Getting Over Bob Dylan
A lot of my friends are certain that they are never going to love anyone like they loved their first love. Depending on how many times I’ve already heard them say this, my response differs from ‘I’m sure you’ll find someone just as great’ to ‘There’s a reason you broke up. You will definitely, definitely get over them.’
Books and films (yes, blame the public sphere) overrepresent the situation where people end up with their first partners, or at least die unhappy with the person they ‘settled’ for. And the reason that I’m confident that just about everybody gets over the first person they love even though they don’t think they ever will, is because that’s how I used to feel.
Bob Dylan wasn’t my first boyfriend, but he was the first boy I loved. And for a long time after we broke up, even when I was dating someone else, I was certain that I would never find anyone with whom I was so compatible. This is probably because, for a long time, I didn’t.
I am now with the second person I have loved and have no lingering feeling for the first (who I, incidentally, live with but this is something of a moot point for the purposes of this article). None. Nada. I don’t look at him and get a little bittersweet feeling over what we used to have. I care about him, but the level of sexual desire between us sits comfortably at zero.
Those of you who are not over your first love are, right now, reading this and thinking, ‘But you must not have really loved him. I’ll never get over [insert name of person you will eventually get over].’
Our first experiences remain very distinct in our memories, because, at least at the time, they were unfamiliar to us. You can probably remember exactly what you were doing and what went through your mind the first time you heard that someone you knew had died, and exactly what you said just before your first kiss.
The menstrual amongst us can probably recall exactly where we were when we got our first period, and the reason that musicians are always asked in interviews what was the first album they ever bought is because they have retained this information, unlike the 11th or 237th.
This doesn’t mean that every subsequent such experience doesn’t count or that it’s not special, but just that when you experience something for the first time, that’s the time that you remember most vividly.
Love is no different. And yes, this is made more problematic by the fact that this idea of ‘the one’ is so prevalent, when really, very few people end up with their first partner, no matter how strongly they felt about them at the time. But nonetheless, the reason that the first person that we loved remains so clear in our minds is just because they were the first (no matter how cool they might’ve been).
A lot of energy during our adolescence and early 20s (and possibly later; I won’t know what it’s like to be in your early-mid 20s until August) is exerted on the certainty that we will never love someone like that first person. In some ways, that’s true. You don’t have the neuroses and the complexes and the paranoias that you have later on. But love is going to feel different with the next person because hopefully, you will be appreciating different things about them, not just finding a carbon copy of an ex (with whom it didn’t work, I should point out).
I never thought I’d get over Bob Dylan, especially not to the point where I would be able to truly and wholly devote myself to another person, without reservation or doubt. But I did. And regardless of how it may feel sometimes, you (definitely, definitely) will too.
Then again, maybe I just didn’t love him enough.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
These Boots Were Made For Walkin’
Based on some of my previous posts, I may have given the impression that I have an uncommonly good relationship with some of my ex-boyfriends. This is true in at least one case, but in the rest, I pretty much adhere to the stereotype that ex-partners are rarely on better-than-okay terms.
My parents have been trying to tell me since babyhood that they know best, but it’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve started to believe them (in most situations, anyway).
Several weeks ago, I was telling my mum (possibly while drunk) about a couple of the horribly shit experiences I’d had with dudes before Julio that made me appreciate that much more how wonderful he is. And when I told her about one situation in particular, and that he’d been making semi-unpleasant comments on links to my column on Facebook since then, she told me that I should have just blocked him on all social networking forums as soon as the initial situation had occurred.
Blocking someone on Facebook often seems very trite and juvenile, but that’s because there’s little precedent for it. It probably seemed rather worthy of an eyebrow raise to ignore someone’s phone calls at some point too, but it can be important to send the message, no matter how passive it may be, that someone no longer has a place in your life. And even though the relationship you have with most of your Facebook friends is rather trite in itself, sometimes even this isn’t something you want to afford to someone.
What Mum made me realise is that some people’s very presence can be toxic to you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a bad person, but just that sometimes their actions are such that you shouldn’t go out of your way to be polite or kind to a person. I’m not advocating being outwardly rude, but it’s important to separate the wheat from the chaff, and rid yourself of the chaff when circumstances call for it.
Following that conversation with my dear mother, I blocked two of my previous amours on Facebook after one of them implied that I’d looked trashy the last time he saw me (and even though I don’t think any girl should have to defend her outfit, for the purposes of communicating that he’s something of a reaction-seeking wanker, I will mention that I was wearing a knee-length dress with long sleeves), and the other hadn’t seemed to realise that asking if he could crash at mine after a night out, even if my house is closer to his current location than his own home, is not appropriate given the shit he’d put me through some months earlier.
In truth, I was barely in contact with either of them anyway, so it’s made little difference in my day-to-day life, and I don’t flatter myself that either of them have even noticed. But I nonetheless feel that much lighter having purged a few negative influences, even if only on Facebook.
There are a lot of shit things in the world that are beyond your individual control. Having douchebags turn up in your newsfeed is not one of them.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Lessons From Gone With The Wind (Part 1)
I never thought of my parents as particularly weird. Overall, I suppose I still don’t, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to be aware of and appreciate their little quirks, which do render them a little bit eccentric.
One such example is my dad’s edit of Gone with the Wind.
Being one of my dad’s favourite films, it stood to reason that when it was the midday movie in the mid ‘90s, he would record it to VHS for his future viewing pleasure. However, my dad doesn’t like sad movies, which is somewhat incompatible with Gone with the Wind (I really can’t adequately summarise the plot as its running time is close to four hours, but for those unfamiliar, all you need to know for the purposes of this article is that it’s really really sad and a lot of people die. A lot. Not even just the standard amount of casualties that you’d expect from a storyline that largely revolves around the American Civil War, but also an obscene number of people close to the protagonist).
So dear old Dad got crafty and simply didn’t tape the saddest bits, which meant that I didn’t have a full appreciation of just how shit things got for Scarlett O’Hara until I was 14 and watched the film in its entirety at my grandpa’s place, despite having seen what I thought was the whole movie many, many times before.
All up, this was a pretty harmless effort by my dad to edit out what he didn’t like about something that, on the whole, he rather loved. And this is kind of what we often do with relationships: we edit out the bits that we don’t want to think about, and it usually takes a break-up to remind us of them.
I remember reading some years ago that as long as there were five good moments for every one bad moment in a relationship, the balance between good and bad was okay. I always thought this was a pretty generous estimate (and I still do) but the real problem only arises when those bad moments aren’t just stored away as lowlights but ignored altogether, presenting a different picture of a relationship than the one that actually exists.
I certainly don’t think that the low points in a relationship should be dwelled upon (within reason, there are of course certain things that shouldn’t be tolerated even once) as long as the good outweighs the bad in a measure you’re comfortable with. But if the only way you can stay with a person is if you push some of their behaviours out of your mind, then it may be time to reassess what your relationship narrative really looks like.
Granted, my dad’s motives for editing Gone with the Wind are similar, in that he wants to keep his life as pleasant as possible. But as much as we might like to occasionally compare them as such, our relationships are not films. We can’t just fast forward through the bits we don’t like, and nor should we. A relationship that can only function if its downfalls are ignored is likely one that you should walk away from.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
How To Be Housemates With Your Ex
As I write this column, I am sitting in my living room with my current flame, Julio, and my ex, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan and I are both on our laptops; I’m silently cursing the connection on my Virgin Mobile USB modem for constantly dropping in and out, and Bob Dylan is trying to scam WiFi from the neighbours, while Julio is trying to coordinate make-up artists’ schedules for a video clip shoot. Bob Dylan is eating stir fry that he made last Saturday with his girlfriend, and Julio is accusing me of trying to kill him because I offered him hummus, having failed to realise that his allergy to peas extends to chickpeas.
The three of us hanging out together is not an altogether uncommon occurrence, given that Julio is my companion-of-choice and Bob Dylan is my housemate.
Some time ago, I wrote a column titled How to be friends with your ex that likely alluded to the fact that I was friends with at least one of mine. Going from friends to housemates is, granted, not really the trajectory I ever expected our relationship would take, but it’s nonetheless where we are now.
Despite the fact that Bob Dylan and I broke up at the end of 2006, a number of people expressed concern that this was an inappropriate arrangement, destined to fuck up both of our relationships and lives.
I used to think that it was impossible to be friends with an ex, and I still think that this isn’t nearly as common as it often seems to be, as so many people parade around their friendships with someone they used to be in love with, only to jump into bed together at every drunken opportunity. This is fine if no one is getting hurt (which is rarely the case, especially when it happens soon after a relationship has ended) but, categorically, it’s not a friendship.
I can’t say I would advocate living with your ex-partner under most circumstances, but the crux of why this works for us is that we are both completely over one another. In fact, I was more confident about living with Bob Dylan than I was about living with a guy I didn’t know, because as much as I love Julio, I’m not about to test that affection by living with someone who I might or might not eventually become attracted to, or vice versa.
Bob Dylan and I have a history, but it’s one that has no loose ends, and that is buried deep in the past. I do not long for him, nor do I look at him and even think ‘that’s my ex-boyfriend’; it just makes us incredibly new age and cool that we can live together.
