-dates-and-outs, I hit it off with a girl who mentioned when we chatted online that she’d been on the verge of deleting her account and taking a break from dating entirely. Over the course of a few dates that were going really well, she mentioned her most recent ex-boyfriend had been, for lack of a better term, a complete shitbag who’d cheated on her and blamed her for his infidelity when he got caught.
I probably shouldn't have been surprised when, as the relationship starting moving quickly after a few dates, she abruptly pulled back and said she needed a break—she said she had serious trust issues, and knowing what I knew about her last relationship that was quite understandable. Since I quite liked this girl, and hadn’t had something start off that well in a while, I told her I’d wait and see if she could take some time and decide she wanted to pick things back up again.
After staying in touch with her for a month or so without getting any sort of definitive answer one way or the other, I let my worst instincts get the better of me and reactivated my online dating profile. I discovered she had done the same. When I texted her to ask about, well, _that_, she said that she’d be moving in a few months and didn’t want to be in anything serious since she’d be uprooting so soon.
Being an idiot, I asked where she was moving. If it was close, perhaps we could see where things went?
“I’m actually moving to Istanbul.”
Point taken.