end of a romance: an interview

SO MIMI –

Yeeesssssssssss??

HOW ARE YOU DOING?

So well that I’m mystified. Why am I relieved that I don’t have to see Performer again, that it’s all over, when a week ago today I would have said I loved him? Dating Trooper (in a comment to the previous post) asked me why I felt relief, and that’s what I’ve been trying to understand.

GOOD QUESTION. I WAS ACTUALLY WONDERING WHY YOU SOUND SO UPBEAT SO SOON AFTER THE END OF A RELATIONSHIP YOU THOUGHT WAS GOING TO BE PERMANENT.

It is strange.

But almost immediately, and I mean within minutes after he left, it already seemed like The Past, as if all at once a huge barrier arose between that relationship and the present moment. And I didn’t miss him in the slightest. I didn’t long — or even want — to talk to him, to see him, to be in his apartment, and certainly not to go to bed with him.

And I got a lot of support immediately also. My blog-readers have been wonderful; I feel as if they’re good friends. It’s amazing how good it makes me feel to read their sympathetic, intelligent words. And my non-virtual friends gave me instant comfort: Rolly invited me to a Christmas concert on Sunday – immediately, by return email – and a friend of 43-years-standing, Marion, a former college roommate, changed her Christmas plans to be able to spend it with me, my children, and my mother (all of whom I’ve decided not to tell about the breakup, at least for the moment). And – this always happens – for the first two days after the breakup I couldn’t eat much, so I lost weight and now everything looks better on me.

YOU SEEM TO BE IN GOOD SHAPE.

I am. And then there’s the fact that I’ve got a date with a new man (met on match.com this week), a kind of ideal date for this situation: he’s taking me to a very nice restaurant only three blocks from my apartment, so I can get dressed up (see pictures in previous post) and have some nice old-fashioned traditional male attention. If he’s fun to talk to, that’s all I ask. I doubt if he’s LTR material. But he seems to be polite, attentive, and organized, good pre-date qualities.

BUT YOU STILL HAVEN’T ANSWERED THE QUESTION THAT’S PUZZLING ME: WHY ISN’T YOUR HEART BROKEN? HOW CAN YOU FEEL RELIEF WHEN YOU WERE IN LOVE WITH THIS GUY SO RECENTLY?

It must be the case that there were things wrong with the relationship that I was suppressing.

Dating Trooper has a post about how hard it is to tell which relationship issues mean the romance is doomed and which ones are just “normal” stresses that stable and happy couples cope with and survive. In my recent case, the sex was so good (well, most of the time) and Performer was so attentive, writing and speaking so affectionately, that I was getting what I wanted. I thought the things we disagreed about or the problems we had just required tolerance on my part (did I ever think they required tolerance on his part? and was he ever tolerant? In retrospect, I doubt it). And of course I kept telling myself that no one is perfect etc. etc.

So there were good things and bad things, but I enjoyed the good things a lot – they made me very happy for 5.5 months – and the bad things were not deal-breakers.

But the moment the crisis came the pieces reassembled and a new pattern formed: what had been background (our disagreements, and – to use terms others have used – his “narcissistic” personality and “intellectual bullying”) became foreground, and what had been foreground (sex, attention) became background. And of course, the fact that he had been consciously, deliberately, quite carefully deceiving me for 3.5 weeks while he discussed our relationship with all his “friends”, gave me a new and entirely unacceptable view of his character.

He had clearly been persuading himself, during those weeks, that I was “unacceptable.” He listed the things about me that had convinced him our relationship had no chance of a future:
— I had too much anxiety, especially about keeping the kitchen clean. Now, last summer he had complained many, many times that Becky, his ex, left the house dirty and disgusting; and that he couldn’t stand being in their house in New Hampshire for that reason. When I reminded him of that, he said breeezily that he knew how to cope with that — to do the cleaning himself.
— I ‘talk back’ to movies. Now that’s only to movies seen in a living room, not in a theatre; and only to stupid movies, like The Gods Must Be Angry, or to stupid characters, like the Irish tennis coach in Match Point; and Performer admitted that I was “improving” and doing that less. But still, it was a fault that he could make into a deal-breaker.
—I think there was a third fault, on the order of the two above, but I must have repressed my memory of it.

