Sociable

by Rebecca Harrington

  Our breakup, therefore, was unexpected. One day, I returned home and I was greeted with the news that our relationship was over. He was calm. I was not and I’m not proud of it. I screamed. I cried. I begged. He moved out that day. Ever since that day, I’ve barely heard from him again. I’ve gone over it and over it in my mind. Why was the breakup of a relationship that meant so much to me so whimpering in its end? In a culture that celebrates lifelong loves and soul mates and being chosen, what do you do when you are rejected and left?

  I had to reestablish my identity outside the confines of my relationship, which was both freeing and terrifying. I was free to pursue my ambitions and started developing interests I never had. I started walking everywhere, I moved to a different apartment, and I did things I never thought I would do. At the same time, I missed him. I realized I didn’t need to be chosen, I didn’t need to be in a relationship to be happy, but I still missed him so much.

  One thing I didn’t realize is that a breakup means that you completely lose touch with everything about the person. Gone are their T-shirts and their music, but also the friendships and networks you made during that time. I became really good friends with his mom, and luckily I preserved that relationship a little, but it’s not the same as it was before. I know in my heart that “he” is a feminist and an ally, it was one of the things I fell in love with him for, but sometimes I wonder, Is it feminist that I have to give up everything and he has to give up nothing? Feminism is about choices, but in this situation I have no choices at all. I have to give up my relationship, and have to have a “take” on what happened, in 500 words? When will he be forced to do that?

  There is a part of me that understands why I SHOULD write about my breakup. It is especially important for women to write about themselves because women’s narratives have been silenced over the years, just as their labors have been ignored and their feelings shunted aside. Women weren’t allowed to tell stories. So I am proud to be of a generation that gives voice to women and helps to mentor and highlight different women writers as they come along.

  I know that our time together was complicated, a collage of memories that swirl together to create one chaotic image that sometimes I can’t see. I remember vividly a day when we ate pizza and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, arguing the whole way about whether he was paying enough attention to me on social media. All I can do is try to find lessons in that—that I am more than the worst day of my life. That I am strong. That I am not defined by my breakup. And that I don’t need to be in a relationship to be happy.

  So for now, I’m not going to write about my breakup. This is my choice, and we shouldn’t pressure people to do what they don’t want to do. The world needs to respect my choice not to have a “take” on what happened. They want me to say that he was an asshole, or I was an asshole. Neither of us was. It’s okay to keep your IRL private life separate from your professional life and we should totally respect both choices.

  And if I ever see “him” again, I’ll know in my heart that I was fair, or that it doesn’t matter. Because there is no fairness in love.

  Elinor, satisfied, gave the article a quick proofread and posted it to the site. She gave it the title “Why Women Need to Stop Pressuring Each Other to Write About Their Breakups.” Then she fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 10

  Facebook: 1 post: “Shameless self-promotion here, but please check out this recent essay I wrote for Journalism.ly about how women shouldn’t be pressured to talk about their breakups on social media. I really worked hard on it!” Fifty likes.

  Twitter: 2 tweets: “(1/2) Just want to let you guys know I wrote something incredibly personal.” “(2/2) Pls be kind but at the same time, know that I am privileged to tell my story and that many people are not, especially in these polarizing times.” Four favorites, one retweet, one reply: “So brave!” from a girl from her college class.

  Instagram: 1 picture: a quote, white lettering on a black background: “Sometimes a person cannot be beaten or conquered. And that person is beautiful.” Eleven likes.

  · · ·

  When Elinor work up that morning, the article was doing decently well. It had gotten three comments and about a hundred shares. One of the comments said, “First”; the other comment said, “Brave piece,” and a third comment said, “I understand what you’re saying, but the most important thing to remember is that you need to be true to yourself, and love yourself. That is the only way to be happy.” Despite the slightly hectoring tone of the last missive, Elinor was pretty pleased. She had gotten comments on the coffee piece and also the tea piece, but they were mostly of the “Coffee’s the best” or “I had coffee once and I spilled it on me” variety. The Vans sneakers one got barely any comments because it did so terribly. She never got any personal feedback on her writing. It was a really nice feeling. Elinor decided to post the essay on her various social media profiles too. She hesitated briefly before she did it. Would Mike be offended if he read it? It was hard to say, but probably not. She didn’t mention him by name. And at the very least, Mike would know that she was moving on with her life, which was some kind of triumph in some kind of world.

  Elinor trudged down the hall with her makeup kit and her small makeup mirror and her brush and her hair dryer and her change of clothing under her arm. The bathroom itself consisted of gray subway tile with an old claw-foot tub and a showerhead that spurted water like a semiautomatic weapon.

  Elinor got out of the shower and blew dry her hair and did her makeup carefully, even putting eye shadow on. She felt much better today. The depression of yesterday had lifted somewhat.

