Confessions of a Jerk | A Bad Break Up.

There are times when a per­son reflects on the past and upon that reflec­tion a per­son may real­ize that there’s some­thing they could have done bet­ter. In par­tic­u­lar, I’m refer­ring to a break up with an ex.  One that hap­pened some time ago.  Upon fur­ther reflec­tion, I think there was a bet­ter way to do it.  At the time, though, it made for a funny story.  Actu­ally, it still makes me snicker and those that I tell the story to as well.  So… What was so bad?Well, this one gal I was dat­ing, we’d been together for a while.  How­ever, things were going south.  The writ­ing was on the wall, so to speak and I chose to ignore it.   When issues arise or things just aren’t right com­mu­ni­ca­tion is invalu­able.  I know I sound like an after school spe­cial.  Right?  Actu­ally, were there ever any after school spe­cials that deal with the topic of break­ing up with your woman the right way?  I don’t think so.  Thus, I blame my crappy break up skills on tele­vi­sion pro­gram­ming dur­ing the 80s for not equip­ping me with the appro­pri­ate tools to deal with such things.

Any­way, we had both let issues go with­out talk­ing about them and even­tu­ally it came to a head at a party I was host­ing.  With­out get­ting into all of the details, since this is about the break up and all, there were a num­ber of things that occurred that really sealed the deal for me, in addi­tion to what some of my close friends were say­ing.  The weird thing, though, was at one point, I began to receive text mes­sages from one of my ex’s friends.  This friend of hers was telling me that I should “just break up with her.”  The text mes­sages went on and revealed a few more things that really did put the final nail in the cof­fin…  I knew what I had to do.  But my ex was passed out on my bed.  The “talk” would have to wait until morning.

That morn­ing came and this is the part of the story where I feel like a jerk.  You see, given our prob­lems, my ex and I hadn’t been… inti­mate… for some time, more than a month in fact.  For what­ever rea­son, “it” hap­pened in the morn­ing and we had sex, so I had to hold off on our talk… the “baby arm” wasn’t going to take care of itself now.  Was it?  We each had taken a shower, I went down­stairs to sur­vey the wreck­age from the pre­vi­ous nights’ fes­tiv­i­ties.  It turned out that no one stayed the night, or they cleared about before I came down­stairs because they prob­a­bly knew I’d enlist their help (ass­holes).  I didn’t want to clean it myself, obvi­ously.  So the talk would have to wait.  It was a TON of work!!  So my ex helped me clean the place and about 4 hours later we sat on the couch.  Both of us were spent and hung over.  My ex sug­gests we go grab lunch and that is when I finally ini­ti­ate “the talk.”  “Yeah, about that… I think we need to talk…” It was brief and to the point, yet intense.  We were both at the same point and knew that this was the best direc­tion to take…  I walked my ex to her car and that was the end of that.

In sum­mary, hav­ing sex with my ex, mak­ing my ex help me clean and then not buy­ing her lunch and then break­ing up with her, are the rea­sons why I am, in fact, a big jerk.  Or is there more?  I’m inclined to think that I han­dled that sit­u­a­tion both self­ishly and poorly and I would have done it dif­fer­ently because I know who it hurt and how much.  How­ever, in my defense, I was hurt­ing, too, because of what my ex’s friend had revealed to me dur­ing the party… Per­haps I was act­ing out? I’m not sure, but it doesn’t mat­ter I suppose.

So when I am at the pubs and I hear some­one yell, “Where is the jerk that calls him­self the Yan­nibmbr?”  I will stick my head out and respond, “Sir!  I am that jerk.”

Related posts:

1. Con­fes­sions of a Jerk: Telling Some­one I Was Dead.
2. Escap­ing a Bad Date
3. Dat­ing Advice for Men: Don’t Let Bad Facial Hair Hap­pen To You
4. When Bad Dates Go Good…