If Any Guy in His Mid-Twenties is Qualified, It’s Me
August 28th, 2009by Doug Mulliken
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA -
2:45 AM — In my mind, it’s hard to write about heartbreak at age 26. It’s one of those intricacies about the writing profession - a musician writing a song about heartbreak at age 26 is rarely questioned, yet a writer writing a piece about heartbreak at 26 is deemed, at least by me, to have not experienced enough. How can you write about heartbreak at 26? You’re still a kid. A 26-year old can’t possibly have enough worldliness to know how truly bad it can get, how painful it really is. That’s the view I tend to take - writers, unlike mathematicians, improve with age, and the more you live through the more you are capable of writing about. I suppose it’s a hang-up from being constantly told to “write what you know.” As a fairly normal suburban white kid, that didn’t make for very interesting writing, but nobody ever told me anything else.
But the thing is, in the last 12 months, I think I’ve actually gone through a number of experiences that would allow me to write about it fairly accurately. Or, at least, accurately from the mentality of a 26-year old. And since the latest episode occurred earlier tonight, I thought I might as well take advantage of the hours I’m not going to be able to sleep and write something about it. I don’t see a psychiatrist. I quit my anti-depressants. I have beer-drinking-buddies, not friends. So TNB is my only outlet. Sorry.
My heart has been broken on three different occasions in the last year. The first was in October, when I split with my (now ex-) girlfriend. We had been together for seven years. We had lived together in college and after a year of long distance while I lived in Spain we lived together for another two years in Los Angeles. In college we were basically each other’s only friends. I found myself at an East Coast school without any clue how to comport myself or interact with people who weren’t volleyball players from San Diego. She was in the middle of family problems. We needed each other and we connected instantly.
But we met when I was 18 and she was 19. By 25/26, things had changed drastically. The relationship had grown stale. Hard-tack stale. It was not healthy for either of us, and my moving to Virginia was the subconscious excuse I was looking for. So we broke up. And it broke my heart.
This girl was the first, and perhaps only, great love of my life. I spent over 1/4th of my life with her. We experienced everything together - death, divorce, separation, despair - everything. The only other person I could ever possibly experience as much with would be my wife. (If there ends up being one.)
Breaking up with her broke my heart. There was a time I was convinced we were supposed to be together, and coming to the reality that we were not supposed to be together was horrible. Technically it may have counted as a self-inflicted wound, but my heart was broken nevertheless.
A little while later, I started seeing someone else. I was single for the first time since before the Twin Towers fell, and that reality hit me hard. The new girl was different, she was there, and so I went for it.
I fell hard for her.
I suppose I was so used to being in a relationship that I didn’t know what to do without that security blanket, and so the first girl who would fuck me became the only girl who would fuck me, the only girl I could get, the only girl I wanted.
We traveled together. I met her parents, her brother. I cooked for her, she cooked for me. We played house. She would make me CD mixes. I would introduce her to new music. It was nice.
But it wasn’t. She would avoid me. She didn’t want people to know we were dating. Her ex-boyfriends would come visit and she wouldn’t tell me until after they had left. After we’d been dating for two months she went hiking with a mutual friend and made out with him. She admitted it to me later, the same day I told her I thought I might be falling in love with her.
She promised me she didn’t fuck him, and I forgave her.
We dated for a while longer. In March, she told me she had never really viewed me as anything more than a friend and was not very attracted to me physically. She said she hoped we could still remain friends.
My heart had already been broken. It was broken when I said “I think I’m falling in love with you” and she said “I made out with D–.”
But what happened in March hurt.
And it made me realize - I think I may fall in love too easily. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I was in a relationship for so long at such a young age or what, but I’m fairly introverted on a regular basis. I talk, but it’s mostly bullshit, and I rarely reveal anything about who I am. I give off the persona that people expect of me - a physically imposing, Ivy League-educated white male.
That’s not who I really am, but for some reason I play into the expectations. I guess I despise that part of my personality so much that I am desperate to show somebody, anybody, the real me. And it’s a difficult thing to do, so when I do it, when I open up to someone, it becomes a very emotional thing.
Maybe I’m so desperate to make a connection that I subconsciously “fall in love” with anyone who is willing to entertain me. And because I know how important a step it is, I think I may expect others to be willing to take that step with me - I’ve bared my soul, and you need to do the same. And, of course, I end up pushing them away.
Heartbreak number 3 happened tonight. The heartbreak from tonight was not heartbreak like the previous two. It was heartbreak on top of heartbreak.
