You're Not Special

by Meghan Rienks

  “Take. Me. To. My. Dorm,” I stated through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to have sex with you, I don’t want to kiss you, I certainly don’t want to spend the night, and I don’t even want to share fucking CrissCut fries with you. I want you to take me home and I want you to take me home NOW.”

  He looked more surprised than hurt. As if he was floored that I had rejected his suave advances. Ben started the car, and we drove back to the dorms in complete silence. When the car slowed to a halt, he turned to me as if to offer some final attempt, but I was out of there. I flung open the door, jumped from my seat, collected my belongings, and ran all the way up four flights of stairs to the comfort of my barf-stained bed.

  I had survived. And I had stolen the soda.

  I woke up the next afternoon around one to the threat of the previous night’s regrets in regurgitation form. I ran to the bathroom and promised myself I would never drink on an empty stomach again. When I finally stopped heaving, I shuffled back to my room and grabbed my phone to alert my friends to how the date had gone. I was met by the standard morning notifications, a few Instagram likes, some group chat activity, Facebook alerting me to somebody’s birthday that I forgot I was even friends with on Facebook to begin with, and then something out of the ordinary. Among the expected “Tell us everything” texts from my girlfriends, there were ten missed texts from Nathan, marked from four a.m. until about twenty minutes ago. The following is written from memory, as iCloud did not exist in the era of iPod Nanos:

  Nathan

  Hello Meghan. I just wanted to let you know that I am extremely disappointed in your actions tonight, namely the choice you made to have Ben take you home.

  Nathan

  You were my date last night and I had not been on a date since my ex and I broke up a year and a half ago. My heart was broken but spending time with you I felt the pieces slowly finding their way back together again. I thought you were something special and I thought what we had together was pure, beautiful and so very unique.

  Nathan

  You crushed my dreams tonight Meghan.

  Nathan

  You broke my heart again and I don’t think I will ever be the same again.

  Nathan

  We could have been great.

  Nathan

  We could have been it.

  Nathan

  You could have been the one for me.

  Nathan

  But you blew it.

  Nathan

  I am so angry with you.

  Nathan

  My heart is broken and I will never be the same and it is all your fault. —Nathan

  He deleted me on Facebook that night in 2012. He re-friended me on Facebook four years later.

  I still haven’t accepted.

  chapter 5 i think i’m allergic to you

  Contrary to popular belief, I have in fact been the dumper as opposed to the dumpee in a few of my previous relationships. I have let crushes down easy, I have politely rejected dinner requests, and I even once turned down a date to homecoming. (I must reiterate, Sam Machado, if you’re reading this, I regret that deeply because you’re really hot now.) I am not trying to portray the image that I get asked out a lot, mainly because that’s just not true. I’m weird as fuck. But that’s beside the point. The point is that I’m not Kendall Jenner, I don’t have boys fawning over my every move, and I’ve never rejected a spin on a private jet because I knew I’d have future opportunities. Some kids blessed with the Beckham gene pool grow up with a mental bank of polite rejections ingrained in their genetically perfect skulls. I, on the other hand, was a chubby kid with transition lenses. I thought hot pink was a neutral and cheetah was a shade. My toddler years weren’t a baby Gap ad, my tweens were not a Limited Too catalog (RIP), and my high school years were closer to a before picture than an after. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t grow up with a steady stream of romantic attention. Regardless of my socially inept nature and my eternal awkward stage, even I, co-headmistress of the Harry Potter club, have experienced what it’s like being on the instigating end of a breakup. That, and I’ve been dumped enough to tell you what hurts the fucking worst. Don’t worry, I’m totally not bitter at all.