To have your ex in your life shouldn’t be difficult, and if it is, there’s probably something that hasn’t settled about the relationship. It can be difficult to let go of someone who used to be so important to you, but it’s only possible to have a tangible friendship with an ex if you are over him or her.
And until you reach that point, definitely definitely don’t move in with them.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Better Love Next Time
A few weeks ago, my ex changed his Facebook relationship status.
Some of you might know him as Bon Jovi. Others might know him as the guy who wouldn’t change his facebook relationship status.
Even though we weren’t actually all that compatible, and even though we only dated for two months, and even though I’m currently in the happiest relationship I’ve ever been in, seeing this change to Bon Jovi’s profile come up in my newsfeed was nonetheless a little jarring. That little voice of self-doubt crept into my mind.
Why wasn’t it me?
There are a number of possible answers to this question. He might have reassessed his stance on Facebook relationship statuses and realised they’re actually not the ordeal he once thought. Perhaps he’s more ready for a relationship now than he was a year and a half ago. Or maybe he likes her more than he did me.
Often, it is our inclination to feel inferior to this person and take it personally, thinking that if only we were thinner/smarter/whatever, they would’ve made these gestures for us too. In truth, it is more reflective of where that person is in their life and a changing approach to relationships, rather than anything to do with anybody else, including their current and past partners (although, of course, they help to shape such attitudes and whatnot).
In this particular instance, although I have no idea why Bon Jovi has now chosen to change his status, I can guess that it may indeed be because he likes his current girlfriend more and is more committed to her than he was to me. But this is where an important distinction to be made: this does not implicitly make her better than me (though credit where credit’s due: she is a better a dresser).
Whether someone loves a person is really not a good measure of their worth, nor are the gestures made by the person that they’re with. I know some really awful people whose partners obsessively love them and are wholly devoted to them, even though it is often to their detriment. Conversely, I also know some amazing people who are both generally awesome and chronically single. I am fortunate that I am now dating a very kind and very cool person, but I’ve also fallen for unkind and uncool people in the past, and my liking them had zero bearing on whether they were any better or worse a person than the next joker.
People change their minds. They learn and develop and grow, and, granted, this is sometimes propelled by who they are with. But your ex-partner being more accommodating/loving/whatever towards a new flame is no reflection on you, and it is really important to remember this. I’m certain that if you think back to every person you’ve ever not loved yourself, you’ll still be able to think of a lot of good qualities they collectively had that didn’t become immaterial simply because you didn’t love them.
Just because one person didn’t love you doesn’t mean you’re not worth loving. And just because one person wouldn’t change their Facebook relationship status when they were with you doesn’t mean no one will ever want to.
Unless your next partner doesn’t have Facebook. Then you’ll never know where you stand.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
They Call You Lady Luck
When I started writing this column, I thought that I would never run out of material. I’m obsessed with my relationships, fickle, and do a lot of stupid things. These are all elements that lend themselves to a phenomenal well of subject matter.
This remains true, but this week I had very little desire to recount the failings of my own love life and, having felt her first brush with ‘fame’ through ‘literature’ last week, Momo suggested (read: demanded) that I write about her bitterness toward relationships. Which is all well and good (sort of), except that a list of reasons that someone you don’t know is feeling jaded probably isn’t going to be all that interesting without some kind of central thesis.
So I started thinking about all the awful things that I know of people having done to one another. Here are a few:
- Girl messaged Boy asking if he was going out that night. Boy said he was staying home. Girl goes out and runs into Boy on a date with someone else.
- Boy invites Girl to a party. She attends this party and realises upon arrival that it is actually a going away party for Boy. Boy had neglected to mention that he was going anywhere.
- Girl realises while seeing Boy that she is not over her Ex-Boy. She tries to pretend things are okay with Boy, but realises one night that she cannot spend the night with him and ends the relationship…on Boy’s birthday.
- Girl and Boy have been sleeping together on and off for a couple of years. Boy sleeps with Girl’s Friend at a party. Girl is at this party. Boy plays dumb when confronted.
- Boy takes Ex-Girl home one night. Ex-Girl finds out a week later that Boy had sex with his Ex-Housemate’s Ex-Girlfriend earlier that day.
- Girl spends six months dating Boy. They break up because Girl doesn’t want a relationship. Girl is in a relationship with Another Boy within a fortnight.
Of course, there are details that would probably make you sympathise with different parties because we’re all so multi-dimensional etcetera, but what is common to all these situations is that someone, to some degree, got hurt.
We all do pretty shit things to each other, and especially when you see your own love life as the sum total of a whole lot of bad experiences, it’s easy to become bitter about love and all its subsidiaries. But more often than not, it’s simply bad luck/bad timing/bad whatever, rather than because there’s something wrong with you or the other person.
Momo has indeed had a bad run of relationships/pseudo-relationships/whatevers. So have a lot of other people I know. And there is nothing that fundamentally differentiates them from the ones who have been lucky in love and lovin’.
I’m not going to tell you that having bad experiences builds character (even though that’s often true), nor am I going to tell you that you’re still young (even though you probably are), or that you’ll eventually find someone who’s good for you (even though you probably will), because it really annoys me when people say those things. Whatever happened to you probably really sucked and you probably didn’t deserve it but nonetheless, you’ll probably be okay.
Just keep your head up, your bullshit radar finely-tuned, and don’t date anyone who idolises Max Tucker.
Somebody That I Used To Know
That old chestnut rings true that the moment you break up with someone, every song seems to sum up your heartbreak. And never more so than Gotye’s newie, which so succinctly and so artfully captures exactly what we’ve all been through (but are convinced we’ve been the only ones who have) that it just about floors you.
‘Told myself that you were right for me, but felt so lonely in your company’? ‘You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness’? ‘Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over, but had me believing that it was always something that I’d done’? ‘And I don’t want to live that way, reading into every word you say’? ‘Now you’re just somebody that I used to know’? Yep, this one’s going to be on high rotation this summer…
Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and that’s an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end
Always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I’ll admit that I was glad that it was over
But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I’d done
And I don’t want to live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go and I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know
But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
You didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Somebody…that I used to know
Somebody…now you’re just somebody that I used to know
Somebody…that I used to know
Somebody…now you’re just somebody that I used to know…
How To Find That Someone Special
Now that I’ve been with Julio for over five (continuous!) months, I fancy myself a bit of a relationship expert, quite frankly. I am super happy, filled with gooey love, and I think I know the secret:
Stay single.
Granted, this seems counter intuitive, but bear with me a moment.
Depending on what exactly you term ‘a shit relationship’, I’ve exclusively had that particular kind of liaison since March 2010, August 2008, or December 2007. In any case, the majority of them have been somewhere between ‘nothing special’ and ‘rather diabolical’, and I didn’t even realise that relationships could be so problem-free, or at least not until you’d suffered for some indeterminate amount of time getting together with the person in the first place.
It sounds stupid, but I have never previously felt truly respected, valued, and loved in a relationship. And at some point I realised how easily I could have missed it.
Due to my not being an arsehole, I don’t indulge even flirtation while I’m seeing someone. I loosely knew Julio when I saw him on the night that was to start our romance, but had I been seeing someone else, no matter how casually, I would’ve declined when he asked if I wanted a drink. Moreover, I probably would have been drunk and sobbing to my friends somewhere about my wanker du jour.
I didn’t meet a great guy because I was single, but if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have even known how good things could be.
Staying in volatile relationships is damaging for a bunch of reasons, and the fact that you’re hindered from finding someone who actually respects, values, and loves you is admittedly one of the lesser problems; people can do a lot of fucked up things to you. For my part, I had my self-esteem obliterated because I stayed with a guy for the better part of a year who was emotionally abusive. I was completely derailed, and still have insecurities that this man instilled in me in order to make me feel lesser than him.
I didn’t need to get out of that relationship so that I could find someone else; I needed to get out of that relationship because I was with someone who was sandpapering away at all the things I liked about myself.
I can’t tell you when (or if…but probably when) you’re going to find someone who treats you well, but I can tell you that there is no way you’re going to be able to invest enough in someone to find out how great they are if you’re with someone else.
There is no secret formula. Meeting the right person is simple serendipity (or fate, depending on which school of thought you belong to), but when you do devote yourself, or at least your relationship status, to another person, make sure you are placing your own respect, value, and love in someone worthwhile. It will undoubtedly save you a whole lot of time and heartache.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Keeping Things ‘Happy Happy’?
Dear You
It’s not a matter of wanting to keep things all ‘happy happy’ with you. I keep in touch with people who have been important in my life, as long as we are both comfortable with doing so. You are not, so we won’t. Also, I’m not going to defriend your sisters as we don’t just ‘keep in touch’; we are good friends.
It is not my problem that you remain uncomfortable with the fact of my existence and your history with me. I notice that you have tried to erase evidence of our time in each other’s lives by untagging yourself in all photos on Facebook that also include me. That’s your prerogative but I won’t let you make your apparent inability to integrate two chapters in your life my responsibility. If you feel weird seeing evidence of me on Facebook, you are free to block me.
