When you break up with someone, everyone wants to focus on the heartbreak– you know, the despair over losing your best friend or partner in crime or whatever, all the implications of going to every social event for the rest of your life all alone (because obviously you will never find anyone else), the endless hours of weeping into a half-eaten gallon of rocky road ice cream. Read More

Joe’s superpower was making me forget about all of his less attractive traits and habits (wrestling, smoking, writing terrible poetry) by flashing that big blinding grin at me. It was like the Men in Black pen blinky light thingie that melts your brain a little bit every time you look at it.

I think Shane’s might have been negging, before negging was even a thing. He told me, after he met me in person for the first time, all about how I was lovely, of course, but my sister’s hair was just a little shinier than mine, and her voice was just a little sweeter. Not that I don’t agree, but I probably shouldn’t have had to hear it from my boyfriend. But it didn’t make me hate him– it made me want to try harder to impress him, and also made me love him a little more because he said nice things about my sister, even if they were  sort of at my expense. I’m not sure if that’s my psychological damage coming out to play or his– maybe a bit of both.

Luke’s superpower was niceness, which sounds like the lamest superpower ever, but I mean this guy was nice. Like, he was even nice to me in my teenage years, when my greatest aspiration was to be a badass with a bad attitude. Nice was not high on my list of Things To Be, but Luke never, ever, ever, not even once snarked back at me when I prodded him with my meanness.

Matt doesn’t get a cape. He gets a red t-shirt with “ASSHOLE” printed across it real big. Maybe that’s not quite fair. It’s possible that his superpower was butting in to other people’s lives, telling them how to live, and then bargaining, bribing, and cajoling (with God, if necessary) to get what he wanted.

It’s possible that my superpower is long-lived bitterness. Oops.

What I can promise from what I have learned:

I promise to tolerate your taste in music, and even go to a concert with you now and then. (Be grateful. I suffer because I love.)

I promise never to spit in your face when I am trying to demonstrate the latest vocal percussion sound I learned (and that one time was totally an accident, by the way).

I promise not to make jokes or assertions at your expense. “I was only teasing,” is not a good enough excuse.

I promise to try to love your crazyass family, because every family is a little crazy, but I do not promise to buy in to the crazy.

I promise to take your compliments gracefully.

I promise to write you love notes.

I promise not to neglect my other relationships, because you shouldn’t have to be my bestie or my therapist or my critique partner.

I promise I will always think it’s sexy when you load the dishwasher. (I do not promise sex in exchange for loading the dishwasher, although your chances do increase.)

I promise to try to be supportive, even if you’re being kind of a dumbass.

I promise to laugh at your jokes, no matter how stupid.

I promise to keep learning and changing and improving– even if that brings up the possibility of growing apart, because at least it’s growing.

I’ve never been a great beauty, and I’m not saying that to fish for compliments, so don’t. I’m not terrible to look at, but my hair leans toward “ashy” (which I think is the polite way to say “mousey”). I have thunder thighs (even when I’m relatively thin, which is not always, as I lean toward the chunky side anyway). My skills in fashion, make-up, and hair are fair-to-middling at best. All of this I know, and all of this I am ok with.

But there have been some exes who made me feel more than average.

Joe loved my eyes. He’d wax poetic about them… badly, sort-of-rhyming, and without any kind of meter, but still “poetic.”

Shane told me I was beautiful all the time– my hair, my face, ya know. Then after we broke up, he made an off-hand jab to the effect of, “You’re actually not that great. I was just saying it to make you feel better.” Oof. Part of this I’ll blame on the fact that I dumped him and he needed some revenge. But part of it, at least, I have to accept as truth.

Luke’s compliments never went much past, “You’re purdy,” but he meant it from his heart.

And Matt? Well, Matt was probably the most convincing, but that’s likely because he had the best chance of getting in my pants, and when you want to get there, you spread the compliments on pretty thick, unless you’re dumb or something.

So if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess I have to tell you I’m beautiful. I have pretty eyes and soft hair and a lovely smile. At least if you’re trying to sleep with me.

I don’t think you should commit to someone, really, until you’ve seen them at a low point. Morbid as it seems, low points are what define us.