  Elinor walked back to her room. She put her wet towel in what was acting as her hamper (a small plastic bag from Gristedes that was sitting on the floor, rather forlornly stuffed with socks and underwear), and pulled on a tentlike garment she had recently purchased. Then she checked her phone. Her essay had six comments, which was pretty usual for a piece on Journalism.ly, a website that in general did not have very active commenters. And they were three more nice things! Maybe this would be another viral piece, although the shares weren’t that high. She put her phone in her bag, put her coat on, and walked down to the subway.

  * * *

  · · ·

  Elinor had experienced virality before. “15 Things Only Coffee Lovers Know” and the murdering psychopath quiz had both gone viral, and she had felt the pleasant glow of people liking things that she had done and recognizing themselves in her work. But she had never yet gotten virality based on the back of her actual long-form writing. So she was a bit unprepared when streams of comments and tweets and Instagram likes decided to weigh in on what she had said. Elinor monitored all of this with an avid precision. Some were flattering—“I really super get what this writer is going through. I had a boyfriend who sucked, but what I realized is that this author needs to love herself. Learning to love yourself is the world’s greatest gift.” Then there were some meaner comments. “It’s clear that this author knows nothing about life. Boo hoo, her boyfriend left her. She needs to get a life. Go out and volunteer or something. Step outside your bubble.” Or “Why is she saying she DIDN’T write a take on this guy. She’s clearly so obsessed with him, it’s weird.” Then there was simply a comment from someone called dylansdad_57_289, who just said, “Go die you whore.”

  By the time she got to work, Elinor’s piece had gotten a hundred comments. This was unheard of at Journalism.ly. Every single time Elinor refreshed her page there was another comment. Peter approached her almost the minute she came in the door. She was just hanging her coat up on a much-abused rack.

  “You posted an essay last night,” said Peter.

  “Yeah,” said Elinor.

  “It got a lot of comments.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s good. Don’t worry if there are mean comments.”

  “Are there more mean comments? I mean, I didn’t like ‘Go die you whore,’ but I read that you can’t really do an
ything about stuff like that. I guess I could write an essay about my reaction to that comment? That would be kind of interesting—”

  “I’m not saying there are more mean comments now. I don’t know if there will be. Maybe there won’t be. All I’m saying is not to let it get to you.”

  “Okay,” said Elinor. “Do you think everyone is going to be really mean?”

  “No,” said Peter. “But the essay is pretty personal, so…”

  “Well, it’s actually about how women need to take ownership of their stories. I’m actually talking about how there is pressure on me to write a personal essay. It’s not what you are saying at all.”

  “You are very very defensive. And I say that as a mentor,” said Peter.

  “I’m just stressed.”

  “It’s fine. Forget it.” Peter walked back to his desk and Elinor walked to hers. Nicole was already sitting down. She didn’t look up when Elinor pulled the chair out next to her.

  “Hey!” said Elinor. She tapped Nicole on the shoulder. At this prompting, Nicole took off her headphones.

  “Oh, hi,” said Nicole.

  “I had such a fun time last night. Thanks for inviting me.”

  “No problem.”

  “I really liked your friends. They are such cool girls.”

  “Yeah, they are fun.” Nicole wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at her computer.

  “Yeah, it was so fun.” Elinor sighed. “I actually wrote a piece when I got home, about what we were talking about.”

  “I saw!”

  “Yeah,” said Elinor, suddenly wondering (too late) if Nicole would think she was talking about her and her friends in the essay she wrote. But she wasn’t even talking about them! It was more about like, the principle of the thing. “It wasn’t really about last night. I more used the friend thing as like, a metaphor.”

  “Oh I know,” said Nicole.

  “Okay, phew,” said Elinor. Nicole put her headphones on, and Elinor put her headphones on. That was a relief! Nicole wasn’t mad, even though she didn’t say anything that nice about Elinor’s article, which was kind of mean.

  The rest of the day, Elinor was distracted by the constant interactions that were happening on her article. Despite the fact that it technically saw far fewer “views” perhaps than “15 Things Only Coffee Lovers Know,” it seemed far more discussed, which made Elinor feel far more like an “influencer” than anything else had previously. Every so often a new comment would bubble up, incendiary or complimentary, and after a while Elinor couldn’t even keep track of them anymore or want to cry when she saw them. At the end of the day, it seemed to her, it had been the most talked-about story on the Internet.

  By the end of the second day, it had even inspired responses in other places. There was one that was called “Why I Will Write About My Breakup No Matter What,” and it was on a fashion blog Elinor had never read. It explicitly mentioned Elinor’s article!

  Around noontime, she even got an email with the subject line “TV APPEARANCE.”

  Elinor’s hand shook when she clicked on it.

  Hello, this is Keisha O’Donnell at New York 1. We loved your article at the 5 o’clock news and we’d love to have you on! You will be in conversation with a professor, Kevin Lang, who wrote a book called The Surveillance State and Online Dating. We won’t be doing hair and makeup.