I also won’t be defriending any of the other 41 mutual Facebook friends we have. They and you are free to make that decision for yourselves. This is not a discussion. Do what you need to do without expecting help from me.
From Me
By It’sDefinitelyYou
Dear You
Dear You
Here is the stuff you left with me while you were away. I thought this was the easiest way to get it to you because firstly, the board game is pretty big for either of us to be lugging around on trams, and secondly, I don’t really want to see you.
I do want to thank you for the two and a bit months we spent together. You were amazing to me when I was so messed up, understanding and giving even though I didn’t have much to give you back. I’m sorry I was standoffish when you were so fearless in how you felt about me.
Us together was a beautiful moment, and it still seems like one of the most important facts of my life that once I kissed you and made love to you and fell asleep holding you nearly every night. You were sweet, understanding, funny and sexy. You were smart and wise and adventurous. You had such integrity—I think that was my favourite thing about you. You were always yourself and you were always honest, no matter what.
Now it seems that whatever happened to you while you were away to make you suddenly stop loving me has changed who you are in other ways too. You’ve been inconsiderate, you’ve lied to me, and started avoiding me. You seem to have left your integrity somewhere between Colombia and Christmas. It’s so disappointing.
I missed you so much while you were away and now I still miss you because the person I knew never came back. I really hope that this is just post-travel-romance emotional tangle making you act like this but I think it’s safer for me if I give you up for lost.
I’ll always remember how we drank and danced and goofed around together; that you made me laugh; that I cared enough that you could make me angry.
If you have another change of heart once you have settled back into non-nomadic life I would really like to hear from you. I’m not promising anything but I miss that man I used to know.
I’ll never be sorry I loved you. I wish you all the best.
Me
By It’sDefinitelyYou
Get Some Hungry Jack’s, Then Get…
INMIY are no experts in how to get the girl, but we’re pretty sure telling them to ‘get some Hungry Jack’s, then get raped’ isn’t ideal. Those were the precise words we heard from our apartment one night when we were woken by those very words.
To give the then-very-drunken guy the benefit of doubt, we did only hear one side of the conversation. Still, we reckon repeatedly reiterating that ‘I want you to get raped. Then you’ll come back to me’ ain’t going to help you win—or win back—the girl.
Too Many = Not Much At All?
If this Sydney Morning Herald article is anything to go by, too many choices leads to not much at all. Sigh. Just what every singleton wants to hear when it comes down to getting back on the dating horse. That or that our brains aren’t quite capable of containing and processing vast and varied amounts of information on dissimilar prospective partners.
It seems that we’re ok choosing when we’re selecting from a bunch that’s similar (I guess it’s the same principle as choosing milk at the supermarket, eh?). The question is: what happens if the bunch you consistently line up is the type of partner who’s not so good for you? Isn’t choosing the best from a bad bunch ultimately bad?
Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About
It’s not quite a break-up blog, but it documents the often-inane fights couples have. You know, the ones were you’ve been together long enough and are comfortable enough to drive each other insane and not break up? The ones where they’re so ridiculous and you get so worked up you end up laughing? The ones you almost can’t tell friends about but are then relieved when someone else admits their couple fights and the flood gates open? Yeah, those ones. I could try to give examples, but it’s probably just easier and funnier if you click here*.
*The design isn’t brilliant. In fact, it’s pretty poor. But if you can figuratively close your eyes and just concentrate on the words, it’s couple-fight gold.
I Miss You Like I Miss Kebabs
I miss you like I miss kebabs can be interpreted myriad ways, which is the beauty of a seven-word post-break-up message. Short, not outrightly mean, it might be intended in an affectionate manner or simply to mess with your head.
After all, kebabs can be a godsend in the wee hours of a messy, booze-heavy, food-light night. They can also be a short-lived, later-regurgitated godsend that doesn’t sit or end well.
Whatever its intended meaning—back-handed compliment, unintentionally funny way of saying something that’s intended to soften the break-up blow, or otherwise—I miss you like I miss kebabs is break-up gold.
Honesty, The Okay Policy
Honesty. It’s what we’re told is the best policy when we’re small and unable to make independent and informed judgments. Then you get older and learn that lying often gets you out of trouble. But more importantly, it often also prevents you from hurting people you care about.
Several weeks after I started seeing Dracula, he told me he wanted us to spend the weekend apart so we could think about things between us and make some decisions. I mostly felt like he was making my life unnecessarily complicated, though I was secretly pleased that someone else was acting like a neurotic freak for a change.
So I went about my life; I went to a gig and had some pizza on Saturday night, and probably went to my parents’ place for dinner on Sunday night. Despite the instruction to think about things, I didn’t, because I didn’t know what had prompted all the drama.
That Tuesday, I met up with Dracula at uni. He said he had to tell me something and that then I would have to decide whether I wanted to keep seeing him or not. So I bought us a round of drinks and we sat down.
After the longest preamble I’d ever heard, he finally told me what was going on. Apparently we had different ideas of what ‘thinking about us’ meant. For me, it meant ‘thinking about us’. For him, it meant ‘flying to Queensland to get randy with my ex-girlfriend’.
I was barely two sips into my drink when I stormed out and told him not to call me. I was furious (for me to walk away from perfectly good wine, I’d have to be).
But that’s not the point.
The point is that it wasn’t in his interests to tell me. I yelled at him a lot and he suffered a great deal of mockery from mutual friends. But I’m not altogether sure it was in my interests either. True, the fact that he was still hung up on his ex was something I needed to know, but I wasn’t convinced that hearing about his romantic weekend getaway was a good thing.
Everyone who would find out would tell me that ‘at least he was honest’, but that really didn’t make me feel any better. Conversely, I didn’t wish that he’d kept it from me either; what I wanted was for him to build a time machine and go back and not do it.
These are the kinds of grey areas that everyone thinks aren’t really grey areas. The hurt wasn’t particularly long-lasting, but I don’t think that knowing what happened has benefited me any more than his simply saying, ‘I’ve realised I’m not over my ex, we should stop seeing each other’ would have. But unfortunately it’s often not left up to us what we do and don’t know about, and we don’t have targeted memory erasure procedures in real life to filter out the things that hurt us.
So in closing: what did I learn from all this?
If anyone ever says, ‘I need to talk to you’, make sure they’re paying for the drinks.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Losing Hope Ain’t Easy
Way back when, I told a friend on a play date that there was no Santa Claus. I’d always been pretty resilient to news like this and was surprised by the hysteria that followed. Crying, yelling, the whole shebang, and right before my parents came to pick me up, my friend’s dad told me I’d ruined all her hope.
For some reason, this sentence is one of the most poignant memories of my childhood, and it’s taken me more than 15 years to understand what he actually (probably) meant.
As Adelaide’s summer was coming to an end last year, I left my number on the table of a restaurant for the waiter who had served my friends and me, and started seeing him soon afterwards.
A week into ‘it’, I saw a photo of my ex with his ex and realised I wasn’t over my last relationship. Two dates later, I ended things with the waiter.
He thanked me for being honest with him about the reason for it, but also said that not being over my ex was something I should’ve shared with him on our second date. Given that we’d only had four in total, I thought he was being a touch melodramatic. But the issue wasn’t that I’d wasted two weeks of his time, it was that our brief relationship was already on some kind of trajectory in his mind (much like it had been in mine prior to discovering the photo), and it was this hope that I’d ruined.
This is what we really take from people when we do wrong by them in the early stages of a relationship. Too much behaviour is absolved when the parameters are yet to be defined in some way that is compatible with a facebook status and we forget that ‘some person I’m seeing’ is no less a human being than someone we’ve been with for years, and that they should usually be afforded the same amount of respect. Not love or trust, but respect.
Anyone who is seeking some kind of connection with a person is, at some point and to some degree, going to imagine a future with them. I’m not talking about the kind of nonsense that women are ridiculed in the media for thinking about as soon as they meet someone, but that thought of ‘is this a person for whom, further down the track, I’ll be happy to forego getting drunk in order to spend time with them?’
And if that person hurts you, even if it’s before they’ve met your parents or before your housemate starts complaining that they’re constantly lurking around your place like a feline, it’s going to feel less like they’ve just used up some of your time and more like they’ve rejected the mold in your bed that you imagined you might eventually be okay with them creating.
Then again, maybe the turn of events that prompted the writing of this article happened because I told my friends that there’s no Santa Claus.
Karma’s a bitch.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Rebounds This Way
‘Dunja, do I have a sign on my head saying ‘rebounds this way’?’
After I had assured my friend, Gertie, that there was no signage anywhere on her body indicating that damaged men were her partner of choice, I started to think about why she and I have both often found ourselves inadvertently involved with people who have just gotten out of relationships.
I’m sure this happens to everyone at some point, but Gertie and I seem to have a particular knack for attracting this particular breed of man. I wondered if it’s because we’re both psychology students, except that they seem to prefer Marvin Gaye’s school of healing than any therapies we’ve been given specific instruction in, so I don’t know that Gertie and I are better equipped to handle them than anyone else.
