The Summer of Love #septseries

Counselor Chinny Welcomes You to Post Break Up Camp!

Let me preface by saying as the seasons change (hopefully the temperature will dial down as well) in the spirit of exes and romantic misadventures, I felt it was appropriate to take a well deserved and well overdue trip down memory lane as I delve into my eventful romantic past. So in other words this has become a September Series soooooo....strap in everyone!

I think back to my poignant yet brief romantic career in lieu of many events that have put me in a position where I am concerned and comforting friends during their time in need. I am very honored when friends feel comfortable leaning on my shoulder when the going gets tough in regards to love, dating and sex. I know that there are people even more cynical than I or who may scoff at my ability to speak with authority on the matter citing my age as "too young" to know...well to that I say in my very best Professor Fansworth impression, "BUNK! Bunk I say!"

If anyone needs me I'll be in my angry dome!

I really don't consider myself a spring chicken. I'm definitely a pickle, been in the bitter water too long. I'm sour, but I've got flavor and I hope I've got the health benefits.

After a great deal of trial and error, burns and bruises, I can say with full confidence that I learned a great deal about love, dating and sex. And mind you, the hard way aka abusive relationships, humiliation and forgoing the better advice of logic and reason from people close to me. I also know that I may not be the person that friends want to speak to on the latter, because I am going to be a type of friend that I wish I had had when I was falling heart-over-heels into the world of millennial dating probably best described as a "shit storm." 

Let's be real here, if you know me and we've talked about relationships together in the last year -  I'm not a hyped up Sex In the City-gossip type cheerleader type friend. As of late, I err on the side of being more of a ranting, broodish dark cloud channeling the likes of Toby Ziegler #sorrynotsorry. However, if you ever want to ask me anything you can always ask me ANYTHING, because as I was told by one of my older friends, "I know there is a line of decency...I just havedn't found it yet." Among friends, it has yet to be crossed in the context of love, sex and dating. I have a strong tendency of thinking along the lines of choices and consequences. 

It may not seem like it...but I promise, I DO care.

I'd like to think about myself as a Mrs. Doubtfire type if you will, a overly protective old soul at heart. I just suspect more often than not the jerk-a-courting-you is a straight up douche and I ain't buying the act. Of course I would never go to the lengths that Mrs. Doubtfire would go to and I would never do anything that would come close to sabotage, but I won't play nice. Come to think of it, perhaps, that is the reason friends seek me out, to bull shit detect, though to be honest I never questioned why friends seek me out to begin with. (I'll buy you a dozen donuts if you get my subtle references to the movie.) 

Ahhhh "loverboy" is here...Hand me an avocado and hope they can run fast.

I have my problems, I admit. Years of cynicism and further entrenchment in open bias, I'm a total hard ass when it comes to scrutinizing this new stranger that is sending out an application to be a part of your life however long it is supposed to be: a night, a day, a week, months...years or maybe even forever. I'm not going to hold back when I unleash my honest opinion when you ask it of me. When you show me their virtual resume or when I already know their up to no good, but we meet them anyway, I'll tell you what I think and I won't hold back. All I am dying to do is ask them point blank, "So...what are your intentions with ____?" before I whip out my metaphorical stamp of approval and hit DENIED. I know it may be harsh or not the enthused quip of praise you might have been hoping for, but it is because I care.

No touchie. No touch.

I really do hope that is understood. It is a crucial fact that I DO want my friends to be happy and to enjoy themselves. I am a realist. I'm a professional worry wart - what can I say? And admittedly, I don't think anyone is good enough for you...and I definitely have my problems, I admit. Ultimately I know that: you do you. And you should. It's your life and your decisions. You have the total right to freely make choices about your life and lifestyle, however the consequences that may arise. I don't have to endorse what you do and I don't have to approve of what you do. Nothing I say will or should stop you, even I know that.

I will say this though to friends of mine who have gotten frustrated with me or are currently frustrated with me, I witness and am with you through many of your triumphs and disappointments, and I feel a great deal of emotions in both of these occasions. There are many, many times where I am suffering on the sidelines watching you, because I'm scared and I will not do anything about it. It is not my place to interfere in your agency to live your own life. But I do know how to comfort you and I will always be there for you when I am needed.

