23 Days Until the Break-Up

In your history of relationships with the opposite sex, the following sequence of events has no doubt happened to you.

You’re in a long-term relationship and you absolutely love it. The two of you operate like you were meant for one another. The world knows you couldn’t be happier with your partner, probably because you insist on telling the world even when they don’t care. Maybe she’s rewarded you with adorable pictures, maybe you’ve gotten her a gift, too – I hear earrings are nice for any occasion. Yeah, there’s no doubt that you two are joined at the hip.

Literally.

But relationships are not easy – no, no. Once you get comfortable with a person, you may start to get lazy – to develop some bad habits. Maybe you don’t take the time to push all the right buttons – voice activation is easier and less-time consuming. Maybe she doesn’t remember to tell you when your buddy called about going to the baseball game until long after the final out has been made. Suddenly, there’s these growing pains that puppy love just wasn’t accustomed to handle. And at the time when you want to show her off out on the town, she just wants to be at home, as she puts it, “recharging her batteries.”

What happened to the good times? What about when you were too tired to copy the notes of the blackboard in grad school, so she stepped up and used her multi-pixel photographic memory to copy them for you? When was the last time you knew that it was going to snow out, and you offered to keep huddled within your overcoat to avoid the harsh winter elements? Heck, you don’t even get excited when you hear your song – in this instance U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday – on the radio.

It may be the end of the line.

At some point in your relationship, you know that the end is in sight. You face the facts, and you realize that the two of you aren’t meant for one another for all eternity. You’ll move on and find a new partner, she may end up in the gutter. But listen, man, that’s not your problem. You need to be strong, say what you need to say to her, and turn the page. And since you’re going to have this discussion of monumental importance, you better have a damn good reason as to why you want to break up.

Here is mine.

Ever since September, my current cellular significant other has changed. Every time I look at her to see her multi-color face, all I get is a blinding white, faceless stare in return. I ask her questions like “Hey, what time is it?” and “Did I get any text messages?” and she responds with nothing. Silence. I have to guess what’s going on in that little head of hers, since she has no plan on showing me directly. If we have guests coming over unexpectedly, she won’t tell me who it is until I open the door and see them face-to-face. In the last 7 months, that’s come back to haunt me more than once.

Of course, she’s no idiot, either. She knows that the relationship has soured and that the end may be near. The thing is, she knows that you’re a catch – losing you in her life may lead to a life of solitude, probably in a drawer somewhere. So what does she do? She makes those desperate attempts to win you back. She’ll open her eyes and you see all the Technicolor brilliance that you first fell in love with. Dates, times, people’s phone numbers – she’s willing and able to give you any information you need. She lets you know who’s calling and just how much time you have before she decides it time to go to sleep and black out for the night. You love this – her drive to win you back, and for a fleeting second, you think that you can make this work. God, maybe we have a chance to work things out. Verizon has so many damn people following me all the time – one of them must be a couples’ therapist, right?

The next morning you wake up full of hope. You pull her tight, only to get that cold, white, blank stare once again. And then you realize the sad reality of it all.

Too little, too late.