DID MR WONDERFUL HIMSELF HAVE ANY FAULTS THAT NOW YOU CAN MENTION?

Well, gee, let me think a half-second and see if I can come up with some.

Yes!

His tastes in everything, especially music and food, were quite fixed. Of course he’s a musician, but I’ve known lots of professional musicians, and none has been so narrow as he. He liked only classical music – exclusively. Once when he arrived I was cooking to A Hard Day’s Night, which is a really wonderful album, second only to The White Album in my opinion. Almost every song on each is wonderful, and so they’re great for doing-things to. When he walked in, the music had to be stopped at once, because he didn’t want to have to “pay attention” to it. He said it would be fine to dance to that music but not to listen to it… And he didn’t like choral music at all and complained about going to this concert although he did admit afterwards that the singing was beautiful. But I never got to sing Christmas carols afterwards, because we had to rush off so he could do the Hanukah prayers with his children over the phone at 7 pm.

SO IT WASN’T JUST THE NARROWNESS OF HIS TASTE; IT WAS ALSO WHAT YOUR FRIEND CALLED HIS “BULLYING.”

You could say that.

AND FOOD??

Performer is a foodie. His profile said he liked “to eat extraordinary foods.” I had to provide a lot of – oh, you know what, forget it! I am and have always been a cheap date, and he’s an expensive one. Enough of this.

THIS MAN WAS PHONING YOU ALMOST DAILY FOR SIX MONTHS, SENDING YOU EMAIL MESSAGES MORNING AND NIGHT – YOU DON’T MISS HIM? OR ALL THAT?

Well actually, the calls and messages had trailed off a little recently.

WONDER WHY.

Yes.

But you know, I was rereading all of his messages from November 21 to the final ones on December 16, to see precisely how he might have been sounding slightly less affectionate, or more fake, and I might have missed it –

– AND ?

– and I got sidetracked. He had sent me some stupid forwarded internet stuff, dumb jokes about court-recorders, and at the time he sent them I hadn’t even looked at them. What intelligent person has time for that stuff? But this time I read them, and I couldn’t stop laughing. In the middle of looking for infidelity, I start laughing at these dumb jokes!

I GET THE POINT. YOU’RE NOT VERY UPSET.

And I was looking at pictures of him and me taken at my mother’s birthday in October, and it was as if they were from a play I was in, or another life, or a boyfriend from the very remote past. I looked at them, and his face looked attractive to me – though not handsome; he’s not handsome, though he thinks he is – and I could remember it. But still I didn’t feel sad or long for him.

THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG HERE.

The only emotion left is anger. From reading through the emails, I can infer that he slept with Becky on the night of Saturday December 1 (or the morning of the 2nd), and he discussed his new romantic situation on the morning of Thursday December 6 with one of his students (!) – the student had met me twice and had just been chatting with me the night of the 5th, after her cello concert. After the concert, P dropped me off at home and went to buy pastries for the breakfast over which he would discuss his plans to ditch me for his ex-wife.

THREE-AND-A-HALF WEEKS OF DECEPTION….

The most amazing deceit still seems to me that email message he wrote as he and his ex went joyfully off to tell the therapist they were staying together. Before they left he wrote me, good morning dearest sweetheart mimi, life is complicated now as you might imagine, but i’m still thinking about you and the amazing pleasure of the other night both during and after…

YOU MAY FIND THIS HARD TO BELIEVE NOW, BUT I DON’T FORESEE GOOD THINGS FOR THAT RE-MARRIAGE.

But I know him: so long as he can have sex with her, they’ll be fine.

