(or, you buttsexed my heart)

By LIZ LONGBOURN

DISCUSSED: Dressing up, Dressing down, Breaking up

Alice Sarmiento ACCEPTING CONTRIBUTIONS FOR “Now that we are Alone…: The Intimacy Issue” Mixtapes, Breakup stories, Show and Tell, Interviews, send them to because [at] new-slang [dot] com

So I see that on my Facebook feed, and I think, why not? Writing about it is supposed to be cathartic. Arguably, it may be too early in the day for this because the sun still looks inappropriately cheery, but here it goes.

First (and only) boyfriend. Seven years, ish. I am now 22, which makes for 31.82% of my life spent with, well, let’s call him B. I met him when I was 14, we decided we were in love about a year or so later, and (you know how it is) we were “official” another year after that.

I guess right now I’m thinking, WHY THE F*CK DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO GET OUT OF THAT RELATIONSHIP? But I guess that’s because it’s still a little raw.

Who wants uncomplicated love? B texted me some time ago. He told me we had something awesome and painful and gritty and interesting and epic, in a Milan Kundera sort of way. I’m not kidding, he really did say “in a Milan Kundera sort of way”.

Heck of a way to try getting someone back.

The first time B broke up with me was over a skirt. He thought my skirt was too short, and he asked me to change out of it. I was in my own house, and it was my mom’s birthday, and I was surrounded by aunts and uncles. And even if I wasn’t, and even if my skirt was too short (though I maintain to this day that it was not), what gave him the right to tell me to change? Things escalated, as things do with teenagers (or between any two people when someone is being a total asshole who just won’t quit) and he threatened to leave. I told him if he walked out that door, he better not think about coming back. So he left. I was seventeen.

It would be great if this ended here. Really.

I don’t even really remember how it happened. Slowly, I guess. I remember bits and snatches—a Friday night (or five) where I forgot to make plans and I stayed home alone, because I was so used to Friday night being the default date night; catching myself before I blurted out an inside-joke reference, because I was suddenly the only person in on that joke; late nights, or certain obscure songs that play on the radio when you’re totally not expecting it, or feeling unjustly fat and having no one to complain to.

I probably said “I miss you” first. Crudmonkey!

Before I knew it, we were back together and I had agreed to a dress code[1].

He told me that following the dress code was what I “needed to do to keep him”, and at the time I apparently thought it was worth it. If at any point I disobeyed his rules on clothing, he told me that we would break up and it would be completely and solely my fault.

The dress code issue was going to be the one of the main recurring things we would fight over for the next five years of that relationship. Five years. I am 22. That was 22.73% of my life-so-far spent either reluctantly following or slyly “disobeying” a dress code set by someone who didn’t really know diddlysquat about fashion anyway.

I don’t know how I can redeem myself and try to not seem like a total stupidhead for agreeing to it in the first place.  I figured it was a temporary thing, and he would get over it at some point, and he was just being immature. It wasn’t like the dress code was a religion thing, because he was one of the least religious people I knew, so I really thought that the whole thing was temporary.  I figured that for this guy, I could totally endure maybe a month or so of dressing in jeans until he calmed down and got over it.     My duration estimate was considerably off-mark—he only got over it a little over five years later.

To be completely fair to the guy, B was really smart, and funny, and sweet (except when we were fighting), and terribly romantic (except when we were fighting), and he was a terrific kisser[2], and he went out of his way to do really nice things for me.  And hey, he put up with my hissy fits, and there was a time when I really knew how to hissy fit[3].

But I was with him mostly because I loved talking to him.

When you’re in high school (in an all-girl-school, at that), it takes you a while to find guys who are interesting to talk to, you know?  Add to that the fact that I have always been attracted to people who see the world differently (in a logical and non-crazy way, I hasten to add).

With B, it was brainlove at first sight.  Well, at first.. sound? My god, this wordplay thing isn’t working for me at all.

The first time we talked was the day after 9/11, after school.  I remember us praying the rosary in school that morning for the people who died during 9/11.  We weren’t even American, but we were aghast, and I remember our principal (a wrinkly, tanned-leather nun) condemning 9/11, and telling us it was horrible and tragic.

Hi, B. You had me at “9/11 was an effective act of terrorism”.

I mean. Yeah, it was, but nobody else was talking about that yet.  We were too busy being horrified, watching the news, counting the bodies, watching the smoke and dust and firemen and the dusty crying women with muddy, tear-stained cheeks.

B, I don’t know why I didn’t think you were sick or perverse for saying that.  I was just. Wow. I felt like you turned my brain upside-down.

OKAY, I’m sorry I was so impressed, I was 14, and I felt like everyone around me thought the same way (well, not really the same way, but more like variations on a theme) and I felt like we were all sheep and I wanted something new and different.

Boy, did I get different.

The second time he broke up with me, it was through a text message.  I was 21, on my way to Boracay with relatives from California, some of whom haven’t been back here in over a decade.  He told me not to forget the dress code and to wear shorts that go past the knee and a t-shirt at all times, in and out of the water.  I was already there, and I was done packing, and even if I wasn’t, WTF?  That dress code in Boracay thing was totally not going to happen.

Which was exactly what I told him in a text message.