This is a relatively recent problem in my dating history, probably because we all tend to invest more in relationships as we get older. The inconvenience of dodging someone at lunchtime after a break-up bears little comparison to terminating a lease and having to move your poor little broken heart back in with your parents. Being convinced that you were going to spend the rest of your life with someone and then coming to realise that isn’t the case doesn’t just mean not having a regular spooning partner anymore, it often requires a complete reassessment of what you want in life now that it no longer involves this person.
I know and readily acknowledge this and am also aware that, for my part, I’m probably more fickle than average: my break-up angst tends to last only as long as it takes me to find someone else to obsess over, though this time has been known to vary anywhere between two weeks and two years.
Nonetheless, I have had break-ups, including awful ones that have taken time to get over (two years is a pretty significant portion of my adult life) but I often feel that the key difference between me and those who have told me (and Gertie) post-hook up/date/whatever that they’re not over their ex, is that I stay convincingly single during those woeful times. I commit myself to time- and energy-consuming projects and bitch to my friends until they’ve had enough, but I get things sorted without a boy around.
Of course, we all have different ways of coping and I’m not denying that a rebound is, for some people, a very effective method of kicking their ex out of their head. But getting over their own emotional turmoil rarely makes people consider how their actions are affecting someone else, and therein lies the problem.
Someone who’s recently ended a relationship may genuinely like you but break-ups, just through the sheer fact that they exist, suck. It takes time to heal from them and we unfortunately don’t choose when we stumble across people we dig. Timing is a severely underrated factor in the success of a relationship but someone else’s current affliction with emotional baggage needn’t be your problem (often they’ll just pass their complexes on to you, which you’ll then pass on to your next partner etc etc; it’s kind of like a sexually transmitted disease, except that a lot of those are easier to get rid of than enduring self pity).
The biggest favour you can do for the both of you is to cut it off, at least temporarily, otherwise you’re likely to become entangled in all their break-up melodrama too.
Point them in the direction of a counsellor and tell them to call you when they’ve got their shit together. Your own break-ups are bad enough, you shouldn’t have to recover from those of other people.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Dealing With The Ex
The mention of an ex-partner is hardly going to warm your heart, even at the best of times. And in my dealings with men, I’ve often also had to deal with their histories.
From the crazy ex to the lovely one to the one they go back to, even the most unobtrusive has usually played some role in my relationships through the sheer fact that they exist. But what makes me more certain of how best to approach these circumstances is that I am likewise ex-girlfriend to several people, and have thus been on the other side of the equation.
As bad a reputation as ex-partners get, these situations are often far from volatile. But when they are (one where I made an impulsive decision to confront an ex about a girl he was kissing—while he was kissing her—springs to mind), the one thing they all have in common, is that they are the product of some lack of resolution between the ex-couple.
It took me a while after the aforementioned instance in which I pulled Bon Jovi away from a pashfest to yell at him (definitely one of the dumber things I’ve ever done), to realise what had actually been upsetting me. Sure, it didn’t feel great to see him with someone else, but I’d also met someone since our break-up a couple of months earlier (which, of course, doesn’t forcibly mean I was over it) and I truly no longer wanted to be with Bon Jovi. But what I did want was a reason to get mad.
Without even really knowing it, I was angry with him. Angry that we’d jeopardised our friendship for what was ultimately a disappointment, angry that it turned out I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did, and angry that none of this seemed to affect him as much as it had me.
In other words, it had nothing to do with the girl.
Now, I don’t mean that it was none of her business and she should’ve just backed off, but rather that it was Bon Jovi who had to address issues I had with him, and she accordingly simply stood back while he and I had it out. It was all she could do.
Break-ups are rarely clean or painless, and their aftermath can unfortunately sometimes linger even longer than it takes at least one person to get into a new relationship. Most people have an ex, and the best you can hope for is that your partner does feel that the state of affairs between them and their ex is resolved, or otherwise doesn’t care one way or the other (aside from them actually being friends, but I realise this is tricky terrain). Getting involved is unlikely to help.
And if the ex does contact you? You’re usually best off just telling your partner and letting them handle it, otherwise you risk giving the ex cause to take personal issue with you.
Alternatively, just block them on facebook. Few things are more infuriating to someone who wants a reaction from you.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Celebrating Single (But Not Spiders)
There are plenty of things to celebrate about being single. For me, having dodged the bullet of a guy who, by his own, umprompted and surprise admission in his more sober and lucid moments, drank too much, and who was mean when he drank (and given how often he drank, was often mean), being on my own is a form of heaven.
I relish how, with only myself to clean up after, the apartment is always tidy. I love not having to ask him to clip his toenails over the bin instead of in the middle of the loungeroom. I am grateful that I don’t have to watch World Wrestling Federation bouts on TV when I’d rather watch, well, anything else.
I save time not having to ferret around to find the matching sock and he rarely put two in the wash together. I love not having to have food ridiculously spicy as he regularly attempted to prove his ‘manliness’ by forcing himself to ingest food so hot that he immediately broke into a face sweat and nose run.
I love being able to read late into the night if I so choose, and realise how much I’ve missed it and how much his un-subtle sighing and exaggerated turning over in bed contradicted his statement that he didn’t mind if I read. And I love being able to sleep smack-bang in the middle of the bed, the place to which my body naturally gravitates and the spot over which we did midnight, non-verbal and sometimes grumpy battle.
There are only two downsides to being single and the single habitant of my apartment. The first involves changing lightbulbs that are embedded in the ceiling, moodlighting style, and that are, therefore, almost impossible to reach for someone who doesn’t own a ladder. The second is when wildlife comes to stay. Specifically eight-legged wildlife with a penchant for jumping.
I’m not a girly girl, but I clearly save all my irrational fear and ability for hysterics into the there’s-a-giant-spider-in-my-apartment scenarios. Which came to the fore when I arrived home at 10pm one Friday night to discover, after about half an hour of blissfully ignorantly pottering around, that there was a huntsman that was bigger than my head perched upon the wall.
I can’t and won’t kill spiders so need someone only to relocate them to safer accommodation far, far away from my own. But finding someone to do that late on a Friday night is even trickier than it sounds. For starters, most people I called were drunk and considered it amusing instead of the emergency situation it actually was. They wanted a photo before they would even consider coming over. And they wanted a shoe in the photo to give them a true sense of the spider’s long-legged scale.
I explained that I would have had to have taken the photo from the next suburb in order to fit the spider and its eight elongated limbs in the frame. Besides, when you’re that terrified and that hysterical, trying to get close enough to and then focus on the spider through a viewfinder opens you up to all manner of awfulness should it decide to run. Or jump. Onto you.
They might have found it funny, but it was that moment that I realised that while buying an open-plan apartment that doesn’t have doors—it literally has only a front door and a bathroom door—might have seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, it’s entirely impractical and awful when you cannot quarantine a resident spider from you.
Despite my pleas that someone come over to help the spider on its way out the front door or window, particularly as I was busting to pee and the spider was between me and porcelain bowl relief and glory, I found myself having to deal with the spider alone.
So I ended up squatting with my boxer shorts around my ankles in my courtyard. At which point I accidentally wee’d on my foot. It reminded me that I’m not the kind of girl who cannot survive on her own, but I am the kind of girl who needs a spider removalist on speed dial.
Does It Take More Courage?
We think so often about the reasons for break-ups that it’s easy to overlook the reasons why we stay. Often they’re not because you love someone, they love you, they’re treating you well, or because things are working, but because sometimes the alternative is too much, too soon, or too hard.
In fact, I often wonder if the couples who are still together are coupled up for the right or wrong reasons; if they’re caught in a sort of relationship inertia or limbo.
Are they happy? Or does the uncertainty of not knowing whether they’ll find happiness with someone else keep them there?
Do they enjoy each others’ company? Or do they simply not want to be on their own?
Do they love their partner? Or do they not want anyone else to have them?
Or does the thought of having to go through the break-up, including the moving out of their belongings, and the potential loss of friends as natural but unfortunate allegiances emerge and one half of the former couple of is chosen over the other when social events become awkward, seem too hard?
I mean, does it take more courage to break up than to stay?
Doubting Your Bits
The problem with getting dumped is that your body reflects that sudden, never-to-be-recovered-from battering to your self esteem. By literally deflating and sagging.
Maybe it’s because the metaphorically soft, romantic-mood lighting, the I’m-in-love blinkers, or the somebody-likes-me-I-must-be-ok hope that’s been clouding your vision like vaseline over a lens are removed.
Maybe it’s because your outsides shatter, shrivel, and head south to mirror what’s happening to your heart.
Maybe it’s a combination of the two.
What’s clear, though, is that you suddenly see your bits in a light that’s so fluorescent and harshly unflattering, you’re immediately ashamed that you ever entertained the thought that someone might like you.
It’s unfair, really, given that your body’s flaws accelerate in their decline and become more noticeable and pronounced to you at the time when you most need your body to be buff to boost your self esteem. Instead, you develop fine lines, your pink bits lose their fullness and perkiness, and your butt drops and then dimples up with cellulite almost overnight.
Logic would tell you that these things have been creeping up on you and that you simply didn’t notice them when you thought—hold the vomit—that, in spite of your flaws, someone liked you for you. But logic isn’t exactly of the forefront of anyone’s thinking when they’re so gutted they can barely make it through the day.