  Elinor wrote back, her hands cramping from excitement, “I just need to inform my boss, but that sounds great!”

  She got up so quickly her chair made a scraping sound.

  * * *

  · · ·

  When she went up to J.W. in his glass conference room to inform him of her TV opportunity, he seemed a bit dazed.

  “You’re doing what?” he said. Elinor was right. J.W. was dazed. He had been daydreaming about what kinds of calamities would occur if he lost his job again. He was oftentimes worried about the fate of the Journalism.ly. On some fundamental level, he had never understood the company’s fortunes. For example, the Journalism.ly had recently suffered a spate of unexplained disappearances and firings. In the plus column, this meant that many of J.W.’s young, bespectacled adversaries were slowly being dispatched. The receptionist, who always rolled his eyes at J.W., got fired some months ago for stealing money and they never replaced him. A guy named Tim had left on his own accord to do something with bicycle riding? And they never replaced him. Yet on the negative side of things, what if this thinning of the staff meant that the Journalism.ly was about to collapse and J.W. was going to get fired too? Sean always said they had no money. Sometimes he would seem worried about it—at which point, he would make some sort of speech about going viral more. But sometimes Sean would buy gigantic yoga balls for everyone to sit on instead of chairs, so maybe they did have money? It was all extremely confusing.

  “I’m going on television! They want me to be on television! New York One.”

  “Okay,” said J.W. This was good news. Who could ever fire a man, nay a reporter, who’d hired someone who went on New York 1? They simply couldn’t. “We should probably tell Sean?”

  “Okay!” said Elinor. Then she laughed way too loud, which was embarrassing.

  They walked the short, yet needlessly confusing route to Sean’s office. They had to leave the Journalism.ly and cross through the reception area where Yellow Suspenders never even sat anymore. Elinor didn’t know what had happened to him. One day, he had simply vanished.

  When they got to the office, Sean and Katya were inside. You could see them through the glass walls that separated his office from the reception area. Sean was on the phone, and Katya, looking particularly ill, made a gesture that told them to wait in the small anteroom where they were congregating. Elinor and J.W. looked at each other, and Elinor realized she had never really spent time with J.W. in an unstructured setting.

  “So,” said Elinor, hitting her shoe against the back of her leg, accidentally. For a moment she lost her balance. “Have you been busy?”

  “Yes,” said J.W., giving Sean’s office a desperate look. “So so busy.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “We might move,” said J.W. “It’s hard to drive back and forth from where we are. But we might stay. I don’t know. Don’t tell Sean we’re thinking of moving.”

  “I’m not going to!” said Elinor.

  Katya came out of the office. She was wearing high-heeled shoes. She was the only person in the office, in fact, who ever wore high-heeled shoes or skirts. Sometimes, Elinor wondered if she felt lonely, as if she were working in a far better office somewhere else but no one knew.

  “Sean just needs one more minute. He’s doing a call.”

  J.W. and Elinor waited in the anteroom for ten more minutes in silence. Elinor looked at her phone and J.W. looked at his phone.

  Just when their silence was starting to become provocative, Katya returned and ushered them into the office. Sean was sitting with his feet up on his desk, which was actually a very large, midcentury modern table with a portrait-size Apple computer on it. He gestured to two Eames chairs in front of the desk. J.W. and Elinor sat down in them. J.W. took the one slightly closer to Sean.

  “Well, what can I do for you guys?” Sean smiled at them.

  “We had a big piece of success,” said J.W. “One of our pieces went viral and we were offered a chance on the five p.m. news.”

  “That’s great,” said Sean. “About the election? Josh’s piece on election shaming? Do they want me to go on?”

  “They contacted me!” said Elinor, a bit too loudly.

  “It’s a personal essay,” said J.W. apologetically. “About dating.”

  “Do you have any experience on television?” said Sean. “You’re fine to do it. But I think it’s important to have a bit of media training.”

  “I took a course in college,” said Elinor. “But I mean, obviously you can go on in my place. I mean, I’m sure you would be much better than me.”

  “No, no,” said Sean. “You shoul
d go on. It’s your piece. Just be sure to mention the fact that the story came from the Journalism.ly, okay? Good job! No, really.”

  “Oh I don’t know.” Elinor was pleased.

  “Take pride in it! That’s a great thing! Women shouldn’t just be humble. They need to take pride in their accomplishments. Take pride in it!”

  “Okay,” said Elinor.

  “Is that all?” said Sean. “Great work, J.W. and Elinor.”

  “Thanks,” said J.W., standing up. Elinor also stood up. The meeting was over. Elinor exited quickly, but J.W. lingered, his eyes hovering along the ceiling. Perhaps he needed further, increasingly pointed congratulation. In any case, he didn’t say anything, and touched a paperweight on Sean’s desk with one finger.

  “Good job on getting her on TV, J.W.,” said Sean, faithfully taking up his cue.