To which he replied, “Sorry, not good enough for me”.  Which in B-speak, in case it’s not apparent, means, “We’re breaking up because that’s not good enough for me”.

I remember reading those words and it was like someone stuck a white-hot brand on my [name body part here].  He had always made it abundantly clear that any dress code violation would result in a break up (insert self-esteem issues here, i.e., “How can he just dump me like that, over clothes?”, “Am I not pretty enough?”, etc.) and here he was, a man of his goddamn word.  I wasn’t even good enough for a proper goodbye, or a phone call, or any sort of explanation, or any sort of.. Anything at all.

It was like surprise buttsex, except I’ve never had buttsex, but if I had to imagine it, it would probably be like that.  Except it was buttsecks with my heart.

I’m sorry. Personal ad: If anyone else finds stupid things like that funny and not annoying, call me.  No, don’t, I’m not ready. Maybe we can just hang out and enjoy the sexual tension?  But I’m not sure I’m ready for that either. Oh, frak it.

So, there, heartbreak and feelings of crushingly low self-worth.  All in my first 30 minutes on the island.  Thank you, gods of timing.

But, I don’t know. It was Boracay, and I was with family I hadn’t seen in a really long while.  I was going to be roomies with my awesome cousin, this was possibly her last trip to the Philippines before going off to college, and did I really want her Boracay memories to include being kept awake by my sobbing and whining?  Did I really want to have a puffy face and bawl-swollen eyes in the first complete family photo we were going to have in over a decade?  And did I really want to be on the beach, crying over some cold-hearted bastard who obviously didn’t give a shit either way?

Actually, that was the clincher for me.  I figured he would be sleeping soundly that night, whether or not I cried my eyes out, and I didn’t think he deserved a monopoly on a good night’s rest.  Especially not after what he did and how he did it.

Way to man up, self.  Nearly a year later, and I still kind of want to go back in time and give myself a high five.

That weekend changed things. I was dead set on HAVING FUN.  It was an almost maniacal determination to not think about what B just did to me, and to not dignify his actions with any sort of misery on my part.  And I had fun.  Without him.  And I lived.

I guess when you’re in a relationship that long, and especially because we started when I was so young, I felt that he was an essential part of my life.  I did a lot of growing up with B, and a pretty significant part of the way I saw the world was influenced by him, and I just felt like I had never really been without him.  Before that weekend, not being with him just wasn’t an option for me.  I mean, it was an option for me in the same way that sticking my hand in a blender is an option available to me right now.

I know it was stupid, and it’s pretty damn embarrassing to admit, but there it is.

Besides, I used to tell myself, he’s perfect…except for this thing with the dress code.  I really believed it, too.  Looking back, I see there were quite a few more flaws there than I cared to admit.

We drifted in and out of our relationship for a few months after Boracay. More separation anxiety, I guess, or maybe we just missed the conversation, but each break-up hurt significantly less than the one before it.  After Boracay, I just didn’t feel so emotionally invested anymore, because I knew that I could be just fine without B.  And I don’t know if he sensed that change in me, but suddenly our relationship dynamics changed.  I was starting to be pretty indifferent about whether or not we stayed together, and, surprisingly, he started being more concerned about keeping us together.  He told me he never had any trouble walking away because he knew I would go after him, and he said it surprised him when I didn’t try to negotiate with him during the Boracay episode.   On my end, I was thinking, he had already made up his mind about it, and that was that.  I never really understood breaking up as a negotiation tactic because the pain you cause the other person and the damage you do to the relationship is probably not worth whatever you gain from getting what you want.

He told me that he planned things around me, and that he wanted us to have a life together, with a dog and a house and everything.

There was clearly a huge gap between what he wanted to achieve and how he was trying to get there.  Like driving south from Makati when your final destination is Pampanga.  For the most part, I spent too much of my time in that relationship being afraid of losing him and not standing up for myself when I should have.

We were up to our eyeballs in second (and third, fourth, … , nth) chances, and we had opportunities to fix it, but we didn’t, or we couldn’t, and now we just really have to let this go.

Just really have to let this go.

After writing all of that, it feels like ending this submission is going to be one big period on the end of that long sentence that was my relationship with B.  Catharsis, yay.

But I know it probably isn’t going to be that easy.  It never is.  I mean, write an article, get over someone completely? If it were that easy, how do people get around to writing entire break-up albums over one break-up?  I wouldn’t want to think that Adam Duritz is just a drama queen.

But on the off-chance that it is that easy, here it goes.

Bye.

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Liz Loungbourn (obviously a pseudonym) has a panda-face because she’s been staying up to watch those goshdarned World Cup matches.

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[1] On the off-chance that you care, the dress code was: No shorts/skirts that expose the knee area (sitting, standing, or while walking, because clothes tend to ride up), No shirts that expose the small of my back when I sit down or lean over, No sleeveless shirts, and, Necklines must not be lower than an inch below this pearl pendant hanging from a necklace he gave me.

[2] I actually haven’t been kissed anyone else, but I distinctly remember a couple of occasions where he kissed me and it was so good my knees gave out.

[3] I don’t know how to anymore, and I think maybe I used up my hissy-fit life quota in the first five years of that relationship. Or maybe the epic hissy fits were a teenage hormone thing. Who knows.