The question is whether someone will ever find you and your bits remotely attractive again or whether you’ll spend the rest of your life doubting your bits and hoping someone invents the antithesis of pink bit-ravaging break-ups, age, and gravity.
When You Know
It’s really not what was said but what was known. The relationship was going well and for all intents purposes would lead to a happily ever after at the altar.
The thing is, I know things. I can’t really explain it I just get to know things about what is coming up in my life or in the lives of people near to me. Think of Alice in Twilight and that’s what happens. It changes sometimes, but recently what I’ve known is pretty fixed and will occur.
My car was to go into the panel shop to get some work done and I decided to use my motorbike to get around while this was happening. That is when it happened. I rolled the bike out of the garage of my girlfriend’s home and I knew the days of the relationship were numbered.
This was about a month before she went to Melbourne to visit family. Not a surprise. It had been organised for some time. But it was then that I knew.
So the trip to Melbourne came up and I was not getting the usual number of contacts or replies to my emails and texts. No big deal. She’s busy and enjoying her family. Hmmm. But you see, I already knew. I started to feel like a stalker, so waited and allowed her to make contact. Nothing. And I knew then that the next contact was going to be a ‘Dear John’.
Was I right? Yes. The text came a few days later. I knew it was coming. I knew what it was when it came in, though the text did not overtly say anything dramatic. It was just, ‘We need to talk’. She said something about how she was sorry to do this by text, over the phone, and all that, but it was decided. We talked and it was confirmed.
She was asking how I was and then stopped and said, ‘But you knew, didn’t you?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I knew about a month ago, maybe a bit more.’
We’re still friends of sorts, but that’s how it happened. Is it helpful to know in advance? I think it always helpful to ‘know’. At least I get some advance warning so I can be ready. I didn’t sabotage. I just carried on as normal. It also helps me to remember to value every relationship I have because one day I will probably know that the days of the relationship are numbered.
By Waz
Did Someone Say *Cough* Entrapment?
There’s an element of smile plastering required when you’re freshly dumped and sufficiently heartbroken to think that your heart quite literally has been cleaved in two. There’s an even greater amount of it when you’re forced to congratulate a certain type of girl you know upon her recent engagement.
You know, the type whose only career (or indeed life) aspirations are to find a man to marry. The girls who stomp their feet and boss around their men and still seem to obtain the happily ever after that eludes so many of us.
They’re the ones who issue propose-by-this-date-or-I’m-out-of-here ultimatums. Who engage in shameless dropping of not-so-subtle hints about the type of ring and diamond and minimum number of carats said diamond must be. The ones who aren’t ashamed to travel to the end of the slippery engagement slope: the effort that says, woops, I’m pregnant, now you have to make an honest woman out of me.
While the reasonable, rational girls among us spot these girls and their techniques so far away you can’t even utter a *cough* ‘entrapment’, guys either don’t spot them or spot them and don’t care.
It’s a confusing turn of events. Is that, in contrast to our inclination to treat them with respect and care, how guys should be treated? Is that what they want? A woman who orders them around and emasculates them?
WoW or Bust
My ex dumped me for World of Warcraft.
We’d been together for six months and, although I don’t mind a bit of gaming and enjoy a bit myself, I was frustrated that WoW was his only and all-consuming pastime.
I’m not really one for ultimatums, but it eventually came down to: It’s me or WoW.
He chose WoW.
If It’s Between You And Me…
Sometimes break-up letters and break-up reasons come down to simple choice—that it’s either you or me. And we all know that all the talk of looking out for each other, having each others’ best interests at heart, and trying to remain friends go out the window when Relationship Darwinism kicks in. Then it becomes survival of the fittest.
What constitutes ‘fittest’ can be less physique, more mental acuity. The ability to compartmentalise or quash feelings, or having crafted the frustrating-to-partners art of being completely and utterly emotionally unavailable, is a boon.
As is the ability to pull poetry and philosophy out of heartbreak—if you can not be mean outright and if you can leave them puzzling, you’ve succeeded. Say, for example, the succinct words of one clever bathroom door break-up philosopher whose ex will now be wondering if they were the cause or simply the collatoral damage in a bigger life issue: I miss your smile, but I miss mine more.
The Drunk, Dumped Girls’ Talking Stick
I used to think that Who would use coin-operated straightening irons in a public toilet? was a rhetorical question. After all, who knows whose hair those tongs have touched? That and that pub/nightclub toilets are nefarious places in which you don’t want to spend too much time—if there aren’t germs on the tongs, they’re on everything else.
But it turns out that the rhetorical question isn’t rhetorical at all. Coin-operated straightening irons are, it seems, the drunk, recently dumped girls’ equivalent of a talking stick. You mightn’t want to hear what they’ve got to say and they might appear slightly mad with their tear-softened mascara running down their too-made-up cheeks, but uber-hot irons being flung with floppy wrists and a lack of either spacial awareness or an ability to read general social nuances are not to be messed with.
The coin-operated irons might have been installed by some savvy entrepreneurs who saw a business opportunity in the form of milking money from girls whose otherwise-wavy hair has begun to spring back to its natural, non-ironed form part way through the night out, but the straightening irons are also a handy microphone. Although a drunk, dumped girl might do the odd bit of straightening, that really only happens when she’s gathering her thoughts—the bulk of paid-up straightening time is used for wielding irons in punctuation.
These girls vacillate between talking to themselves, irons in hand, eyes on themselves in the mirror. But you become an unwilling and captive audience when you emerge from the cubicle and, paying more attention to making sure your dress isn’t tucked into your underpants than who should be avoided near the faucets, unwittingly end up their captive audience.
Studious hand washing and a determination not to make eye contact don’t work with these girls. Alcohol, bruised emotions, a broken heart, and the empowerment of the hot talking stick quash any willingness or ability to pick up on your body language, which says, ‘I’d love to hear your story, but I have to get back to my friends. Who are waiting outside. To go.’
Instead, you’re forced to listen to their rants about what a bastard he is, how they were wronged, do you know what he said, how she [the new slapper he’s already shacked up with] is a slut, how she [as in the storyteller] deserves better than him, and how she’s going to show him just how fabulous she is and what he’s missing out on, girlfriend [cue emphatic horizontal head waggle followed by some actual, token strokes of hair straightening].
There might be a few questions in there for you—say, for example, whether you’ve ever been cheated on—but the conversation will either swing back to her before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth to answer or your affirmative answer will be like hitting bonding gold and you’ll be her new best friend.
The tongs will then take on a hypnotic kind of quality, and you’ll find yourself hearing less of her repetitive, slurred, impassioned rant and seeing more of the irons’ mesmerising arc. Right about the time that you’re marvelling at how someone so drunk and so unaware of how dangerous her uncontrolled gesticulations with a hot implement are can actually not be burning herself, one of your friends will lob into the bathroom, search party-like.
The trance will be broken, the situation will be communicated up through eye contact, and the drunk girl—or at least the drunk girl wielding the hot irons—will pause as she eyes off and ponders how to draw in her next new best friend mid-way through the tale. It will give you time enough to make an escape and, as she wonders where you’ve gone, where she was up to, and what you even looked like, the drunk girl will find that she needs to insert more coins. Her straightening iron/talking stick time has run out.
Cutting The Cheese
They say you should never discuss religion or politics, but the truth is that the real relationship dealbreakers are not only the things that you don’t discuss, they’re the things that are so small you don’t think you should have to.
Like the way your partner charges their phone, sorts their laundry, or cuts the cheese.
—–
One plus one charger adds up
I can’t explain how much power is being wasted, how many glaciers are melting, and how many near-extinct animal species are dying as a result of you leaving your one, measly phone charger permanently, power-suckingly plugged in. Nor should I have to. Physics 101 tells me that it’s warm, ergo it’s drawing power, and somewhere out there, Bambi and Bambi’s mom are dying. As are the polar bears, who are drowning because there’s no longer a solid, hospitable glacier on which to live because we cooked it with climate change.
Nor do I care that in the ‘grand scheme’ of energy use, as you keep putting it, one phone charger isn’t going to make or break the planet. The truth is that it is. Because it’s not just one phone charger. It’s the one you have at home, the one you have at work, the laptop cable you also leave plugged in, your flatmates’ phone chargers and laptop cables…and you’re just one household.
Magnify that by billions of people on the planet—and I mean billions—with mobile phones proving ubiquitous, even in such countries as Africa, where there’s almost 70 per cent penetration and where the mobile phone has bypassed and rendered obsolete the traditional landline…it’s fucking huge and your leaving your chargers (plural) plugged in and drawing down power drives me fucking wild.
What you don’t understand that it’s the principle of the matter and the fact that this one action speaks volumes for the many actions you’re not taking. If you don’t care about the environment—you regularly prove through your actions that you don’t, even while you big yourself up to everyone else as being down with the environmentalists—care about your electricity bill, which is unnecessarily and ridiculously large.
Either way, I won’t apologise for unplugging your and your flatmates’ unnecessarily, permanently-plugged-in power cables. One plus one charger adds up—financially and environmentally.
