On break-ups

Once you find the right person, falling in love is a cinch. In most cases, however, there’s inevitably a break-up.

I like break-ups. They’re these horribly awkward situations where you feel anger and shame and phantom pains like you’ve lost a limb, except it always turns out to be a misshapen limb that you didn’t need anyway.

I always learn something really amazing about myself, even if what I learn is that I really DID love that person and he really DID break my heart.

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Miranda: Maybe it’s time that I stop being so angry.
Carrie: Yeah, but what would you do with all your free time?

-SATC
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“Ditched in the Malibu,
Now he don’t know what to do.
Lloyd, Lloyd, null and void.”

- Say Anything

It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much. When I feel someone is going to leave me, I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing. Here it is. One more, one less. Another wasted love story. I really love this one. When I think that its over, that I’ll never see him again like this… well yes, I’ll bump into him, we’ll meet our new boyfriend and girlfriend, act as if we had never been together, then we’ll slowly think of each other less and less until we forget each other completely. Almost. Always the same for me. Break up, break down. Drunk up, fool around. Meet one guy, then another, fuck around. Forget the one and only. Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love, desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness meet a new love and swear it is the one, until that one is gone as well. There’s a moment in life where you can’t recover any more from another break-up. And even if this person bugs you sixty percent of the time, well you still can’t live without him. And even if he wakes you up every day by sneezing right in your face, well you love his sneezes more than anyone else’s kisses.

–Marion, 2 Days in Paris

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After a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh.
–Mr. Big, SATC

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Pellegrino: I’m starting not to buy the whole “Different time in my life” line either. I’ve used it so much myself.

me: yeah, it’s ubiquitous

Pellegrino: There is never a good time to fall in love, have kids, etc.

me: no, there’s not

Pellegrino: That stuff just happens to you.

me: like a car accident

Pellegrino: Exactly. Its not like one day you get home from work and say. Dammit let’s fall in love today. He reminds me of me.

me: I know. He reminds me of you, too. For a lot of reasons.

Pellegrino: I’d be slightly more self-loathing but he’s got it pretty close.

me: yes, give him a couple of years for the loathing to blossom

*

I feel sorry for Big, I really do. Because if you think about it, I was the best thing that ever happened to him. Actually, no. I pity him because I get to walk away and be me, and he has to walk away and stay him, you know? And who wants to be him when you could be me? I mean, I’m smart, I’m funny… I was this, this thing, you know I was it. I was this magic moment. I was the abracadabra. I was totally the “poof” in the relationship. I mean, I’ve got more “poof” in one finger than he could ever have. I mean, geez, sometimes I “poof” just hailing a cab. So I guess it’s better to know now. So I can go “poof” someone else. Someone who deserves me, and not some screwed-up, insecure guy who can’t deal with a woman who’s got her act together. Now, I’m gonna end up deliriously happy and Big is gonna die old and alone, and I pity him. Really, I pity him.

–Carrie Bradshaw, SATC

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Samantha: Well, let’s just say it: you won.
Carrie: Was there a contest?
Samantha: Oh please! There’s always a contest with an ex. It’s called “who will die miserable.”

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