I hurt when you hurt. And maybe you were hurting when I was hurt.

Friendship is when you are there in the darkness and there in the laughs.

When I was inexperienced in everything, I had gotten a variety of solicited as well as unsolicited advice and personal testimony from classmates, friends and (much to my desire to forget what was said) family on the latter: sex, dating, relationships. While making sense of the onslaught of information was already difficult enough, the insurmountable fact was that no matter what in the end, advice or no advice you were going to do what you thought was best. I couldn't really listen to any one person's advice, because no matter at times things worked out and sometimes it didn't. The best strategy I found I could rely on was sticking to my original, tried and true goals.

What did I want?

From the beginning, I wanted a happy, healthy relationship where the guy was socially aware of privilege and the injustices that plague our world, a guy who was 100% okay with adoption...yet I wound up dating the Shrub and then Professor Pepper. 

"It's because it was her first." 

"It's because they slept together."

"Oh, I knew you he was a bad guy."

None of these people may remember that they said these things, but again, I do. I have not forgotten what they have said and how much it disappointed me and hurt me. I have moved on and these people are still my friends, because none of them at that point in their lives had gotten their heart broken, had been used or abused by anyone. Something that honestly has motivated since I broke with the Shrub and started dating was to try to prevent my friends from ever have to go through what I went through, the pain and scars were too profound to ignore. 

After it had had happened to me, I was angry and ashamed and upset. I was still just as smart as I was when I decided to date the Shrub and then Professor Pepper, but now I was armed with the knowledge of the cruelty and the reality of way we relate to the world through relationships. There is a saying that you become either the heart breaker or the one whose heart was broken - how true that is. The transformation had been complete, now I was a much more experienced, wise and compassionate person. Breaking my heart had not made me bitter or cynical or even broken permanently. It made me compassionate. It made me stronger. Because I was a person who had been vulnerable, had two people walk away with the full knowledge of who I was intimately, but they owned no part of me. All that I went through, I desperately wished upon none of my friends, because the recovery process was a gamble. There was a period of about five years when I was certain my spirit and personhood was permanently gone, because of all the trauma. 

In retrospect, I wonder if it was some kind of sick rite of passage, because the same thing just keeps happening. It happened again, and again and again.

Hell, it even happened to the Mister who also survived an abusive relationship for many years. 

'Twas these many revelations that led me to one of the most poignant and memorable summers of my adult life. It was the year 2016, not that long ago, but enough had happened during the summertime to make me realize that the "summer of love" was definitely dead and gone. 

I was only a month into marriage when over the course of the three months into summer, three friends of mine came to me, hearts broken and utterly crushed. 

1. Even though this wasn't Lady Kat's first rodeo, her hopes were higher than ever that this particular guy was on his way to being a special one. He had all the ways of making her melt so when he disappointed her a second time, she was devastated. She had planned to have him meet her mother whose time was running out, because she thought they were steadily approaching the "next level." But, she had told me that they had already broken up once before because he had disrespected her boundaries, but felt he deserved one more chance only to be met with a horrible lie. 
2. I had a very hard time with Zucchini's boyfriend turned promised-fiancee from almost the get-go. She had confessed to me over the course of many months leading up to the eventual break up that her boyfriend of almost three years had some very contrary ideas from everything to loyalty to politics. They had plans to get married in 2017 after he graduated. Needless to say, the relationship was fraught with incredible emotional and mental abuse, double standards and deplorable differences in politics, ethics and...need I go on? It came as some comfort and relief when the relationship imploded although Zucchini was very sad, naturally. 
3. The Girl Next Door had kept me regularly updated on her dates and detailed interactions with almost every guy including one that I shall just call the Snow Monster. From the get go, the Mister and I were alarmed by stories of his blatant disrespect, carelessness and wild erratic behavior early on, voicing our upmost concerns and brutally honest (solicited) feedback, but the GND was enamored by this really bad bad boy. He was a reckless, "edgy" artist and like a moth to a flame, they jet set around the Bay, drinking around SF and made plans to take Instagram pictures abroad. We worried about her, but by the time her birthday rolled around she told me joyous news: he was going to go steady with her and bestow the title of "girlfriend" upon her, something she had been vying for since the very beginning. Little less than a month later I received a distressing string of messages while at work and then I was floored when I saw her cry. I have never seen her cry in 23 years that we had been friends. 

