Scrappy Little Nobody(32)
Almost immediately after we ended it, I could see that I was far angrier with myself than I was with Connor. On one hand, he must have seen I was more invested than he was, and arguably he should have let me down easy in the first few weeks of knowing me. On the other, I can’t blame a guy for believing me (or more likely, pretending to believe me) when I insisted I was happy keeping things low-key and having casual sex.
I left town a few weeks later to film an independent movie in a tiny town in Indiana. After work one night, I logged into Myspace on the slow motel internet. I’d held out on cyberstalking for a while (two days) and rewarded myself by looking up Connor and everyone remotely connected to him.
In modern movies, the dumped girl finds out about the new girlfriend through a picture: the dude and his new girlfriend smiling on a hike or kissing at a party. I found out because Erika wrote a blog post about it. There, on Myspace, was a half-page post about the new man in her life. The most surreal part was that she’d incorporated lyrics from his songs throughout, like sappy, stilted Mad Libs. You wouldn’t know those songs, so I won’t try to re-create her post, but imagine if Paul McCartney had a new girlfriend and she wrote something like this online: I knew that If I Fell it would be a Long and Winding Road, but Do You Want to Know a Secret? I need him Eight Days a Week, because All You Need Is Love.
I thought my skull was going to cave in on itself.
Thank the lord that at this point in my life I’d implemented my “no matter how upset you are, sleep on it” policy regarding conflict. I drafted ten different emails to Connor. They ranged from furious, wounded, two-page diatribes to the classic single “Wow.” It’s a dangerous word to send an ex. Ostensibly restrained and dignified but in reality self-righteous and petulant. I slept on it and in the end sent nothing.
My poor coworkers in Indiana never heard the end of it. Despite my moaning, the cast and crew were really supportive. They didn’t know the situation, they had no obligation to cheer me up, but on days I was mopey the director would say, “My landlord back in LA just called and told me there’s a toothless prostitute named Erika—with a ‘k’—hanging out behind the dumpster in our alley and she’s offering hand jobs for a dollar, but no one’s taking her up on it.”
“You’ve never even seen a picture of her. I know you’re trying to make me laugh, but she’s actually really pretty.”
“You’re right. She’s very pretty for a toothless prostitute who hangs out behind dumpsters and smells like a pile of dead rats. Oh yeah, he said she smells like a pile of dead rats.”
It’s amazing the way this over-the-top and uncalled-for meanness warmed my loathsome little heart. It’s a strategy I’ve followed, perhaps at my peril, when my friends go through similar scenarios.
I know it’s childish and lame, but it feels good, and you’re allowed to be a miserable shit for a while after you get dumped. You know your ex and his new girlfriend aren’t evil, but it’s easier to feel like they are. Breakups can turn fully dimensional people into stubborn little vessels for your most stubborn little feelings. It takes a while for them to change back.
Very recently a strange thing happened. Someone who still knows Erika brought her up to me. I cringed: that bitch.
“You know she still thinks you’re pissed at her.” This gave me pause. She still thinks what? How does she even know me? I was twenty, I was a mousy girl she met one time. I assumed she hadn’t even caught my name. I figured she didn’t know I was a person. But I realized, Oh my god, I’m not pissed at her. I’m SO not pissed at her. I literally have no feelings about her. In fact I don’t think I’d recognize her if I fell over her! Oh, hello, fully dimensional human, you’re free to leave my brain now!
It was a real lesson in my endless capacity to hold a grudge. I do it so well, I don’t even notice that it’s happening. I walk around with these calcified resentments for years until someone points them out and I can go, “Good lord, is that still in here? Let’s get rid of that. And throw out ‘pretending that watching boys play video games is fun’ while we’re at it.”
I had to take a moment to wonder who else fell into this category of default enemy. I went through a mental list of people who, in theory, I’d want to hit in the face with a meat tenderizer. My coworker from ten years ago who owes me like three grand? It was ten years ago! You were addicted to OxyContin! Go! Be free! My seventh-grade teacher, who told me that most child actors don’t succeed as adult actors? You just wanted to scare me into having a backup plan! Farewell! Good luck! Tori from fourth grade, who accused me of writing mean stuff about all our friends on the playground wall? BURN IN HELL, TORI. I KNOW IT WAS YOU!!!
I’m still working on it.
guys in la
Like so many of us do after we’ve been dumped, I decided I could redeem myself by examining the choices I’d made and vowing to do the exact opposite from then on. I entered a classic phase of post-breakup overcorrection. This lasted about a year and came in two waves.
First, I became intensely wary of guys. I wasn’t going to be made a fool of again. I once made plans with a sweet-faced bartender, and when he innocently asked to reschedule, I said, “You know, where I come from, this is called ‘being blown off.’?” Where I come from? Did I think I was from The Dukes of Hazzard?