—–
What’s mine is yours, except when it comes to folding
Logic would tell you that if there’s clean washing needing folding sitting on the bed when you want to go to sleep, you need to do something about it. What I don’t understand is your logic to sift through said washing, pick out, fold, and put away your items—each individual sock, each pair of no-longer-scungy undies—then push my items onto my side of the bed.
Is it too much—or so difficult—to fold and put away mine too? It’s not as though I only ever cook just for me, only wash up and put away my dishes, or only clean ‘my half’ of the toilet—you know, the inside part, because I manage to get mine neatly, flushingly in the bowl every time.
Looking after your own stuff is actually worse than if you picked up all of the clean clothes and dumped them on the floor. And when I find you, all angelic-like, tucked up and sleeping sweetly in your clothes pile-less side of the bed, I have to fight the urge to slap you awake and then smother you. And to do both with my clean, unpaired, unfolded, un-put-away sock that’s been mooshed up as part of a selfishly left mini clothes mountain on my side.
—–
The way you cut your cheese
Snickering when I use the term ‘cut the cheese’ might be appropriate the first time, but by the 50th, it’s no longer funny and you should no longer be laughing. I tried ‘slice the cheese’, but you were convinced that that was a euphemism too. Let me make myself clear: there are no euphemisms; your cheese-slicing technique is completely pants.
I’m more than happy to help you with your golf swing, your pool-playing technique, but I’m not so happy to have to help you with your ability to wield a knife straight as you attempt to slice off and serve yourself a piece of cheese. Or rather, I would be, but you won’t have me help you. Shouldn’t your parents have taught you this before the age of seven? And don’t you like your spread of cheese flavour with your cracker to be even, anyway?
I don’t understand how you can’t cut straight down on the end of the cheese block. You manage it fine with other foods that require slicing up. I can’t imagine that you’d put up with me slicing the bread dodgily, yet expect me to put up with it when you do it to the cheese?
I realise, of course, you’re mystified that it upsets me so much. Believe me, I’m mystified too. But the point is that there are no euphemisms here. Your poor technique so drives me spare, that I’m seriously thinking about breaking up with you.
—–
As I said, it’s the big issues that prove the dealbreakers. Like how your partner folds their washing, leaves chargers willy-nilly plugged in, and how they cut the cheese.
It’s Not Me, It’s You
It must be you. Because I’m fine with it. Really I am. The sex is great, and I mean great. You agree with my ideals, you are exactly who I should want to be with. But I’m just not … I’m not sure, I’m just not there. It’s not that you’re not wonderful, because you are. You’re kind and caring. You’re funny. You’re everything I should want. But I don’t.
Is it an availability issue? Is it that you fit my criteria? Maybe in this modern world we need a challenge—and if the elements of challenge aren’t there then there’s nothing to strive for. Do we strive to achieve the next level too much? Probably. And what if all our plans are answered immediately? Well then maybe we just give up.
I’m sure it’s not me. Really. I mean, how could it be? Relationships aren’t meant to be easy, that’s the whole point. Where’s the fun in being happy to see each other all the time? Once we’ve bought the widescreen TV, where do we go from there? Our dishes are done, our picket fence is shiny white, our garden is weeded. What does Saturday hold but more weeding? We could have a kid, or we could join neighbourhood watch. Saturday morning could be for shopping and chores, and Sunday night could be ironing. But where would we go from there?
I mean, happiness is all well and good, but what about the rest of the world? What about the forgotten few? Apparently there are a few guys (and gals) on the street on any given night. Apparently there are a few folk that can’t afford TVs. Apparently there are a few folk who can’t afford water. Maybe we should be getting off our asses and helping them instead.
Maybe it isn’t all you. Maybe some of it’s me. And maybe I’m scared that if I become happy I’ll stop caring about those folk. Maybe we all need a little uncertainty to make us realise that the folk who need help won’t get it if everyone’s happy.
Please Don’t Make The Mistake Of Thinking…
Dear Diary
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that men and women operate in even vaguely similar ways. I can assure that they don’t. I mean, who would think that showing interest in a man (who has been showing equal interest in you) would then make said male run in the opposite direction. Or if not run, stop returning texts and making an effort to catch up.
The more you can squash your feelings and pretend to yourself and him that you don’t have any, the greater response you will get. Just remember, emotions are messy and sticky and do not attract men like bees.
Of course, then there is the argument that if you have to pretend, he is not the right guy for you. If that is the case, then based on my dating history there will never be a right guy and my future as a spinister is looking bright.
Maybe I should invest my energy for dating into making spinisterhood a cool choice as opposed to the reality of it being state of jaded desperation.
So, as I spend another Saturday night in, reading books and watching bad TV, I sign off, my friend.
P.S. I hate all women or men who instantly find another great partner one after another. Four years in between is too long.
We May Be Over
I have wanted to express these thoughts to you for while now but have been putting it off as I feel like as soon as I do we may be over. I don’t really want us to be over, but I don’t think I can stay in this honestly without some change. On reflection, this will all be reminiscent of the conversation we had in April; I suppose not much has changed since then. So let’s take two.
In order for me to hang out with you I have had to try to close my heart in an attempt to not get hurt. I’m not sure how successful I have been. You may say ‘What relationship?’ in reference to us, but even though we are not a ‘couple’, this is a relationship of sorts. I have become quite accustomed to ‘us’ and this arrangement we have; it doesn’t feel natural for me to try to close myself off to someone I feel so much connection to.
Now I’m concerned about what effect this kind of false energy is having on me. So this is it isn’t it? I can’t imagine that we will ever progress from what we have now. We would probably just stay like this ’til you met someone you would rather fuck or I met someone I wanted to be with or we just.. got over it. There is no allowance for us to grow anyway, in this stagnant existence.
Sometimes I feel like you can’t wait for me to meet someone else so I will leave you the fuck alone, especially when you make comments like, “Why didn’t you hook up with someone at that party?” I know we are ‘single’ but comments like these don’t make a girl feel too special.
If I’m completely honest, I want a real, heartfelt relationship. It’s now been over three years for me being single and I’m completely ready to share with someone in a real and connected way. I feel like by spending time with you I am closing myself off from meeting a potential partner. I can’t open a new door while another door is open, but I’m just hanging in your doorway and you’re not inviting me in.
I have had a couple of people ask me out and have flatly said no without hesitation. Maybe if not for you I would have said yes or at least considered it. Who knows? The problem is that ‘you’re the one that I want’ and you don’t want a partner or me for that matter. What a quandary!
I feel compelled to ask: why is that anyway? Do you even really know? Is it that you’re too scared of being hurt again? Is it that you do want a partner but only with the ‘perfect woman’ and I don’t fit into that category? Are you of the opinion that relationships all turn to shit eventually or are you just to damn concerned about your ex’s reaction? I am not buying your hazy ‘evolved’ based explanation. I think it’s just a cop out.
I want to be able to tell you I love you without feeling I’m crossing this line we have between us. This line that is bold, unspoken and drawn by you. How were we ever supposed to evolve anyway under these restrictions? I feel like whenever we do take one small step forwards it leads to two big steps back. I want to make even the smallest, future plans with you without the fear of crossing that line. I want to give and show you love in the way that comes naturally to me, and of course feel like I am loved back. I think I am deserving of this.
I feel like we are having some secret affair, sneaking around your kids (and your ex for that matter). I feel like there are topics of conversations between us that are just off limits, with too many limitations on the whole. Don’t get me wrong. Obviously I adore and love you and the time we spend together, but I am quite affected by some of the things that have happened between us and I don’t even think you have thought twice about them. Like: you not even being brave enough to go to the bloody library with me on the tiniest chance that your ex will maybe see us there! That hurt me. I figure that you are happy to flat out hurt me like that in exchange for the smallest chance that she might get hurt. (I don’t think you are aware how much you placate her to your own detriment.) This is not ideal for me.
I don’t want to be a mistress; it’s kind of degrading. I know we had a couple of encounters under less than desirable circumstances in the past but I don’t feel like we really need that sentiment to continue or punish ‘us’ for that matter. Although, in hindsight, it’s what I kind of signed up for, as you were always pretty clear about what you did and didn’t want (bar a few confusing mixed messages).
There is only so long two people can hang out when they both want different things and we seem to be functioning around your wants. What about what I want? We talked about honoring, supporting and respecting one another, and I feel that we have managed that, to a degree. But maybe you don’t respect me in the way I need or we have different ideas about what respect is.
I have let so many things that you have said and done slide as you have just come out of a massive relationship and I am trying to give you room to heal from this so that you can move on. Plus, I don’t really want to have drama with you (or anyone for that matter). I don’t think we have been able to develop a dialogue between us to be able to communicate and deal with issues that arise. They just go unspoken and I deal with them on my own and in my own head.
I think you have had such a massive year and have handled most of it wonderfully! I was under the impression that you do have high emotional intelligence and are capable of successful communication. But you have slowly cut me off from that side of yourself. Sadly, I now feel that I’m not really even respecting myself by staying in a situation where I am just getting what I can, when I can, and all on your terms.