I answered the call more than willingly and did my best to do damage control:

"No do not call him."
"Block him. Burn that shit to the ground."
"Yes you are worth it."
"No you did not do anything wrong."
"Sometimes things just don't work out...I don't know why..."
"No you do not need closure."
"No you do not need to meet in person."

I whipped out everything in my arsenal to try to be a good supportive friend in their time of need.

Your friendly personal post breakup companion!

I always checked my phone and asked them daily if they were "okay" or "needed anything." I had a cushy living room thanks to my nagging the Mister about the necessity of a couch with pillows (he was inclined to have none) and made sure that our kitchen stocked with home cooked food and wine. Guy and Waggles were very supportive being the cute little lap dogs that they were destined to be providing themselves as a cuddly distraction. It was also the summer that Pokemon Go had launched and it created ample opportunities for us to go out every evening after dinner with the dogs to catch digital pocket monsters all over the Bay Area - it successfully gave the depressed a reason to get out and do something, and thankfully they were not alone. The Mister and I were more than happy to provide a safe space or the Mister was kind enough to drop me off to meet one of the three friends, at one point all three of us for retail therapy or a girls night out.

In private, I was beside myself. I was a seething bundle of rage.

Me vs the patriarchy (I bet patriarchy would be a seagull...always ready to shit on you)

I vented loudly to the Mister. 

Why does this just keep happening?
Why do we get screwed over?
Why aren't the red flags more visibly obvious?
Why why WHY? 

It happened to me. It happened to them. The never ending destructive disappointments. I felt old, seasoned and weathered during these seas of storms, more and more heartbreaks blowing in with the turn of the tide. Even though I'm not so distant in age to any of these friends, I found our differing experiences separated us. It was not that I had started dating or engaging in relationships before them; I started when I was 19-going-on-20 for the first time, but among some friends I was among the first or second to have had a serious boyfriend, a serious break up, to have had sex, and then to be married. Breakups and being fucked over is old hat after a serious crash course in millennial dating, but of course every one is different and moving at their old pace as they should. I really do wonder if this is all some kind of sick rite of passage...Unfortunately, the latter appears to be somewhat true. 

To be a good friend comes a great deal of practice and patience; over half of the relationship is dependent on you showing up. What I used to consider being a good friend is hardly what I would define being a good friend now. Much practice and learning was involved in knowing what to say and when to say it, what is needed and what is wanted after a really, really bad breakup. In prior years before I had dated at all, I was confused and uncomfortable if not greatly disturbed about being thrust into a position where I literally had no idea what to tell my friend who was sobbing about how much they missed their former partner. I honestly could not relate and admittedly counted down the minutes until they left, because I just felt awkward. Until halfway through college, I had never dated let alone ever had anyone express any honest to god interest in me (who was not a complete creep). I savored being single and could not imagine myself bonded to anyone at the time. I dislike seeing my friends upset, but I disliked the thought of seemingly being so attached to a single person as to control my emotions. I deeply wondered how could one person influence you so much? This was a real fear of mine.

Learning to be a good friend, we don't start as experts.

I learned how to be a good friend by going through the experiences myself and got to thinking, "What kind of friend did I want when I was going through a break up?" The experience got a helluva lot easier once I had the experience to relate and knew exactly what was going on, not to say that even prior to having dated that I was a complete unfeeling, unsympathetic person, but I did lack the knowledge of how the process of healing can be a journey.

During the intimate conversations and time spent during the summer of 2016 with each one of my respective friends, I got to know each one of their innermost thoughts and emotions regarding the men that had hurt them and their fears associated with the future. Through each one of them I could relate based on the different stages they were in their relationship/sex/dating experience.

