Birthday Breakup
Well, My Very Worst Date just took place about three hours ago. My boyfriend and I recently “celebrated” our six month anniversary. That was the plan, anyway. He called me early in the day and told me he was effusively sorry, but something came up, and we would have to do a rain check on our happy evening together. I didn’t protest, because he’s been a pretty stellar boyfriend up to now and to be perfectly honest, this didn’t raise any red flags with me. I trusted him.
Rain check happened the very next day, today actually. He came over to my house and acted completely normal, kissing my forehead with a “Hi, babe.” We sat on the sofa for a minute, not feeling the need to rush right out to our date, when he said, “I have a confession to make.” Intrigued, I told him to go for it.
He proceeded to tell me that nothing had actually come up on our anniversary, he was just “in a weird head space.” Lately he’s been wanting more and more freedom from the ties of a serious relationship. He said he’s been missing the ability to do whatever he wants, with whomever he wants, without a girlfriend around, and without a girlfriend he must consult with beforehand. This offended me because I’ve never required “consulting” and have been pretty damn supportive of his need for independence from me. I said this to him, and he didn’t contradict me. He agreed with me! I asked, “What’s the problem then?” He then gave me the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech.
Let me reiterate that this is coming COMPLETELY out of left field. We have no problems! We’re that disgusting couple that people roll their eyes at and secretly resent. He even said so himself, and admitted to me that he has no real explanation of why this conversation was taking place, or where this was coming from except that, “Maybe I’m mentally ill.”
We went round and round about his issues for hours. He wanted “time and space to explore his options” and he wanted to do what’s “in his best interests.” Then he started making a verbal pros and cons list of staying with me vs. not staying with me until I finally told him I can’t do this anymore and I can’t handle this on our anniversary of all days. I made up his mind for him and told him he needed to just go home, and thanks for a ‘lovely’ evening. He ended with, “So, this is over? We’re done?” I didn’t know what else to say besides yes. He couldn’t have made it any more clear that’s he’s one foot out the door already.
As he was leaving, a light bulb came on above his head and he said, “Oh, yeah. Happy Birthday.” That’s right. This night just so happened to be my 24th birthday. Amazing.