So do we call it quits again? It has been over a year since we first hooked up and I was kind of hoping you might one day want what I want. But I can’t really see that happening and I’m not prepared to wait on some delicate hope only to be disappointed (again: degrading). Let it be known that in my heart ending us is not what I want us to do.
I don’t say this to be dramatic or spiteful but I truly believe that one day you may regret not snatching me up and making me yours when you had the chance. I only say this because I truly believe that you and I would make a stellar team. I won’t go into why or how as that could be just futile and/or embarrassing, especially if you don’t feel the same way. Who knows? Maybe we would just fuck out and end up hating each other. I could risk that, as I honestly think the odds of that happening are small.
I need to be true to my heart and therefore make room for someone to give my heart to who actually wants it. That could be you if you allowed yourself to open your heart to me. Ending this affair with you would be hard for me; last time we stopped seeing each other was crap. I never really told you what I went through then, but it was fucked!
You need to tell me that you don’t want me as a partner. I need to hear this from you again so I can move on properly this time. I do love you and probably always kind of will. Fuck it! I think you’re one of the most fantastic people I have ever met! I know I should and can move on. I just need to know from you that I should to help me start that journey. xxx
By Sam
Get Hot And Get Over It
A couple of years ago, I was sitting around with two friends, Little Miss E and Cuddles, denouncing men and criticising their apparent inability to process what catches we are after the recent break-up between Cuddles and her boyfriend.
I can’t remember what the circumstances were (no doubt it was his fault, or at least this is how I remember pretty much all my friends’ break-ups) and as I was delivering some variation of a ‘you’re too good for him anyway’ speech, Little Miss E piped up with her contribution: ‘just get hot’.
Before I could protest the lack of empirical evidence to support this as a healing strategy or otherwise refute the suggestion, Little Miss E went on.
Cuddles could either sit around eating ice cream, wallowing in her misery and doing her body zero favours, or she could join a gym, get her jollies from some endorphins, top it off with a spray tan and hair appointment, and feel awesome when she next ran into the dreaded ex (which, in Adelaide, only ever takes a few weeks even when you’re actively avoiding them).
The more I thought about it, the more I had to concede that Little Miss E’s seemingly stupid and superficial plan actually had a lot of merit to it. Even when you set aside the health and mood-elevating benefits of exercise, I don’t know anyone who wants to look like shit when a person who rejected them is around. I’ve spent far more time agonising over my appearance when I’ve known I was going to run into an ex than when I’ve gone out with a potential new flame.
I’m not entirely sure why this is, but it does seem to be a phenomenon predominantly seen in females. This probably stems back to being conditioned to value our appearance over other aspects of our selves, but it’s also true that it’s a lot easier to make your ex regret everything they ever did wrong if their friends are smacking them over the head for letting you go because you’re obviously a fox, than with your bewitching cackle and love of Bollywood reminding them how awesome you are and what a doofus he or she is/was.
Of course, none of this is really going to change anything between you and your ex, but your first encounter with them is going to feel a whole lot less painful if you feel confident, which is a whole lot easier if you are confident, which is a whole lot easier if you feel like you look good which, in turn, is a whole lot easier if you actually do look good. And ultimately, this is the crux of Little Miss E’s theory.
And exercise is heaps good for you, blah blah blah.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
How To Be Friends With Your Ex
1. Let shit go. No matter whether you break up on good or bad terms, there is almost always some residue from a relationship that is never going to be fully resolved. Let it go. It’s over.
2. Be on the same page. In all technicality, if one of you sees the friendship as a deviated path back into a relationship, then it’s not a friendship. But for the sake of including another point on this list, then I’ll say that it’s important to make any such intentions clear from the outset. It can be quite hurtful knowing that someone who was only ever friends with you in the first place had ulterior motives, and allowing an ex back into your life under what turn out to be false pretences adds another layer of deceit. Having this conversation early on will also likely diffuse any potentiality for sexual tension.
3. Don’t have sex. Would you have sex with your best friend? If not, then don’t do it with your ex. If you would, then you need new friends. Friendship is defined by the absence of sex and all its derivatives and just because you used to touch each other doesn’t grant you an exemption.
4. Be comfortable in any given social situation. In other words, if seeing your ex kissing someone else is going to send you ragin’, you probably can’t be friends. They are going to kiss people and they are going to date people, and these people might even be your friends. If you can only be friends with an ex for as long as you are both single, then you need more time.
5. Make sure the timing is right. New partners may feel threatened by the sudden re-appearance of an ex, and if you’re both single, it might be all too tempting to get back together. Neither of these situations mean death to a blossoming friendship, but they do require some negotiation.
6. Don’t take lingering trips down memory lane. This doesn’t mean that you can’t bring up things that happened while you were together, but there is a distinct difference between ‘remember that camping trip?’ and ‘remember how I loved you alllllll night long in the tent on that camping trip?’
7. And above all, exercise a bit of a common sense. This list isn’t exactly communicating revolutionary ideas and yet, far too many friendships with ex-partners fail because people doesn’t use their head. If you still love them, it won’t work. If you’ve only just broken up, it won’t work. If you secretly relish drunken nights out together because you can justify away any lapses in the plutonicness of your relationship, it won’t work.
Some ex-partners won’t ever be friends, but the intimacy that is fostered in relationships can often translate into a really wonderful friendship.
Sometimes it’s not love that’s all you need, but time.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Feet First
‘The problem is that they don’t show you the bad stuff until it’s too late’ was the complaint of one female friend.
‘As in they don’t show you the serial-cheating, serial-killing side to their personality until you inadvertently bust them doing both?’ we asked.
‘Well, that too,’ she said. ‘But I was meaning more their manky toenails.’
Her very valid gripe was that unless you’re dating a surfer and your dates involve beach-based barefoot activities, you get at least a few dates in before a prospective boyfriend removes his shoes. Which means that by then it’s generally pretty poor form to reel in abject horror and run dry reaching at the state of the claws—I mean, nails—protruding Where The Wild Things Are-like from his toes.
How guys—and so many of them—can have such long, yellow, and clearly untended toenails is something of a mystery to most women. We’re not necessarily talking pedicures, but surely it’s not unreasonable to expect nails to be clipped and clean—the equivalent of head hair’s short back and sides? I mean, for starters, wouldn’t long, wonky nails jut and scrape painfully against their shoes?
But many men seem strangely unaware of their feet festy-ness. It’s as if they think anything below the crotch doesn’t require maintenance; and even then the above stuff can be dubious. At best, feet are hideous appendages. At worst, they’re dealbreakers. Like body odour—an issue that you should have gotten under control somewhere in the vicinity of, say, puberty.
But short of asking them to keep their socks on 24/7, giving them unsubtle vouchers for podiatrist appointments or pedicure treatments, or only dating guys who wear toe-exposing man sandals—the latter of which brings with it a raft of other issues—is there really an answer? Should girls have to honestly, awkwardly point this stuff out?
Itching For Out
You know your boyfriend’s just itching for a way out when you return from an overseas trip where you were surrounded by buff men. When you tell him that you had some offers that you didn’t take up (because you love him and are telling him this to demonstrate your commitment), his response is not ‘I love you too’, but is an immediate, hard: ‘Why didn’t you?’
Break-Up Travel Badges Of Honour
The most harrowing, I’m-not-sure-if-I’m-going-to-survive-this travel experiences—the ones that involve you getting carjacked in Patagonia and being left money-less, passport-less, and dressed only in your underpants in the side of a road in the middle of nowhere—are the very same ones that—once you’re home, safe and sound, and wearing more than your tighty whities—turn out to be your most cherished travel stories. They’re the ones you proudly recount when conversations head in that direction. Moreover, with the bar raised so thrillingly high, a trip without some sort of mugging or food poisoning horror starts to become a trip considered not done properly.
It’s the same with break-ups. When you’re going through them, they’re the bleakest, most all consuming, and emotionally devastating experiences from which you’re certain you’ll never recover. But when you’re through them, when you’ve achieved that whole success-is-the-best-revenge satisfaction or simply stopped thinking or caring one iota about that person you were so convinced you could not live without, those baddest-of-the-bad break-ups are the badge-of-honour stories that you’ll happily trot out. And you’ll find them funny.
Trust, Betrayal, and Email
Once upon a time, I had a boyfriend who had an ex-girlfriend who had a Facebook account. I knew they were in contact, but the way he described their relationship was the way we are always told is indicative of their being truly over it: brief and amicable.
Nonetheless, when he accidentally left his account logged into Facebook on my computer one day and I came across an email from this particular ex-girlfriend beginning with the words ‘I miss you’, I was not without suspicion.
But she was in Scotland and he was in Australia and, wanting to take the course of action that was less likely to label me as unhinged, I logged out of his account and never mentioned it.
A year on they were living together.
Could I have avoided this situation in which I continued a relationship with someone who was invested in someone else? Should I hold myself in some greater regard because I took the moral high ground even though it was ultimately to my detriment? Was I even entitled to know the details of conversations which did not include me?
