Dumped, Actually(9)

Because of the success of their relationship, my mum and dad have a hard time understanding what I’m feeling, bless them. They try, of course. Lots of moral support and fulsome affection. But they have absolutely no idea what I’m going through, so their advice tends to drop into cliché within five seconds flat – and tends to be nautically themed, thanks to their love of going on pleasure cruises.

‘Plenty more fish in the sea.’

‘Worse things happen at sea.’

. . . and so on, and so forth.

Mind you, I guess they’re right. I’m sure being eaten by a great white shark is worse than getting summarily dumped in front of a hundred theme park visitors, with a green smear of childish snot stuck to your nose – but I could have really done without them making the observation to me, if I’m honest. Still, I love them for trying. It’s much appreciated.

For a moment, I considered picking up the phone and calling Brett, my best friend from university. He helped me through the break-up with Yukio – which up until now was the worst one I’ve ever had to endure. Yukio was the love of my life throughout the three years of university, and when she dumped me to move back to Tokyo, I could have slit my wrists with a Ginsu knife. Luckily, Brett kept all sharp implements out of my grasp, and got me drunk enough to get through the four or five months it took to start feeling like an adequate human being once again.

But I haven’t spoken to Brett in a very long time. Life kind of got in the way. He has no idea who Samantha is, let alone any knowledge of my recent break-up. On Facebook, it looks like he’s had a baby and is enjoying the first few months of fatherhood, so who am I to bring him down with my problems? Also, I think I’d feel incredibly uncomfortable if I talked to him now, given how I’ve acted over the years.

I don’t really have any other friends I can turn to. Samantha had become the central pillar of my social life and, now she’s gone, I feel all at sea, with no islands to swim to.

Every time I’ve lost at the game of love, I’ve cursed myself for not staying in better contact with my friends, and yet every time I start a new relationship I do exactly the same thing. I remember they used to have a nickname for me whenever I found love again – Invisible Ollie. Alright, not the punchiest of nicknames, but you can’t fault them for accuracy.

You don’t get to do that kind of thing over and over again without losing contact with those friends almost permanently. I’m certainly not close enough to anyone to seek comfort from them for my problems now. I’m sure it’d come across as totally out of order, anyway. Invisible Ollie only ever pops up again when he’s been dumped – that was what they thought then, and it’s what they’d think now.

You see, I don’t do things by half measures, me. When I fall in love, it becomes all-encompassing. I throw myself into my relationships 100 per cent, and that sadly has an effect on the other connections I have in my life.

I have to confess, I often put my romances ahead of my friendships. It’s not something I do consciously, but it always happens all the same. When I’m head over heels in love, I also tend to get my head stuffed up my arse when it comes to my friends.

All of this leaves me sat at home in front of the television alone, watching the evening news unfold before my reddened eyeballs.

This is half an hour of unmitigated horror, of course, and is doing nothing for my current mood. There are only so many reports about famine, war, poverty and politics you can watch before wanting to shove a fork into those reddened eyeballs, making them even redder, for very different reasons.

What really finishes me off is when they go over to their Asia correspondent for a story about poachers killing elephants in India for their ivory. I just can’t take that. Not now. Possibly not ever.

I turn the channel, to find that Sky Movies is showing Notting Hill, one of my favourite movies. In other circumstances I would happily watch it . . . but the idea of sitting through a romantic comedy right now fills me with more horror than the elephant poaching.

I flick the television off, and ponder my next move.

It’s six thirty on a balmy, cloudy, summer’s day. Perhaps it would be a good idea for me to go out for a walk.

I’ve done a lot of this in the past two weeks. When you feel cast adrift and miserable, it’s very hard to concentrate on anything, and mindlessly trolling around the local streets is about the only way of passing the time that you can come up with.

I could do with getting out for some fresh air to clear my head today, that’s for certain. Not only am I still in deep, deep mourning for the loss of my relationship, I also know that I have to go into work for the first time since the break-up tomorrow, and that’s going to be a cold slice of awfulness in and of itself.

Not only will I have to explain away my absence without actually telling anyone what’s happened to me, I’ll also have to contend with the febrile atmosphere at the website’s office as well.

I’ve loved working for Actual Life for the past six years.

It’s been my dream job – working at an exciting lifestyle website . . . like the one Actual Life used to be, anyway.

But since the takeover happened six months ago, it’s been a fast slide down into the mire of corporate-takeover shenanigans and painful cutbacks. Samantha was frankly the only thing keeping me from getting extremely depressed about the whole situation, and now she’s gone there’s nothing to prevent that from happening. God knows what’s occurred at work over the two weeks I’ve been absent. But I’ll find out tomorrow, I’m sure.