“You couldn’t have broken up with me BEFORE I went to Thailand?”
“Sorry,” Ella said with a shrug, not knowing her poor timing had cost me a life full of Nordic sweaters and Swedish meatballs.
I’d been back ten days when Ella texted me she was coming over because we “needed to talk.” This wasn’t a total surprise. Since my return, she had been going out with friends more and answering my calls less. Her behavior wasn’t as extreme as Kelly’s had been, but it was a familiar scenario. Kissing Nellie had nothing to do with it, either, because I hadn’t told Ella (or written it in an email).
That evening after work, there was a knock on my door. Ella had keys to my place, but wasn’t using them. I guess she believed it proper to knock when visiting to dump someone. She started with general pleasantries about how great I was and then explained that while I was in Thailand, she didn’t miss me as much as she thought she should, which had made her reconsider our relationship.
“You’re such a good boyfriend on paper, but we’re too similar. I don’t feel challenged by you, by this relationship. I don’t think we’re the right match.”
I didn’t really understand what “not challenging” her meant, but I couldn’t contradict the basic gist of what Ella was saying. Since our first date I’d known there wasn’t magic between us, that ours was a relationship of the head, not the heart, but for me that’s what made it appealing. For Ella it was a deal breaker.
“There’s just something missing between us,” she said. “I’ve rushed into a thing with a nice guy before and I didn’t want to get too far down the road, no matter how pleasant it’s been. That wouldn’t be fair to you.”
As my effort to save my relationship with Kelly had failed so miserably, I didn’t put up much of a fight this time. After a short talk, we hugged goodbye, she walked out of my apartment, and I was single again.
I went to bed immediately. Well, after a quick Facebook search for Nellie, which yielded no results—it turns out there are a LOT of people named Nellie in Sweden. I lay in bed, unable to fall asleep, and with each flip of the pillow my anger grew.
I was angry Ella left me because I was too nice (isn’t that what “not challenging” means?). Angry that she’d told me she loved me and changed her mind just three months later. Angry that the declaration of love had made me take our relationship more seriously. Angry she’d said, “I’ve rushed into a thing with a nice guy before,” like I was just a generic step in her relationship pattern.
Maybe most of all, I was angry Ella had ruined my plan and made me a failure. Nineteen months after I’d begun, I was right back where I’d started—dumped. Didn’t she understand I’d reached the redemptive-adult-relationship phase of my personal growth?
When I’m overwhelmed, I don’t drink or punch things or get a hooker; I write. After a few hours of trying to sleep, I decided to compose a letter to Ella. I pounded at the keyboard, typing faster than I had since my speed test in eighth-grade typing class.
I’d never been good at expressing anger. In conversations with girlfriends or others I’d rarely even say “angry,” instead opting for words like frustrated or bothered, no matter how egregious the offense. If I were to confront a carjacker I’d probably say, I’m frustrated that you stole my car and it bothers me you used it as a toilet.
In my eagerness to avoid feeling angry, I would delude myself into thinking I hadn’t been wronged, that things were fine, which is what I’d done with both Kelly and Ella. I preferred blaming myself over getting mad at someone else because anger felt like weakness to me. It meant someone had affected me and I was no longer in control.
But I was ready to feel angry now and I poured all that emotion into the letter. I didn’t want to vilify Ella or set myself up as a martyr, but I needed Ella to know she’d hurt me. I was tired of not telling people they hurt me.
I finished around four in the morning. The letter was long. Like REALLY long. Ten pages long. 2,895 words long. That’s longer than several chapters in this book. It’s longer than a LOT of things.
Things shorter than my email:
• The Declaration of Independence (1,323 words)—Our forefathers declared independence in half the words I needed to explain my feelies.
• Genesis: Chapter 1 (825 words)—The earth was made in about a quarter of the words it took me to say, “You hurt me.”
• “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1,108 words)—T. S. Eliot launched modernist poetry with this masterpiece that is way shorter than my explanation of how being dumped made me sad.
• The Gettysburg Address (272 words)—In a fraction of the words I needed to say, “My heart has a boo-boo,” President Lincoln HEALED OUR NATION.
• For sale: Baby shoes, never worn (6 words)—Fuck you, Hemingway.
Despite the length, what I’d written felt honest and worthy of expressing. In the past, I never would have sent such an email, but I was done playing it cool and trying to “win” breakups. I hit Send and went to bed. With the venom out of my system, I fell immediately asleep.
Ella didn’t write back for a couple weeks (probably because the letter took that long to read), but she did respond. Her email was much shorter than mine (somewhere between the Gettysburg Address and Genesis), and she called me out on the unnecessarily mean things I’d said, but her overall tone was thoughtful, reasoned, and kind. She closed her email by saying, I’m sorry that I said I love you. I thought I did. But I should have thought more about it and not gotten caught up in the idea of our relationship. I’m sorry that I wasn’t better.
She was sorry. I had told Ella she hurt me and she said sorry. It was a simple thing, something taught in kindergarten, but it brought me immense relief. I hadn’t known how much I needed to hear someone say my feelings mattered.
In the days following Ella’s response, I felt happy and lighter, but a question lingered—why had her apology meant so much to me? Furthermore, why had I written such a screed in the first place? Ella and I had dated for less than six months and I wasn’t even sure I loved her, and yet, I’d felt the need for extreme closure. It didn’t make sense.
And then it dawned on me—I’d sent the letter to the wrong person. Though Ella’s name was at the top, the letter was really for Kelly. It was filled with all the things I’d wanted to say to her, but never did.
I’d written Kelly a long letter toward the end, but its purpose was to save the relationship—I spoke little about the pain she’d caused me, instead focusing on how to fix what was wrong. After she dumped me, dedicated to hiding my wounds so I could “win” the breakup, I’d gone into my heartbreak recovery plan and initiated Ghost Protocol. I blocked her on social media, threw out pictures and keepsakes, and did my best to remove her from my brain. I hadn’t needed to tell Kelly she’d wronged me because who was Kelly?
I’d chided and even pitied Evan for not being able to get over Joanna, but at least he was being genuine, while I was burying my emotions underneath sex and a pseudointellectual philosophy about dating. No matter how many women I went out with to prove I was “over” my relationship with Kelly, I hadn’t been. I’d moved past wanting to be with her specifically, but that didn’t mean I was over the loss of the relationship itself. By not expressing my pain during or after the breakup, I’d allowed it to fester.
Though I’d sent the letter to the wrong person (sorry, Ella!), it still worked. Just telling SOMEONE they’d hurt me allowed the anger to dissipate. It had taken more than a year and a half, almost thirty women, a few drugs in the desert, and an absurdly long email, but I had finally moved on and could see Kelly in a different light. She hadn’t been a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, some damaged creature whom only I could save as part of my “hero’s journey.” And her breaking up with me wasn’t a self-destructive wrongheaded move. She was just a girl who dumped a boy because she had fallen out of love with him. Which happens. It’s really uncinematic, but it happens.