And I guess this might be the place for all of us to share our experiences getting dumped, isn't it? Apologies if I'm stealing any sort of attention, Mike.
I was dumped two months ago by the woman I thought I was going to marry. It was a long distance relationship that began in 2007, as I admired her writing from afar. Once 2009 rolled around, we proposed to try to be a romantic couple, and she began visiting from Florida (I am in NYC) every two or three months for weeks at a time. She had lots of disposable income, and I had none, so it was constantly her paying me visits, and we loved each other's company. We loved discussing movies, music, books. I made her a new mixtape every two weeks. We talked for more than an hour every day on the internet and on the phone, and she was always within reach. We shared everything. And yes, she did EVERYTHING in bed. And some people say everything, but I mean EVERYTHING.
We got into an argument while she was last visiting in November where she suddenly revealed that she didn't think I was giving 100% of myself to the relationship and that she wasn't happy. The main issue was that I hadn't visited Florida, though I had just been unfairly terminated from my menial job and was fighting my former employer, who had successfully blocked my unemployment benefits twice. She left that night, announcing to her 7000+ followers on Tumblr (yes, I know) that she was single, alone and in a hotel room in NYC. Baseless suspicions that I was meeting other girls or dating a week later (I wans't, I was too wrecked still) led her to stop talking to me completely. And so my only communications were via Tumblr, where I read her everyday essays and writing samples. Ocassionally she would make a veiled reference to me being somewhat unfaithful (I wasn't) or her not being enough for me(she was, and then some). It's a little weird to read something suggesting you're an unfit boyfriend and to see 80 people literally click "like" in response.
I started to pick up from her Tumblr in early December that she had already found another boyfriend. Then she started talking about being in love. Then she started talking about moving in with him. Then pictures of him alone started ending up on her Tumblr. Then I found out he, too, lived in New York City. There were times she visited me in NYC where I would be at work, but by and large we spent most of the time together. Who was this man? When did he enter her life? When did he become a lover? Is she really moving to New York City to live with another man when I always wanted her to move in with me? Why does he even kind of look like me?
I found this out while visiting my family during the holidays. In addition to their usual awfulness, I found that my mother had begun to read her Tumblr, and had firmly sided with her, despite not knowing what I did or might have been doing to screw up the relationship. She also commented on her being an "excellent writer" despite my lifelong writerly ambitions, which I'm pretty sure she has never commented on herself. There's no real resolution or "what now" step like Mike's predicament, I've just been drinking a lot and needed to vent about this somewhere. I"ve washed my hands of the whole thing, I think, but I am still going through an extremely dark depression, the first real big one of my entire life.
