Goodbye, Love

Like the song says: ‘breaking up is hard to do’, but when it happens it can be agony. The woman you honestly believed was going be the love of your life, with whom you were going to raise a family - till death us do part, and all that – suddenly says she’s leaving you. What? You wonder what you might have done wrong. Naturally, your ego boasts you've done nothing wrong.  There must be another man.  Has to be!  No, there's no other man.  Which is worse: leaving you for another man, or simply leaving you?
You’re inconsolable. You stop going out, watch too much meaningless, mind-rotting television, drown yourself in alcohol, wallow in self pity, jump at shadows… Despite not telling anyone, your friends know why you won’t go out, why you turn down their invitations; you’re terrified your girlfriend…
(Your EX-girlfriend!!!)
… might call or even come round to see you. She won’t of course, but you would die if she did and you were out. You’re still praying she’ll call and explain that she needed a little time to think, has finished thinking and is now ready to give you another chance.
(And you’d fall for it)
But no matter how long you stare at the phone begging it to ring, even talking to it, she doesn’t call. And when it does ring, you leap on it, your heart in your mouth.
(Boy, am I glad we dogs don’t have these problems)
"Darling!" you cry out.
“Don’t you ‘darling’ me, mate!” yells an incensed male voice.
“Uh…”
“This the gas board? I have a complaint to make,” the incensed voice continues, following up with a lengthy, colourful diatribe against the majority of government institutions.
“I’m sorry…” you start, your heart breaking a little more.  You really need this!
“No point bein’ bloody sorry, mate!” the voice points out. “Get someone down ‘ere to fix the soddin’ problem. I pay me bills on time…”
You finally succeed in convincing him that you are not the Gas Board, and he signs off with a curse for wasting his time. “What’s this friggin’ country comin’ to?!”
(Hey, watch your language!)
Then there are those moments when the phone rings and you are busy doing something else, like being on the loo. You jump to your feet and burst out of the bathroom, your trousers around your ankles, and, in spite of the handicap, you break records as you kangaroo across the living room to the phone, screaming “I’m coming, I’m coming,” while falling several times and causing yourself grievous bodily harm. You dive for the phone and scream ‘Hello!’ while rubbing a sore shin or bruised toe. Too late; whoever it was has hung up. Furious, frustrated, forgetting the receiver is attached to its base by a coiled elastic wire, you throw it across the room and it springs right back and smacks you on the nose.
(For crying out bloody loud)
Ouch!
Of course, the advent of cordless and mobile phones has made life a lot easier. You can go to the loo and take your time, even relax and enjoy it, perhaps read the newspaper, or that book you’ve been promising to look at for weeks, happy in the knowledge that you don’t have to get up; the phone is right there within reach.
(Ha!)
Yes, you can even throw the thing across the room, confident it won’t bounce back and…
Ringing!
You grab the phone. God bless the cordless. “Hello, my love!” But all you hear is the dialling tone! What the…?
(Try the doorbell)
Then you realize it’s the bloody doorbell!
(!?!)
Who on earth…? Her! Yes! Please! Again, you leap off the loo without pulling up your trousers, shoot through the bathroom door and, cannoning off the sofa on the way, kangaroo to the front door already imagining her words: “Oh, darling, my love, my sweet, my adonis!”

(My what?!)

You picture her throwing herself at you and wrapping her arms around your neck, her bags at her feet, then stepping back to have a good look at you. “My God! You look great. You’ve lost weight. I must have been mad to leave you! How can you ever forgive me? Let’s go to bed and shag the rest of the day away!”
(♫Dreeeeeaaammm…♬)
Reslishing the ‘shag the rest of the day away’ bit, you grab the house-phone. “Darling!”
“Oh, no, I am terribly sorry; I am not 'darling',” a very Asian voice responds. “I was wondering if you would please be so kind as to direct me to the flat of Mrs Musharraf. I am to start today as her new housekeeper.”
“Uh, you must have the wrong building,” you respond, thinking what a cruel world it is we live in. What’s wrong with everyone? Don’t they know that you are suffering from a broken heart? “There’s no Mrs Musharraf here.”
“Then I must apologise. Have a nice day.”
(Have a nice day?!)
You sit there wondering what she might be doing - no, not Mrs Musharraf! - and you imagine the worst possible scenarios, like another man’s hands roaming all over her body, up those beautiful long legs…
(Why don’t you just simply cut your wrists, get it over with)
Time drags. You start seeing things you were far too happy to notice before, like dust, cracks in the walls, cobwebs in the corners. You suffer from insomnia, you stop eating, you look awful. Finally, desperately in need of affection, you start calling the girls you used to go out with. You go down the list, calling girl after girl. But women aren't stupid; they can smell your need, your misery, see it in your eyes, that hangdog look.
(I never liked that expression)
They know you want to jump into bed with them and think about the girl you love while you're doing it. The girl you can't have. And it hurts, breaks your heart. But you loved her, still love her.

And what about the poor friend who is afraid you might do something stupid? You wouldn’t be the first jilted lover to feast on sleeping pills, or dive in front of a bus and leave behind a heartrending note. He comes over to visit, to drink a few beers with you, perfectly willing to suffer the after-effects of a night’s boozing if it will cheer you up. Seeing you look like death is shattering him. After the opening classic “There are plenty of other fish in the sea,” he makes the mistake of criticising her, thinking it is what you want to hear. He is just being supportive, loyal. A friend. But you…
(You ungrateful bollocks)
… lose your temper, tell him to sod off. Who does he think he is? You may criticize your ex-girlfriend as much as you want, but no one else can.
Percy Sledge was right: “When a man loves a woman, she can do no wrong.”
(Who needs it?)

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