TIME WILL TELL. I’M NOT SO SURE AS YOU ARE. * * * TELL ME, DID HE NOT APOLOGIZE AT ALL? OR TELL YOU THAT HE LOVED YOU AND WAS SORRY TO HAVE TO HURT YOU?

Are you kidding?

NO, I’M NOT KIDDING. DID HE SHOW ANY AWARENESS AT ALL THAT HE SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR FEELINGS?

His own feelings were what was important, his feelings of joy that he would have his family back. It’s as HostisToia wrote in to my blog, “narcissist seems to express his condition quite well. He just has no comprehension of the four-dimensional existence of anyone else. He expects everyone in his life to echo his feelings, to mirror his image of what is going on.”

WOW. IT SEEMS ODD THAT YOU WOULDN’T HAVE DISCOVERED THAT OVER SIX MONTHS.

It does. But I didn’t.

ANY SIMILARITIES TO THE BREAKUP WITH ROLLY?

Well, in both cases the men made comments about sex when they were breaking up.

NO KIDDING.

But they were quite different. Rolly said that I was “inexperienced” in bed. That’s what he said over email. And that comment led to a long discussion of the geography — or should I say “layout”? — of the penis with my psychiatrist, who (to my immense amusement) had to make hand-gestures to explain what he was talking about. I took this comment very seriously, and I did a lot of reading to see what I ought to know that I didn’t know.

But then in a talk with Rolly over coffee in the bagel shop at the NW corner of Lexington & 88th, I guess because he saw how nice I was being, and that I didn’t even appear angry and was actually asking him what I should know that I didn’t know — not an easy question for him to answer, as you can imagine!! — anyway, he backed off a bit, implying that perhaps the ‘issues’ had not been altogether my fault. He said, “I don’t know. It might have been me.”

I CAN GUESS THE “ISSUES”; LET’S NOT GO THERE. BUT WHAT DID PERFORMER SAY ABOUT SEX WHEN HE WAS DUMPING YOU?

He said something like “Whatever man sleeps with you is very lucky” or “The man who goes to bed with you will be very happy.”

There was a large smile (perhaps reminiscent? or salivating?) on his face as he said those words — not really making eye-contact with me as he said them, but looking off into a space of memory, I guess, or perhaps imagining congratulating the next man.

AND WHAT WAS YOUR RESPONSE TO THAT?

A sort of horror, really, that that was the category I was in: his “bit on the side,” as my friend put it (quoted in the previous post). I felt as if I were a 19th century mistress being passed from one man to another, with the first man rolling his eyes, smiling, and licking his lips at the second man…or as if I were the girl known as “the community chest” in a high-school… Really, was that what he was going to remember me for?

‘FRAID SO, MIMS.

Not: you’re so kind, thoughtful, and generous, that the next man who falls in love with you will be very lucky; or: you’re so much fun to be with, so lively and witty, that you’ll make the next man you date very happy…. Nope! didn’t say that!

God knows, it’s not as if I didn’t want to be considered sexy….and I’m sure he thought he was giving me a great compliment, that I would be flattered.

WHEW.

Perhaps this is a good point to note that he talked about his sex life with Becky. Not that I asked, you can be sure… He mentioned (he’s such a monologuer — just went chatting away about memories of sex with her, while I sat there trying to wrap my brain around what had just happened to me) what she’d say when he wanted sex and she didn’t: “Okay, so you want to have sex? All right. Go ahead.”

And he smiled with warmth and amusement (and anticipation too, no doubt, as well as more recent memory of being in bed with her the night before).

WHAT WAS THE WORST THING ABOUT THE BREAKUP?

One thing that’s bad is that I thought of all the things I should have said to him – later.

SUCH AS?

Well, many people he thinks are his friends, such as three people who played in orchestras he conducted, consider him a narcissist; and all my friends do. I should have attacked him with all the things my blog-readers have said, such as the fact that he was so obviously keeping his options open without caring how he might hurt me; that he was still sleeping with me knowing he was about to apply to private school for his children for the new family life ahead; that he had been, quite simply, a dirty liar for the past 3 - 4 weeks.

