Expiration Dating: Part II

Disclaimer: There are probably going to be points in this post where I sound incredibly bitter—and I totally was. But keep in mind this blog is told in the past tense ;)

The last week of October, I realized something slightly terrifying—I liked Johnny way more than I thought or intended. Which was worrisome. Since he knew for sure now that he was leaving after Christmas (it was up in the air there for a bit), I was convinced that he was going to break things off early—right as I got all emotionally involved.

After the Halloween party, I was ecstatic. I had won a small victory in my mind, and I began to think that this was possibly a game-changer.  Perhaps this meant that Johnny was rethinking our original plan—maybe he’d decided that that he didn’t want to give me up, give us up, because of a measly two-hour drive. One word, two syllables, and I was making plans.

I was delusional.

The day Johnny called it quits, we were supposed to grab lunch. I hadn’t been able to see him as much lately, and I was looking forward to spending some time alone with him. About an hour before we were supposed to meet, he sent me a text to say that he was sorry, but he had forgotten he’d already agreed to eat with Sophie—one of those girls with whom he actually had meaningful discussion.

I won’t lie, I was pissed, not only because I felt like he was blowing me off, but also because of who he was blowing me off for. And it’s not like he didn’t know how I felt—we’d talked about how I wanted him to make more an effort to open up to me on a more emotional and/or spiritual level, and here was his chance and he was throwing it away.

Sidebar: I am fully aware of how needy this sounds.

Anyway, my afternoon and evening were booked up, but we decided that I would pop by between choir and CARPOOL later that night.

At choir practice, I told my friends the good news—Johnny had finally moved us to the next level on the commitment measuring stick. They knew that this was a long-fought battle, and so gave the obligatory squeals of excitement.

I don’t remember what exactly happened on the drive to his house, or if he said or did something when I got there that brought all of that pent-up frustration and jealousy to the surface, but I do remember that for the ten minutes I was there, I acted like a caricature of a whiny, passive-aggressive girlfriend. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I even threw the phrase “If you don’t know why I’m mad, I’m not going to tell you! Figure. It. Out.” or one of its derivatives down when I left.

Yeah… I’m not proud of it. I had spent two months being all chill and mellow, pretending like we didn’t have any problems that needed to be dealt with, so when all that emotion was finally released, it was a freakin’ deluge.

In my defense, I am pretty good about knowing when I need to apologize for something, so I called Johnny five minutes after I left and said that I was sorry for being a crazy person—it had been a long day, and I knew that I took it out on him with no warning whatsoever. I asked if I could come over again after my meeting so that we could talk it out, and he said yes.

An hour and a half later, we were sitting in his room, and I could tell by the look in his eye that he’d already made up his mind—we weren’t going to be talking anything out after all.

 

I refused to cry in front of him, so I played it cool as he rambled on about wanting to spend more time with his friends before he left CStat, and how he didn't want to have to worry about me being jealous that they were taking time away from us.

Me (slowly): So what are you thinking? You think we should just break up now?

Him: That’s kind of what I’m leaning towards…

Me (nonchalantly): Okay. That’s fine. We had a good run.

Him: Don't do that.

Me (in mock-anger): You were just using me for my Sweeny Todd tickets, weren’t you…

He was less amused by this. I promised him that I wouldn’t cry or hate him forever (which was not a lie. I only hated him for a little bit).

In the car on the way home, I called my friend, Emma, from choir, to whom I had just given the good news—I could hardly get this out, I was laughing so hard through my tears: “Sooo, remember tonight when I said that Johnny finally called me his girlfriend? Yeah…he changed his mind.” The whole thing in that moment just struck me as incredibly funny.

Sidebar: I am not crazy, I just find the timing of my life hysterical. Like when I got rear-ended on my way home from getting an estimate done on some self-inflicted, accidental damage to my car—support beam…long story.

Thanks goodness for cell phones (and T.I.). My roommates were there when I got home, ice cream at the ready (Caroline is addicted to Bluebell, so we always had a couple of gallons in our freezer).

Over the next few weeks, I dealt. I dyed my hair, cleaned my closet, rocked out the GRE. I began to refer to the night we broke up as “Guy Fawkes Night,” which made my inner history nerd chuckle. I rationalized things and engaged in some impressive self-therapy sessions. I both avoided Johnny and sought him out. I wrote exactly one angry free-verse poem. I called Indy up (“Surprise! My newly-serious relationship with Johnny is now newly-ended...”), and invited him up to a friend’s party.  

A month went by. I have this theory that guys have a sixth sense when it comes to knowing if you’re close to getting over them, and if you are, they have this compulsion to do something immediately to reel you back in. Johnny drunk dialed me over Christmas and left me a nonsensical, though slightly leading, voicemail, followed up with some tipsy, flirty texts over the rest of the holiday. I’m ashamed to admit, I ate it up at first, but then it started to piss me off that he only ever contacted me when he was drunk, horny, or in need of an ego-boost.

Soon after that self-realization, I discovered that he had started dating someone new. She was blonde, bubbly, beautiful…and eighteen. She also lived in College Station, but they were going to try the long-distance thing because they were just—so—CRAZY about one another.

I mean, whatever. It was cool. There was a “If she was born in the 90s—go for it!” clause in fine print there at the bottom of his playbook.