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November 22, 1999   CONTINUED e-mail e-mail to a friend in need

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SHE IS NOT THE GIRL I KNEW!

Dear Breakup Girl,

I wrote you over the summer about my angsty grieving over an ex-girlfriend. I spent all summer worrying about it because I broke up with her in the worst way possible (being a fan of brutal honesty and the better-late-than never school, it was along the lines of the "I was never really in love with you or physically attracted to you despite being very serious about you for a year and a half, which means we're not going to live with each other for the rest of our lives like we planned" sort of breakup). I expected a little bit of dyke drama about this, since she'd vowed never to speak to me again, and we'd both be on campus together this year, running into each other, etc. Well, we have run into each other frequently. And here's the odd part. (Well, there are several.) She says that she was upset over the summer but that she "got over it" and wants to be friends. Thankfully, she hasn't actually acted on that yet. Because even though she seems to be perfectly cheerful and OK to hang out with me, when I am around her, I'm full of the old familiar slab-of-rock-on-stomach feeling that Village Idiot mentioned. You know, the fifteen-feelings-at-once thing (fight-or-flight v. I'm sort of still attracted to her v. I want to sit down with her and process or be friends).

I don't think I could handle being friends with her. When I'm around her, I feel too guilty, depressed, and sad about how I broke up with her. (Thankfully, the guilt and so forth rears its head only when I'm around her. I can get on with my life otherwise.) My question is...well, I don't know what to do. I want to be friends with her and I don't. I really, really miss having her in my life as a close friend. Here's the caveat, though. You know how when people break up sometimes they tell the other person, "You never knew the real me, anyway?" Well, in her case, it's true. For the length of time I was going out with her, she was on migraine medicine which (little did I know) made her cynical, bitter, and angst-ful -- perfect for sarcastic, angsty me. It may seem weird, but we bonded over it. When I broke up with her, she'd stopped taking the medicine. Now the effects have worn off, and she is a completely different person: cheerful, very energetic, very very social. I really feel like I don't know her anymore, like, in a way, our relationship never happened. She is not the girl I knew. I'm not sure how I would be friends with her if I wanted to.

Another caveat is that this is the first time I've broken up with someone who has actually been in the same geographic area as me for an extended period of time. Usually, they conveniently graduate or move away. I think that what I'm going through here -- the fifteen-feelings-at-once when I run into her -- is my grieving process for our relationship, which is newly formed and scares me. Because she doesn't appear to be feeling anything like that. And I can't help comparing myself to her ... in which case I feel like I should have "gotten over it" long ago. I mean. I broke up with her.

I don't want to get back together with her, because I was very unhappy in the relationship. I'd like to be friends with her somehow, but I have too many residual issues right now. My question: I don't know how to heal from this. I don't know how to interact with her without gazing searchingly into her eyes simultaneously hoping she will want to be friends with me again AND that she will leave me alone. What I want from her is some kind of acknowledgement either that she still hurts or that she's forgiven me. I feel like she's completely dismissed the relationship and me. Should I actively pursue a friendship with her or let myself heal from this relationship by means of being in touch with my emotions when we just happen to run into each other? In other words, will pursuing a friendship with her help me to heal from the breakup or hinder it? I think of it as aversion therapy: maybe if I force myself to be around her, my emotions will calm down?

--Angsty


Dear Angsty,

Your crazy mixed-up stir fry of emotions -- Fifteen-Feelings-at-Once, Slab-of-Rock-on-Stomach -- do sound like dishes on the special part of the Chinese menu. But I cannot tell you how normal they are. (Especially when you're the dumper: thanks for your oh-so-true treatise on the underacknowledged phenomenon of dumper angst.)

How to polish them off? Well, not the way you say. Aversion (or is it Immersion?) therapy might work well for, like, spiders (and, as I've found in my travels, Los Angeles). But with exes, not so much. On the contrary, in fact. You said it yourself: "The guilt and so forth rears its ugly head only when I'm around her." When feelings are still raw, seeing her exacerbates your fear of ... seeing her. I know you're "angsty," but there's no need to work it. You'd be better off quitting the Chinese seeing-her torture. If you'd like to be friends with her someday, that's more than fine. But forcing yourself to see her now is one big great wall that does not wind toward friendship.

Then again, of course, one of the reasons you sorta want to see her is to see if she's miserable yet. Not an effective plan, Angsty. First of all, just because she doesn't look miserable doesn't mean she's not. (For one thing, this is her brain off drugs.) Maybe she doesn't want to TALKtalk because her glacial self has shifted on ... or because it's too painful for her? You just can't know for sure. Hey, you'd feel just as rattled -- and more responsible -- if she were visibly in despair. And, frankly, guilty if you'd "moved on" faster. So do your bestest to remember this Important Breakup Girl Maxim: Your closure does not -- cannot -- depend on the other person. Resolution is a one-person, do-it-yourself job. Otherwise, you'd still be in a relationship.

So for right now, "pursue" nothing. If you avoid her for a while, you won't have to worry about sussing out whether she's the one avoiding you. When the slab has slid off and you feel steadier on your feet, then you two can meet for New-Flavor-Friendship-in-Lotus-Nest.

Love,
Breakup Girl

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