Joe didn’t get to see my low point until he was about to head off to college on the other side of the country. The second day of my sophomore year of highschool,  I stepped  out of the minivan to walk into the building and stepped off the curb and right onto my ankle. I was wearing adorable little canvas sneakers and little bitty khaki shorts– I remember because I never wore those shoes again and I wore jeans for weeks afterwards to cover the ace bandage. (Good thing flare jeans were in back then.) My ankle swelled up and turned purple by the end of the day. It hurt like a bitch.

Joe didn’t make much of it, good lad. He must’ve realized that attention-seeking was not my bag and a softball-sized purple ankle was doing nothing to help me blend in, and I hated the whole situation. He just checked my ace bandage to make sure I wrapped it right and then chivalrously carried me up the front steps of his parents’ house so I could come in and see their new kittens later that week. So I guess I passed that “low point” test… except that he was gone about a week later and we sort of broke up by default just because we stopped talking to each other. Hrm. I’ll not blame that on my low point, though.

The first time Shane came to visit, I was on my period. He was staying in the den in the basement on the pull-out couch, just next to the downstairs bathroom, which happened to be the one I stumbled to sometime in the wee hours of the morning in search of fresh feminine hygiene items and Midol. There may have been quiet whimpering, but I tried not to make too much noise.

The next day he admitted he’d been awake for the whole thing. I was mortified, but explained the situation as delicately as I could and then blocked it from my consciousness by sheer force of will. Later that day we played some badminton in the yard and he kept asking me if I was ok, and I kept assuring him that I was fine, and I didn’t realize until much later that it must have been the midnight whimpering that set off his concern. Oops.

Still, I think I passed that one, too, because I ended up with an awkward kiss and a fantastic tickle fight.

Luke probably saw more of my lows than any of my other exes, by virtue of the fact that we spent the most time together, by far. He came to visit me once when I was sick. My mom ushered him into my darkened bedroom and he sat on the edge of my bed and murmured platitudes while I prayed to God he wouldn’t look at my hair and I wouldn’t throw up on him. He didn’t stay long and I think we were both fine with that. But he never shied away from my sickness or tears or even my foul, horrible moods.

I’m sitting here wracking my brain for a low that Matt might have seen, but all I can think of are the tearful, screaming fights and I guess that’s enough of a low. Maybe the phrase should be, “in sickness and in health, and also in snotty, red-faced rampages.” (Of course, he’s the only ex I ever rampaged at, so maybe some of it wasn’t me. Just sayin’.)

I’m glad they stuck with me through my lows– gross, bloody, and hateful though they were. Anyone who manages that gets some hindsight props from me. Hear that, boys? Fine job.

For a while when I’m in a new relationship, I remember every interaction. It sounds a little stupid to say that I guess– probably everyone does that. But I’m talking in the range of 6 months to a year before I start forgetting fights and conversations and kisses and day trips here and there.

But everything fades with time, I guess.

I don’t remember much of what Matt and I fought about, besides the old stand-bys of, “You are not being supportive,” and, “You don’t pay enough attention to me.” (Both of those were Matt’s complaints. I don’t remember what I picked fights about. Probably about how he picked fights too much, because I wanted to be able to look back on that period of my life and appreciate the irony. Yeah.) I’m sure they were world-stoppingly important at the time, but hey.

I don’t remember the middle names of three out of the four exes. I only remember Shane’s middle name because he signed it on his letters all the time and it was as much a part of his name as his first and last.

I sure as hell don’t remember their birthdays.

I don’t remember Joe’s favorite food or Luke’s favorite song or Shane’s favorite book.

But I remember the way all of their hands looked– the color and texture of the skin, the shape of the thumbs. I remember what Matt smelled like. I remember how Luke liked to be touched. I remember the cadence of Shane’s voice. I remember Joe’s laugh.

And maybe it’s not that important that I can’t remember all the little things Matt and I fought about, or the name of Shane’s sister, or Luke’s GPA. Because I’d rather save room in my brain for their hands and their scents and their laughs.

Oh pet names, you subject of much consternation. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them, but somehow it seems we always manage to have them. Ok, well, maybe not always…

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