These are questions that often arise when we are presented with the dilemma of whether to invade our partner’s privacy for the sake of potential self-preservation. The fact that my suspicions were correct is somewhat irrelevant; the greater issue was that I did not trust the person I was with enough to believe he was acting in our relationship’s best interests. The perceived need or desire to look through a call list or read a diary is merely a symptom of the distrust that has arisen in a relationship.
We are all so intently focused on what someone will find out should they have a glance through our inbox that we rarely think to ask ourselves why our partner would feel the need to do so. In most healthy relationships, no information will be found out through this avenue that is likely to change someone’s mind about continuing the relationship and the fundamental mistake we make is ignoring what has propelled the dishonest behavior. People who feel comfortable and secure in their relationship do not tend to monitor their partner’s interactions with others, not least of all because personal correspondence is shit boring (unless you’re dating Emily Dickinson). Yet creating a situation where someone feels they must resort to these measures for validation does not leave their partner free of fault.
Admittedly, this mindset does overlook those who are paranoid and mistrusting beyond reprieve, but it is often those of us who are generally well adjusted but who cannot elicit an explanation for a change in behavior or relationship dynamic that then resort to secretive and desperate means to seek out this information. Given that trust is so fundamental to the foundations of romantic liaisons, the lack of it that evokes somewhat unbalanced behavior is of perhaps even greater concern than the violation of trust that occurs when one’s phone or computer has been hijacked. If someone is not willing to put our fears to rest (or cannot do so because they are indeed acting in a way that is damaging), then they need to take some of the responsibility for this outcome too.
This invasion of privacy tends to be a simple battle of who was more wrong after the fact and the punishment that befalls the invader is based on whether they found out anything the invadee shouldn’t have kept from them. But this isn’t really the issue at all. Whether their suspicions were confirmed or disproven does little to address the problem of one partner not trusting the other, and this is a far greater threat to a relationship than a few flirty emails.
So would my ex have been less at fault if I’d been wrong about the nature of his relationship with his ex? Well, yes, where emotional fidelity is concerned. But it makes little difference when considering his responsibility to treat me in a way that would’ve made me feel comfortable and secure in the relationship. Chances are, this was not something he could offer largely because of his attachment to the no-longer-ex-girlfriend. Whatever the reason had been though, he was not fulfilling the expectations I had of him.
Ultimately, I cannot advocate hacking into email accounts as a way to better your relationship but there is no easy way to handle the suspected dishonesty of a partner, especially if they make no attempts to settle the unease of distrust.
But if I had access to a time machine, would I go back and read the Scot’s message?
You bet.
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
Third Time Unlucky
Over three years, he broke up with me three times—it was pretty much an annual tradition. The first time was because he was scared he was in love with me. The second time it was because he was in love with me, but was afraid our relationship would ‘hold him back’ from pursuing his dreams. The third time was, predictably, because he realised he didn’t actually love me at all.
A Slap In The Facebook
Typically, telling your girlfriend that you accidentally went on a date with someone who wasn’t her can only be a funny story if the news is quickly followed by ‘and then I told her I had a girlfriend’. So I was surprised when Bon Jovi* instead rattled off the reasons why he’d spent several hours on a pseudo-date with someone who still had no idea I existed.
‘Couldn’t you just drop my name into conversation?’
‘No it’s not like that. It would have been rude because I’ve known she’s liked me for a while.’
‘Um, why were you having dinner with her again?’
‘Oh I’m not interested like that, but she’s such a nice girl and that’s a big part of why I couldn’t tell her.’
‘What?’
‘I couldn’t just jump on the table in the middle of dinner and start yelling that I’m with someone.’
‘Is that how you usually bring it up?’
‘She’s also my dealer so I can’t piss her off.’
‘Right.’
‘But luckily I had a cold sore.’
‘What?’
‘Well, it was a good excuse not to kiss her.’
‘Isn’t having a girlfriend perhaps a good excuse not to kiss her?’
I can only assume that it was some combination of shock and sheer confusion that rendered me unable to respond appropriately to this conversation (i.e. with some level of impassioned frustration), because I instead took a more jovial and pragmatic approach.
‘Is this your way of wrangling a Facebook relationship request out of me?’
‘Hell no. Absolutely not. No way. Nope, not a chance,’ he declared, before realising I might perceive this reaction as rude. ‘No offence.’
At first I took this to be similar to my own disdain for Facebook relationship statuses. Like most people who think they are above social networking sites, I thought that publicly announcing your coupledom online was a juvenile statement made by those who felt insecure in their relationships, or who otherwise wanted to advertise their paired-off bliss to make everyone else feel inadequate.
This was why defining the parameters of my relationship with Bon Jovi some weeks earlier as indeed being those of a relationship did not prompt me to immediately run to a computer and flood my friends’ newsfeeds with the update. But the inadvertent date with another girl, and his reluctance to explicitly share that he was now unavailable made me reconsider my stance.
Using sites like Facebook and Myspace to publicise a relationship status with a five hundred-strong audience can indeed seem rather trite, but what I realised after discussing the matter with Bon Jovi for ten minutes was that it really wasn’t worth the trouble either way. As ridiculous as it is to feel that a Facebook status is an important supplement to a relationship, it is equally ridiculous to strongly oppose the idea.
The only people who are likely to pay attention to your online relationship announcements are those who might be interested in pursuing you. As most people will be deterred by an existing relationship, it’s a quick way to let anyone who might be lusting from afar know that you’re off the shelf, without making them go through the old avenues of calling someone who knows someone who used to hang out with your best friend’s sister.
The other advantage that is likewise often overlooked is not having to spend the next seven months relaying that you’ve actually broken up when acquaintances ask how your significant other is. Although it’s a similarly trivial point, it also means that a few button-clicks can help avoid a great deal of awkwardness, not to mention boring and/or painful scrutiny about your relationship’s demise.
Facebook relationship statuses are not important, nor are they reflective of the partnership itself. But when you have spent more than two sentences discussing it with your partner, then it’s become a bigger issue than it ever should be.
Like everything else, how we share information is changing with the times. Where previously we would have had to shout it from the rooftops (or perhaps a couch), we can now let everyone in our social sphere know our relationship status through mediums such as Facebook. Or, alternatively, an online column…
Bon Jovi and I are no longer together.
(* denotes clumsy pseudonym)
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
The Naked Truth
Admittedly there’s never really a good time to be dumped, but I’d argue that it’s less good when you’re standing there stark naked.
As in naked because you’ve just stepped out of the shower and are attempting to dry yourself off and get dressed for what was, a micro second before that sliding doors moment, just any other day.
It’s poor but typical and fitting form that my now ex-boyfriend, whose tact and timing were never his fortes, chose that vulnerable, starkers moment to tell me it was over.
As I was both too shocked and too shaken to gather my senses and co-ordination and get dressed, what followed was a kind of drawn out break-up argument that was peep show meets physical embodiment of how my emotions were: stripped bare.
So Happy Together…Or Apart?
‘Long-distance love is the answer to lasting happiness,’ said a Spanish teacher I once had. In a speech entirely unrelated to the acquisition of a language, she told us that it’s the eternal honeymoon: no housework, no shared financial dramas, no need for ‘space’. And when you do see each other, she slyly said, there is a lot of touching to catch up on.
Most people want to undermine long-distance relationships, saying they don’t really test the relationship or show whether you’re truly compatible living together, or even in close proximity. All of this is true, but it also adheres to the idea that that’s what every relationship needs to look like, as though marriage or at least cohabitation should always be the goal.
A year ago, my deported then-boyfriend was allowed back into the country. We broke up shortly afterwards, but it occurred to me that had he not come back, our long-distance relationship probably could have continued for far longer. He mailed me collages and I called him to ramble after I’d been out drinking, and the time difference ensured he did not know it was a drunk dial. I missed him but I got used to it, and our liberal attitudes toward meeting other people meant that I rarely felt lonely or trapped.
Having my feelings tied up in someone who was on the other side of the Pacific wasn’t ideal, but it was an arrangement I was particularly well suited to at the time. He essentially became a sexually desirable friend who I could tell my secrets to. We didn’t know what would happen when he came back, or if he ever even would, but I appreciated it for what it was, not what it might become one day.
I doubt that anyone would say that long-distance relationships aren’t hard, but it’s not as though partners in close proximity are exempt from problems. Living apart from someone you care about has its own set of complications, but that doesn’t mean it’s a type of relationship that should be denounced by definition. A successful relationship and a long-distance one are not mutually exclusive, and if being apart is an arrangement that works for the parties involved, then there’s no reason to criticise a partnership that functions between countries, even if it only functions from overseas.
Every relationship we ever have except for one, maybe, is going to end. That may be a compelling reason as to why we shouldn’t waste our time on someone who’s far away, especially while we’re young, and long-distance relationships seem to inherently imply tedium, adultery and a squandered youth, after all. But it’s only a problem if those involved indeed see it this way.
Couples need to make their own rules, but there is no reason that long-distance relationships shouldn’t be pursued just as hard as those with people living nearby, if it’s not to anyone’s detriment. Especially when the person in question lives in a desirable location. Who wouldn’t love a reason to regularly visit Switzerland or Panama?
By Dunja Nedic. First published in lip magazine.
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