A Scandalous Story of Love: The Break Up

Winter break came to an end and the guilty verdict soaked into my conscience. I headed back to college to start my spring semester of Sophomore year with my mind a complete jumble. I needed some clarity about this situation. I needed to reach some conclusions. The tiny analytical portion of my brain would need to come through for me and preserve normalcy once again by balancing the overbearing emotional side of me.

“So what’s going on with you and Mike?”, inquired the logical section of my brain.

I don’t know. Something’s missing. Something has changed. Mike and I are spending less and less time together. It seems like we have very little in common these days. He seems more distant, more distracted. I want to break up with him but I don’t want to hurt him. I feel guilty dumping him.

“If Mike’s not the right guy for you then you should just end it. There is NOTHING to feel guilty about! “, persuaded my left hemisphere.

Perhaps I feel guilty because I’m not being completely honest about my feelings? It’s not like I just came to the conclusion that Mike and I aren’t compatible on my own. My friendship with Duff has definitely influenced my perspective.

“How you came to the conclusion is not relevant. The first step is to break up with Mike. Only then can you begin to explore whether Duff and you even have a future together.”

The advice sounded so logical, so easy. Yet guilt still tugged at my heart preventing me from moving forward. I couldn’t very well continue in this suspended state forever, could I?!

Mid-January Mike went away on a ski trip for the weekend with his father and best friend. I was surprised when I wasn’t invited to join them but not disappointed. Over the weekend, the slight impetus I required to take action was presented to me. I learned Mike had cheated on me. I learned he flirted with girls outside of my presence and boasted about his philandering ways. I learned Mike was pond scum. I suddenly couldn’t break up with him fast enough. I planned to finish things the moment he returned from skiing.

Mike was hardly settled back in from his weekend getaway before I was ending our relationship. It actually went really well. No tears. No anger. No hard feelings at all. Wow, that was easy enough, I reflected, as I rode the elevator back downstairs and headed across campus to my dorm. I hadn’t an inkling of what lay ahead.

Duff and I had some very deep conversations in the days that followed sparked by the controversy surrounding our relationship. We couldn’t deny the attraction between us, the enjoyment of one another’s company, the desire to share the details of our daily lives but pursuing this could jeopardize so much. The only way we could rationalize moving forward was by determining if this would be something worthwhile.

Would this be more than a fling or just a case of the grass is always greener….? A case of wanting the forbidden fruit?

Perhaps it was just the power of everyone suggesting something was going on that was deceiving us?

Could we seriously see ourselves together a few years from now? Were we even compatible? Did we have the same hopes and dreams?

We needed to be sure this was the real deal if we were going to rattle our closest friend’s lives by starting a relationship together. And so we attempted to set our own feelings aside and look at the whole thing from an outsider’s perspective weighing all of the moral and ethical issues of dating within your inner circle of friends and we sought to determine the likelihood of long term success.

Comments

  1. Cindy Francis says:

    Well, even though we know the outcome, it’s fun hearing the whole thing.
    Cindy

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