It’s important to point out here that I am not in love with the girl who broke my heart tonight.
Therefore, since I am not in love with the girl who broke my heart tonight, maybe it doesn’t count. But, then again, maybe it counts more.
The aftermath of the previous relationship had left me an emotional disaster. My confidence was at an all-time low. I was finally starting to get back to some semblance of humanity when this new girl entered my life.
This was recent. We spent some time together. We had fun. She made me feel like I was an actual person. I was attracted to her and she was attracted to me. Believe it or not, the previous relationship had made me think this was a novelty.
The new girl represented possibility. The possibility that I was going to be alright. The possibility that I had just found myself in a bad situation previously. The possibility that it wasn’t my fault.
And tonight it all ended. Painfully. And now all of the doubts and fears and worries that I felt before I was with this girl are back, and they’re more magnified. Maybe I do push people away. Maybe I’m not attractive to people. Maybe I set myself up for these types of situations. Maybe it is my fault. It must be my fault.
So there you go. Confessional and self-pitying. But I’ve got nowhere else to go.
– 3:51 AM.
Tags: heartbreak
Oh boy. Heartbreak is a shit of a thing to deal with no matter whether you’re 16 or 26 or 56 and you are right smack bang in the middle of it. The only thing I can say, is that it DOES get better. The heart is amazingly good at healing itself.
I don’t think falling in love too easily is a bad thing per se, I’ve been guilty of that myself. The thing to watch out for is judgment. Falling in love with the wrong people is what makes love bad.
It hurts right now, Doug. But trust me, it will get better…
Ah, Doug.
There’s a quote that I like to use in times like this, a quote from Old School (a source of wisdom to last the ages, that film), a quote that I’ve used all too often on this site and yet, there keeps coming an appropriate time to use it again.
‘Love, huh? What a motherfucker.’
And here’s a clip, to follow it up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the one with the oh-so-wise, oh-so-profane waiter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuWE5XAkV2o
(Huh. San Diego. SSE)
And first off, hey, it ain’t self-pity to talk about how something hurt you, just because it’s emotional. It wouldn’t be self-pity to talk about how you’re upset over losing a leg, so why should this be any different? (Christ, I hope the SSE doesn’t kick in tomorrow and someone loses a leg).
Second… it’s rough out there, man. I have friends who have been together since they first met, nine years of relationship, and the thing I envy about that is that they haven’t been at that point where they have to dust themselves off and try again, because it’s a goddamn jungle. It can gut you, leave you questioning everything - most of all yourself - and yet, what can you do? Shrink into oblivion, refuse to go back around?
And so, to get all confessional myself…
Girl #6, who I met just as I was turning 21, did not end well. At all. Just as Girls #1 through #5 had not ended well. At all. That was about six years ago, and so for five years I said to myself ‘Screw this. Emotional involvement? It’s for chumps, man. I’ve got TV. What else do I need? They’re making new episodes of Futurama all the time.
Girl #7 came along, and breached my defenses, and made me feel good about myself, and emotions, and yeah, OK, I probably fell in love too easily then myself. And man. That sure as shit turned out bad (at this point, slow on the uptake, maybe, I started to become suspicious that the one constant in these situations was fatally flawed). But for all the heartache and despair, the sadness and loss that it brought about… it was worth it, for the good - great - moments that would have otherwise gone missed.
And so if there’s a point to my rambling comment, it’s this - we must press on. Absolutely, take the time to heal. Be self-aware, aware that, undoubtedly, there are things that you, or I, or anyone will do that will make it harder for the people we love to love us back, and these probably aren’t great qualities to keep around. But loneliness, unhappiness, heartbreak? These things are usually not forever, unless we choose to make them so. And that’s never the better option.
Doug,
I’m so sorry that you feel so bad.
You won’t believe it, but you will feel better in time.
And you will meet the right person someday.
Really.
All those “maybe” sentences at the end represent things for you to think hard about.
But no way does that “it must” follow, especially at your age.
Maybe it just felt like a good last sentence to you, but if that’s what you really thinking now, I’d say you should try hard not to. Judging from what you wrote, you should be a long, long way from that conclusion.
And speaking of the SSE (Simon Smithson Effect, in case you’ve missed that bit)….last autumn I also split with my long-term girlfriend. We’d been together 6 1/2 years at that point, and the out of nowhere she dropped me like a rock. I’ve been single since then.