1. With Lady Kat, I remembered being in a position where I was going incredibly frustrated by what seemed like an endless line of disappointing suitors that I initially believed were going to lead...somewhere. A long term relationship? A future husband? I remember being appalled and being so upset I wanted to put my fist through their faces for the sheer waste of emotional labor and time I had committed to them. I know that in retrospect, I was not in love with any of these people, but I had real hope that we were on the track to a mutually shared future. Or at least the decency of not being treated like a sex lotto machine: "Pull the lever and hope to win big tonight!" Apparently being treated like a being with emotions is beyond the ability of many.
2. With Zucchini, I had total flashbacks to being with the Shrub. Her boyfriend was the kind of guy that my neighbor, McNibs would declare a "numb nuts" which is also his favorite nickname for Agent Orange. I have kept documentation that can remind me why I was so attracted and drawn to the Shrub as I am positive Zucchini can produce similarly for her own ex, but as I grow older and farther away from that period in my life, I have scant memories of why I was with the Shrub at all. We had both convinced ourselves that while things were not great or worked all the time, we for some percentage of the time felt that this guy was not "that" bad and after all, they wanted to marry us right? While these men were hardly clever or the special snowflakes they insisted they were, they had worn us down and bridled us like nags until we were totally broken, damn near domesticated so we unflinchingly bore the brunt of their insults and control. Like debarked dogs or cats without claws, we believed we were muted and incapable of fighting back, because the worst of it was that we believed the shit coming out of our partners' mouths. They were trying to kill the best parts of us: our pluck, our gumption, our fire. They were trying to extinguish it. They failed, but the pain was real.
3. With the Girl Next Door, again I was struck by the familiarity of her sadness and shock. This was her very first boyfriend and her very first heartbreak. In all the years I had known her, she had been the older one and the one to teach me the ins and the outs of life. She lead and I was her younger shadow, I looked up to her as a kid. She had also been a tomboy, resisting boys and makeup and really anything feminine, I saw the benefit and followed suit. In the years to come, I saw significant changes in the way she carried herself, she seemed less sure of herself but more feminine. The changes were not so surprising, as I myself found makeup, feminine clothing and god forbid boys more appealing than we did in our youth. I remembered vividly the shock and the sadness of losing a first love. For her own personal reasons, she loved her Snow Monster, initially able to dismiss how badly he had hurt her I didn't let her continue down that line of thinking. "But don't you still love the Shrub?" she asked him sadly. Appalled, I restrained myself and instead took the opportunity to express my empathy and share my sympathy with how she felt, because I had been there before. 

That summer in 2016 was the height of my learning curve and the test of my patience. Not with my friends mind you, but the impact of patriarchy, misogyny and the destruction it wreaked upon my friends' lives. And mine, once upon a time. Empathy is learned from experience; it is easier to understand what a person is going through once you have been down a similar path. Of course, I had always fancied myself to be sympathetic, but now having been a lion's share of breakups and disappointments in dating, it has become old hat. I still don't believe there is such thing as an "expert" because it doesn't matter how much of a body count you rack up, it's the knowledge that really counts. The deep soul crushing search within you to be able to get a little meta and ask yourself, "What is really going on here?" It wasn't pretty, but in doing so I was able to figure out what was going on. I share my experiences on the off chance that though my losses and successes are uniquely my own, we can all benefit as a whole through our shared experiences and the empathy we can draw from one another as we see the similarities regularly occur among all of us. There was a lot I learned about myself and about the process of dating, sex and relationships and like I said earlier:

"...I am going to be a type of friend to you in the way I wish I had had when I was falling heart-over-heels into the dating-relationship shit storm."

That friend is the friend I want to be, because it was the friend I didn't really have when I was dating. I wish I had had someone to tell me what I know now. I wish I had two little shoulder angels of balance: the Head and the Heart. Because the Heart should never rule over Logic and Reason. Every decision should be made based on consequences and what you are willing to accept. 

If my stories can be of any use at all, that has always been my hope. And of course, my time and my house is always yours if you need it. Chinny's Post-Break Up Camp can go full session if needed.

Never fear my dear the worry wart is here!