So, it’s like this: Dated Mr. Steady, perfectly compatible for 6 years, lived together for 4+. We went to the same college and grad school, had every intellectual impulse in common, shared values that gave us unspoken ease together — the secret language. There were some dark spots, unfortunately and they sank us: he went from being the most successful guy in the world to having career paralysis that lasted for two years leaving him still solvent but unhappy. Our sex life was never more than tepid and got even quieter every year, but I wrote it off — what the hell, he’s my best friend, I’ll deal. Yes, that meant I suppressed all kinds of wandering/head-turning thoughts and had a series of weird dreams about standing at the altar and wanting to run away. But, being a momentum type person, I started to say it’s time to make some decisions about marriage etc….lemme know by New Year’s, two years ago. Which came and left, leaving us in ashen horror that it was time for someone to break the stasis. I booted him; he went quietly. No loss of love, just this realization that maybe this wasn’t it.
“When you meet that one special person, you’ll just KNOW.” Everyone says that to me. Is it true? Or is love all chance and timing. I have been in love, but no one has ever made me KNOW. What is KNOWing like?
— Katrina
Dear Katrina,
Breakup Girl has noticed that there are some things it’s hard to get specifics on, like what “management consultants” do all day, and what it feels like to KNOW. Here are a few observations and suggestions that might shed some light.
1. Sometimes when people smile mysteriously and say, “Oh…I just KNEW,” what they really mean is “Oh…I just… can’t remember.”
2. Don’t assume that KNOWing always occurs in a lightning-bolt moment. Sometimes it just drizzles into our consciousness, so that when the moment of truth comes, the word “yes,” or ” no,” or “decaf” is just there.
3. KNOWing is not unique to life-lasting love. How else do you think Breakup Girl KNOWs how to respond to this question? Look around your life for other examples of when you’ve just KNOWn — a college or fashion choice, perhaps? You might find that you know more about KNOWing than you realized.
You know?
I know, I know.
Love,
Breakup Girl
P.S. Doesn’t KNOW look like a really funny word now? Know, know, know. Okay, I’m done now.
One thing singles tell me a lot is that they enjoy singlehood, they really do — and that they would enjoy it even more if they knew, for super-sure guarantee, that it also had an end date. Well, one new movie — starring BG imaginary BFF Emma Caulfield as a gal named Oona — uses machine-as-metaphor to make that fantasy real. It’s TiMER, in which women and men may choose to be implanted with a device that counts down the days, minutes, and seconds until they meet The One. But Oona’s timer is blank. So what will she do? Like the rest of us in the real world, will she have to just “just know”?
From the trailer, TiMER looks like a sweet sci-fi wrapped in a chick-flick tied with a careful-what-you-wish-for bow. And since what we’ve been wishing for is the return of Emma Caulfield, we’re not gonna be careful at all. (Now if we could just know for sure when — or if — it’ll go into wide release.)
e-mail to a friend in need
It’s all about the timing on July 13, 1998…