There is, I think, no real “good” way to end these things. Even if both people mutually decide they’re better off not seeing each other anymore, someone is still leaving with hurt feelings. I don’t really think there’s anything wrong with falling in love too easily (the world could use more of it, I think),but as Zara points out, it’s all just a matter of good judgement–not rushing into the first thing that comes along just because it’s the first thing.
I think you might still be in the “rebound” phase of things from your first girlfriend; after the break-up, you feel like you’ve got a big hole in your life that person used to occupy, and you’re looking for something to fill it.
Here’s the kicker: nothing ever will.
Every single person who comes into your life will carve out their own unique space in your heart, shaped around themselves. To try to fit a new person into someone else’s niche is doomed from the start.
These girls don’t love you? Fuck ‘em. Seriously. They might be saints or sinners, but either way, to hell with them. They don’t want to love you, so love yourself. Be good to yourself. Not having a girlfriend doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to have fun. There’s a lot of enjoyment–and yes, freedom–that comes with being single.
Wow, it’s pretty high up on this soap box. I might get a nosebleed.
Oh, I just hate reading these stories. The trauma of seeing others try and fail, to fall so painfully, to be wounded so deeply puts me off on the whole love thing completely.
But what gives me hope is seeing that moment when love buds a new and they give it one more shot.
I think love heals love-wounds.
So salve up, doll.
managed to fall asleep around 6. just woke up and found all these messages and i just want to say thanks to everyone. hearing perspectives from different people from different walks of life is definitely helpful.
last night my heart was beating so hard i was having trouble breathing. now i know that this is possible, and so when i read it somewhere i will believe it instead of thinking the person is being overly dramatic.
that’s kind of how i view the whole thing. new experiences. awesome.
thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to read this and post a comment. you have no idea how helpful it is.
james joyce wrote “the dead” when he was 25. age has nothing to do with it. write away. you do it well.
Thank you for writing this, Doug. You’ve been brave enough to write things I am too timid to write on these pages and are able to articulate them in the beautiful way I never could, even if I tried.
I got my heart broken, nay, smashed, into a zillion pieces when I was 18. You’re never too young.
And to coin another phrase, Love Stinks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhRMeiyret0
But then again, as a hopeful romantic, I also believe there will, one day, be someone to grow old with, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcqNHE8uEQ8
Hang in there, Doug.
I can’t comment on the questions you raise about yourself at the end, but I do think this was a very nice piece of writing. It held me, from start to finish, and it was written off the cuff in the wee hours. Most of the stuff I write under similar circumstances is unreadable slop, and I’ve been at it far longer than you. In other words, Ben is right: age is irrelevant.
Yep, didn’t The Great Gatsby come out when Fitzgerald was, like, 24? Love doesn’t have either an age requirement or an age limit.
Since the majority (not all, of course, but the majority) of people are married before they hit 30 or 35, it seems to me that a helluva lot of heartbreak takes place when people are young, in their teens and 20s, and that no one can or should question that. Heartbreak later in life may be of a different variety, or maybe not, but one is not more legit than the other.
Seems to me like you had a lot of strength to walk away from a relationship that was stale even though it was in some ways your lifeline. I think you need to tap into that strength now–whatever it was that made you know you wanted/needed “more” than what you were getting and giving in that relationship, and, yeah, don’t let yourself fall quite so fast or frequent if the signals of danger are there (um, not wanting to admit she’s with you would be a bad signal, yeah?) Remember that you could’ve been married to that first chick right now, who was a great person and all, but that you held out for More. So don’t settle for Less just cause you’re lonely. Don’t end up with someone who will make you wish you’d married that first girlfriend. Hold true to the fact that you want something real, not just whatever happens to be there.
Hey Doug:
In regards to your situation, I wanted to share some quotes with you regarding heartbreak:
“Trying to forget someone you love is like trying to remember someone you never knew.” – Anonymous
“Breaking up. It happens kind of suddenly. One minute, you’re holding hands walking down the street, and the next minute, you’re lying on the floor crying and all the good CDs are missing.” - Kennedy Kasares
“Hearts will never be made practical until they are made unbreakable.” - Tinman (Wizard of Oz)
“The hottest love has the coldest end.” - Socrates
_________________________________________________________________
And perhaps the one that I’m most guilty of…
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” - Alexander Graham Bell
Keep on writing, Doug. Be it about heartbreak or whatever. You’re never too old or too young. Just keep writing.