THIS IS YOUR LAST OPPORTUNITY FOR VENTING: ANYTHING ELSE?

Well, I may be able to come up with a little something.

As you now know, he’s a violinist. I’m sure you’ve heard Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

Need I say more about why Performer does not “perform” but in fact “teaches”?

COMPENSATES FOR HIS OWN FLAWED SKILLS BY DOMINATING THE IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG WOMEN WHO ARE HIS STUDENTS?

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

And one more thing: Performer expressed the hope that we might someday become ‘friends’ , as Rolly and I sort of are. This is what that conversation was like:

ME: Never.
P: Or maybe, like with Rolly, once you’re involved with someone else.
ME: No: never.
P: Why? You’re friends with Rolly.
ME: Rolly and I speak the same language. You and I don’t.

Or, as my friend S put it to me over the phone a few days ago, “Rolly doesn’t use a conversation to prove how superior he is to everyone else.”

YEAH, OKAY, I CAN SEE HOW THAT’S BAD, THAT YOU DIDN’T GET TO SAY MORE. ANYTHING ELSE?

You know, it’s hard to think of anything else that’s bad about it. He said some things that were awful (like the thing above about how lucky the next man who sleeps with me will be), but they’re all good material.

WHAT ELSE DID HE SAY THAT WAS AWFUL?

That his friend Joanna assured him I would see how of course it was right for him to get back together with his wife; she was sure I would understand. And he believed that and appeared irritated that I didn’t see it that way, too. And then he said that the breakup would be good for the blog.

HE DIDN’T!!

He did.

HE KNEW HE WAS “MATERIAL.”

Yup.

IF YOU WERE TO WRITE A NOVEL AND PERFORMER WERE TO BE A CHARACTER IN IT, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL HIM?

That came to me in a flash today, as I was walking across the park: his name would be Norton Newman, and he would have his students call him “Uncle Norty.” His musical colleagues would make fun of his excessively avuncular manner and the inappropriate familiarity he encourages in his mostly-female students; and behind his back those colleagues would refer to him as “Uncle Norty” themselves. His female students, you see, become unhealthily dependent on him, and when he encourages their parents to –

STOP, STOP! SAVE IT FOR THE BOOK.

Okay.

WELL, IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS, AT LEAST YOU MUST HAVE LEARNED SOMETHING ABOUT THE VIOLIN.

I learned that my association of the violin with sentimentality, self-absorption, emotionality, and humorlessness was right.

BUT NOT WHEN IT’S FIDDLING, AS IN IRISH AND SCOTTISH FOLK TUNES?

Okay, not the fiddle. I’ll grant you that.

SO WHAT INSTRUMENTS DO YOU LIKE?

Wind, brass, percussion.

EVERYTHING BUT STRINGS??

Hmmm….guess so!

YOU MAY CHANGE.

I’m definitely open to change. I tried very hard to like the sound of the violin – and of the cello; we went to a couple of cello concerts – the whole time I was going out with him. I never even mentioned my dislike of the violin to him.

BUT NOW…

The other day I was waiting at a stop on the 6 train – 77th, I think — where there’s always a violinist playing. I was packed into a large crowd, and the violinist was right behind me, and I couldn’t move. Several trains passed without stopping. This was two days after P told me he was going back to his wife. I thought I couldn’t bear another moment of that sound…

WAS THERE ANYTHING YOU LEARNED FROM PERFORMER?

Yes: I didn’t know you could put tupperware in the microwave.

TUPPERWARE!! THAT SEEMS TO BE A THEME IN ALL YOUR RELATIONSHIPS. AS I REMEMBER, ROLLY BORROWED SOME TUPPERWARE FOR A YEAR.

That’s right.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS MEANS?

As Jimmy says at the end of the film ‘The Commitments,’ ‘I’m f*cked if I know.’

* * *

photo credit: tupperware.com

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