  timing

  I get it, you’re fired up. You just met a hot slice of meat on the subway, and your feelings for your current relationship are already a distant memory. You’ve had a few too many sips of liquid courage, and suddenly the urge to split is greater than your pants at a Vegas buffet. You may have been identifying as single for the last few months (despite the initials in your Instagram bio), but the only title changes your (soon-to-be) ex is aware of is the presidential election. Ending a relationship requires the same two people who started one. Except for extenuating circumstances, like catching your significant other at a romantic dinner date with a zaddy fifty years her senior (this is a true story from my Uber driver Oscar), there is a time and a place for everything. This includes when to break up with someone, and the following are not the times or the places:

  1. On a voice mail

  2. With emojis

  3. On Valentine’s Day

  4. On their birthday

  5. On your birthday

  6. In a DM

  7. In a MySpace message (Is MySpace still a thing?)

  8. In a Snapchat (direct or story)

  9. Over a Never Ending Pasta Bowl

  10. While swimming in open water

  11. On a tandem bike

  12. While driving through a thunderstorm on the Pacific Coast Highway

  13. At the DMV

  14. Via smoke signal

  15. On a Scantron test

  16. In Morse code

  17. After they’ve watched Marley & Me

  18. During a commercial break

  19. On their deathbed

  20. During the finale of Game of Thrones

  21. In the frozen novelties section at the grocery store

  22. While they’re having acupuncture

  23. On a bank holiday

  24. At the bank

  25. On April first

  26. After they’ve finished a series on Netflix

  27. At a funeral (unless it’s your own)

  28. After they’ve just finished the final Harry Potter book

  29. While tripping at Coachella

  30. In front of a claw machine at a twenty-four-hour Mexican restaurant

  31. During childbirth

  32. While sharing a single piece of spaghetti à la Lady and the Tramp

  33. On an international flight

  34. While they have diarrhea

  35. On the jumbotron

  36. Over a loudspeaker during school announcements

  37. Through choreographed dance

  38. In an assembly

  39. On a road trip

  40. In a YouTube video

  do your own dirty work

  Don’t ask someone to break up with your significant other for you. Extenuating circumstances (like safety) aside, you got yourself into this mess; you best believe you’re the one getting yourself out of it. This may seem like a “duh” moment, but to eleven-year-old me, it had seemed like a perfectly good option. I also broke rule #1.

  I was dating Henry for a total of three weeks. It was just long enough that he sent me a Candygram on Valentine’s Day, which made me feel really cool. That’s obviously the intention, because if anyone says they want candygrams for the actual candy, they’re lying. Don’t trust anyone who enjoys the taste of conversation hearts. Those are soul-sucking, Voldemort candies.

  Prior to age eleven I never had to break up with any of my boyfriends. I would just sit next to someone new in the sandbox and then they knew it was over. But middle school is all about the dramatics. Preteens live for passing notes, quick comebacks, and “your mom” jokes. So naturally breakups are done on a much grander scale. After I finished off the box of Russell Stover chocolates that Henry had also given me for Valentine’s Day, I enlisted my friend Mackenzie
to help me cut him loose. Word travels fast between eleven-year-olds whose parents don’t let them have cable or cell phones. Before we knew it, our table at the library was fifteen girls deep. It was covered by dozens of crumpled-up pieces of college-ruled notebook paper as we tried to formulate the best breakup “note” ever to have been passed in the hallowed halls of White Hill Middle School. It was like a bad game of telephone. What started off as a straightforward breakup note turned into a lost letter from The Notebook. I really wish I could ask Henry if, for some self-loathing reason, he decided to keep the note so I could insert it here as a visual aid. But we’re not friends on Facebook and I’d have to use the phone book, which requires a lot more effort than I’m willing to put forth. We’ll have to make do with the summary my goldfish-sized brain has created over the years of telling this story as an icebreaker at holiday parties:

  Dear Henry,

  It’s over. There’s just no chemistry between us anymore.

  —Meg*

  CHEMISTRY!? REALLY, MEGHAN?!! YOU HAVEN’T EVEN TAKEN CHEMISTRY YET! NOR HAVE YOU KISSED HIM OR HELD HIS HAND OR EVEN SLOW-DANCED, FOR THAT MATTER!!! WHY ARE YOU USING THIS WORD?!

  DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT IT MEANS?! (I didn’t. Mackenzie wrote it.)

  It’s important to know when to be honest and when to lie. Everyone knows that “It’s not you; it’s me” directly translates into “It’s not me; it’s really just you.”

  Growing up, we’re told that honesty is the best policy. While I do agree that in most cases being up-front is better, sometimes the truth can do more harm than good. Are my shoes totally last season? Probably! But don’t tell me that right after I’ve had a big meeting and I’m on my way to a blind date. Instead, balk at my question and reassure me that my fashion choices are always stellar. The same goes for breakups. I’m 99.9 percent sure your soon-to-be ex doesn’t want to hear that the real reason you’re dumping him isn’t because you need time to “focus on yourself.” You don’t have to tell him you really just need more time to focus on dating someone else.

  Sometimes the truth just hurts. It’s better to spare feelings than list every single trait you dislike about your partner to their face. But some truths are what they really need to hear. If the truth is that your feelings have changed, it might be better to let them know that. Don’t keep them waiting on the sidelines for you to “figure yourself out” or whatever lie you used to avoid admitting that you just don’t feel the same way about them anymore. But if the truth is that you now find them utterly repulsive and you’re embarrassed to have touched them… maybe fib a little. If it’s not constructive and not something they can keep in mind with their next relationship, don’t say it.

  There isn’t a strict black-and-white way to figure out when it’s better to lay it all out in the open and when to fudge the truth a little bit. It’s more of a (fifty shades of) gray area, but that’s the beauty of relationships. You live and you learn. (Or you don’t, and you become the next Amy Dunne.)

  taking a break vs. breaking up

  I’m hoping by this day and age, anyone reading this book has seen Friends.

  Forever marked as one of the most memorable episodes is when Ross and Rachel go on a “break.” If you are one of the few who refuse to watch Friends and you’re still not familiar with the concept, I’ll break it down for you:

  A “break” is an arbitrary term used to describe when a couple decides to put things on hold for a while. Sounds vague, right? Precisely! Because it’s not exactly crystal clear what the parameters actually entail, it’s really up to the specific couple to discuss and decide what it means for them. But to be blunt, I think of taking a “break” as the prequel to breaking up. The foreplay before the big act. The sweatpants you buy before your holiday weight gain. The training wheels of singlehood. It eases you into the idea of breaking up for good. Whether it’s getting your feet wet with the idea of being single again, or easing a clingy ex into the friend zone. If you can gradually take a step back to reevaluate where your head is at, you can think it all through before you make any rash decisions. Just make sure you’ve learned from Ross and Rachel’s mistake. Clearly define what is and is not acceptable during this hiatus. Personally, I usually give it a two-week window of completely severed ties. No in-person meetings, phone calls, text messages, smoke signals, or telepathic mind conversations. If I’m wanting to hold off seeing them longer than that, chances are I don’t want to be in this for the long haul.

  break up in person

  Break up in person, unless they’re crazy. This is rich advice coming from a serial ghoster, but do as I say, not as I do. We live in a day and age in which you can order groceries, buy a new outfit, get laundry done, and maintain strong friendships with people thousands of miles away—all without leaving the comfort of your couch. Technology has essentially eliminated the need for human interaction. As an avid homebody, I completely revel in this fact. But your cell phone is for pretty filters, playing Candy Crush, and perfecting your Instagram aesthetic. It’s not for breaking up with your significant other who lives down the block. Your computer is for watching my old nose job vlogs, getting lost in sexual gifs on Tumblr, and WebMDing your weird rash. It’s not for breaking up with the person who sleeps in your bed. Obviously, if you’re in a long-distance relationship, you might have to resort to breaking up via a phone call. But please do it in person if you can. As much as you want to evade the imminent awkward silence followed by the possibility of seeing your boyfriend ugly cry worse than Kim Kardashian, you owe it to them to break the bad news in person. Take it from someone who has been dumped over the phone (me).