i’m as far from an expert on this shit as a person can be, so i’ll just give you an internet high five for not contracting any STDs on top of the heartbreak.
and also, i had my first broken heart this year. it was lame. but now, months after the fact, i think it’s really funny and i’m not sure it was so much a broken heart as much as it was damaged pride over getting beaten to the punch.
i recommend cats or dogs or something. not for sex, but for companionship. i know it sounds pathetic, but only people who don’t have awesome pets think it’s pathetic. plus, chicks dig guys who like animals.
i had an awesome pet for a long time. once i’ve settled somewhere, i will get another cat. but who knows where i’ll be in 8 months? i wouldn’t want to subject a kitty to that.
but a pair of rainbow striped, finger-less gloves? that would work.
You wind up back in S.D., give me a call. Will go grab a beer and ogle the drunk UCSD coeds wandering around Garnet Ave. in bikinis. It’ll make us feel better, I swear.
my favorite bar in SD is the shakespeare on india. last time i was visiting the parents i went there with a couple friends and i ended up getting in trouble for pissing on the side of the building.
interestingly, they didn’t kick me out…
so yes, we shall go to pb and watch SDSU coeds (definitely SDSU coeds, not UCSD coeds) walk around in bikinis. and i’ll try not to piss on the building. (to be fair, it WAS the back of the building…)
Fuck yes, Shakespeare’s is awesome. Great drinks and great food. Haven’t been there in a while, though now you’ve piqued my interest. May have to cruise back there this weekend. These days I do most of my drinking at the High Dive, O’Brien’s or the Australian.
As long as they’re in bikinis, I really don’t care where the coeds come from.
And as far as I’m concerned, you can piss on as many buildings as you want. The exception being my apartment complex.
Ah, heartache. What a bitch. Still, can’t give her up for the world.
It’s totally amazing how many different ways there are to hurt. Each way, each pain different from the last. Each one newly exquisite in its precision.
It’s equally amazing how many different ways there are to heal. Which is really the only choice you have. I mean, really, what else are you going to do, right? Because each new love presents a new way to do so. We can’t ever love the same way twice, only discover new ways to do so.
But keep writing, and confessing. At least you create something positive from pain. I’ve experienced a decent share of heartbreak; at least one of them got me into the writing program at USC, and so I drove to LA and lived in Hollywood and started teaching while she got married and then divorced.
Que sera. Also, good vibes your way.
Hang in there, dude–you are worthy of great things. All these things make us who we are.
Doug, like D.R. said this held my attention. It was really amusing and sweet that you kept apologizing. Consider yourself lucky to experience this kind of pain - some people don’t know deep love until late in life.
We should all plan for major heart mutilation at 19,26, 31 and possibly 55.
Rich already gave some awesome quotes so all I can add is make that Keri Hilson song your new mantra: sometimes love comes around/just get back up when it knocks you down
Hey Doug,
It does suck to have your heart broken… But doesn’t it also make you feel alive? At least you know that the told ticker is still ticking, and that you haven’t become bitter or given up on life and love. I think that’s worth just a bit of pain. Good luck! Great piece of writing, by the way!
yeah, actually, that’s one of the things i really noticed - it does suck, but not as bad as not feeling anything. and for a number of reasons i have experienced that as well.
i think that may be a problem, too, though - i think i’m getting a little addicted to the drama and the emotion. i didn’t have it for so long that now that i can experience it i want to, and i love the feeling of being great and love/hate the feeling of being shitty…
like, i was in a trance for so long, because of pills and complacency, that i want to experience the manic nature of it all, so maybe i’m subjecting myself to it when i don’t necessarily have to.
whatever.
it will all work out, it always does. incidentally, what is the original ex up to? do you still talk?
yeah, we do. why, want her number? just kidding…
she lives in LA. meeting people, being smart with her emotions, unlike yours truly… she regales me with stories of the douchebags she meets in the LA dating scene that make me laugh.
i agree - it will all work out. feeling better already, actually.
the girl this was about managed to (accidentally) find it and read it, so i guess there’s no avoiding it now, huh?
if she is as cute as you say she is nice, i would ask for her number, but i am far from LA. just kidding…
no offense, dude, but the girl this was about sounds lame.
cool that you are still in touch with your ex if it is healthy. it sounds like you guys really care about each other and that is important. it is also really rare, trust me. i don’t know a lot people that can do that.
all in all, it sounds like you are figuring your shit out. good luck and thanks for the post.
well thanks, man. and thanks for reading/commenting.