Damien Galeone

Who Knew?

A few weeks ago, I wrote this message to a friend on Facebook:

Hey, let’s grab a beer this weekend!

The friend is female, Czech, and a person I had seen socially a few times recently. She wrote back:

Hey! You are so great and so much fun! (enter 30 emoticons here)

Me: Thanks! (because who doesn’t love an unsolicited compliment?)

Her: But…

Me (in my head) But? But what? My anxiety took off into a variety of trajectories. Had I done something wrong? Had I been rude? What was this “but” business about?

Her: I’m just not feeling it! I’m sorry. Still, you are so awesome, you deserve someone who appreciates you.

It was then I realized what was happening: I was being dumped. Nobody likes being dumped. It hurts. It sucks. Songs and books and movies and art have been created in order to detail the misery that follows being dumped. And surely this dumping would have come as much more of a blow if I had also realized that I was dating this person.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to save face. I have been dumped and I have been dumped hard. One thing women never seem to have a problem doing is breaking things off with me. I have run the gamut of being dumped, as well. I’ve been dumped in bars, on dates, on first dates, before first dates, and by women who didn’t know they were dating me. I’ve been let go in several date venues: restaurants, pubs, theaters, bowling alleys, at dances.

Moreover, I’ve been dumped using a broad range of conduits: by girls, their friends, their mothers, their answering machines, via email and text message, over the phone. I’m just waiting for the day that I get dumped on a Jumbotron at a baseball game or in skywriting at the beach.

But these were relationships I was actually in. Now, it seemed that women were first inventing a relationship I wasn’t part of, and then ending it. Apparently, simply being dumped wasn’t enough for the women of the world, they had to begin an offensive assault.

So I was truly confused to be getting some variation of “the talk.” I began reflecting: Why would she think I warranted this talk? We had only been out a couple of times and only for beers, not more classically date activities like dinner or a movie. There had been some physical fun, but nothing that would suggest we were moving towards being a couple. And certainly not a couple that needed to be dealt with by a swift blow from the Dumping Sword.

I started to wonder how I should react. Instinct told me not to fuss about the salient details. Coming back with We weren’t dating! would simply be inviting a relationship problem with someone I wasn’t in a relationship with in the first place. Thus, I’d be in a non-relationship dealing with the worst aspect of relationships: arguing. It’s like a person who doesn’t do drugs carrying around a kilo of cocaine and urinating on a police officer’s foot. Why do the time if you don’t even do the crime?

Additionally, I don’t want to raise a fuss because even though they were misplaced, her intentions were to be honest and open. I appreciated that.

Instinct also told me that I shouldn’t play it too cool. Sending a message which suggested that I overly didn’t care would, no matter how true, only make me look petty. The only reason I’d written was to suggest meeting for a beer and now I’d have to fabricate a pretend reaction to a break up that was hypothetical to me at best. I am obsessive; this is what I do.

If the tables were turned I’m fairly certain that she’d have no problem sending me a message which conveyed the utter hilarity of the scenario. I’d be left to question my judgment and overall sanity while drinking beer in my local pub.

In the end I decided to cut my losses, be a man, say thank you for the honesty, goodbye and walk away. And I did just that. It just wasn’t meant to be, after all. Besides, there are so many other women out there who would want a relationship with a catch like me.

Some even a real one.