  I hadn’t even been in college for a month before I started dating someone. He was exotic. By “exotic,” I mean he was one of fifteen Jewish guys in all of Riverside. (This was in my “I’m going to marry a Jewish guy so I can convert” phase, largely influenced by the fact that my best friends are all Jewish and I was feeling left out.) He was an upperclassman fraternity man (better deemed a frat boy) who swept me off my naive freshman feet with his dad bod and knowledge of Harry Potter. The first few months were great. I upgraded from the “walk of shame” my peers were doing to the much less embarrassing “drive of shame.” Imagine my surprise when, after a particularly strong batch of jungle juice, I woke up to a text message from him saying, “I think it’s just better if we’re friends right now.” After that, he avoided me for a year and a half. To this day I could not tell you why, how, or even exactly when we broke up. Rumor has it he did it over the phone while I was drunk-crying underneath the claw game machine at the twenty-four-hour Mexican restaurant. Moral of the story? Breakups are to be done in person, and my friends were shit for letting me lie on that fucking disgusting floor, crying over a boy with a small dick.

  don’t keep putting it off until it’s too late

  Breakups are not like fine cheese or wine. They do not get better with age. They’re more like an infected cut: you have to get it dealt with before the wound starts to fester and ooze. Otherwise you’ll look like a mutilated house elf and you have to amputate your whole arm instead of just applying an antibiotic twice a day. Breakups aren’t fun. If they were, Taylor Swift’s albums would be pretty damn boring. The longer you stay in a crappy relationship with someone who isn’t right for you—or as Phoebe Buffay would say, who isn’t your lobster—the farther off you are from finding a great relationship with the right person. It takes two active participants to make a relationship, so if you’re just not feeling it anymore, then essentially it’s already over. Trying to spare their feelings by putting it off just makes it worse, and it isn’t fair to either of you. Before you know it, you’ve put it off so long, you’ve got three kids and a 401(k) plan, all the while dreaming of what your child’s PE teacher looks like naked. So save yourself now, before your dating pool consists solely of people who take their teeth out at night.

  The goal in breakups is to approach them with as much empathy, understanding, and maturity as you can muster. Regardle
ss of how sticky it gets at the end, be the bigger person and rise above petty drama better suited for a Bravo pilot. This will not only cast you in a way more flattering light; it’ll leave you with a sense of pride at your capability to handle less-than-stellar situations. This means listening instead of defending, as well as accepting whatever role your ex thinks you’ve played. Is this the advice you’re going to take? Probably not! That’s okay, you can always set your standards lower (my life motto). Move on to the next best option: Set out to do it in the manner you’d like to be broken up with. Would you love to discover your newfound singledom through a DM? Most likely not. Would you rather your significant other have the decency to do it in a quiet, private spot where your hysterical sobs won’t be mistaken for a screaming goat? That’s valid and also completely doable. I don’t expect you to always take the high road, also because I certainly don’t hold myself to that standard. Sometimes the high road is really steep and really far away and you get altitude sickness. Sometimes you just take the second-highest road. Or the third. Or the one right before the lowest. What’s that saying? Aim for the moon and you’ll land among the stars? How about: Aim for a tree and get caught in a shrub a few feet above the ground?

  Now, hopefully some of those helped you, but maybe you were just looking for suggestions of lines to memorize and regurgitate the next time some bro named Trent asks for your number. These are some of my go-to excuses, phrases, and responses to gently (or not so gently) let someone down, listed in order of delicateness:

  When Someone Wants to Buy You a Drink

  Thank you so much for the offer! But I’m good for now! I’m actually here with friends. But thank you anyway!

  I’m seeing someone.

  I’m married.

  I don’t drink alcohol.