Broken Hearts Damaged Goods

by Gunthridge, Jack

  This is one of the things I like about talking to Jack. He tells me how guys think. He explains their inner workings for me. He’s the first guy I have ever found that has done this.

  It’s funny. He will talk about himself in the third person and actually make fun of himself and everything that he is going through. It’s like he is analyzing himself and not really dealing with his feelings.

  I asked him about this because I found it curious. He said that guys don’t talk about their feelings. He said that if I asked him right now what he was feeling, he wouldn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what he is feeling because it’s a mixture of different things. Guys can’t handle that. They can only deal with simple emotions like happy, sad, depressed, nervous, etc. The emotions have to be clear. Any time the emotions get mixed, the guy can’t sort it out and deal with it.

  He said that is why guys solve their differences with violence. If you’re angry with somebody, you start a fight with them. Once you’ve gotten in a few good hits on the person and dealt with your anger, you can be totally fine with the guy. He said that is what is probably going to happen with him and Steve. He’s just more concerned about the loss of Brittany.

  I asked him to make sure to hit him hard for me. He then said, “You see, that’s the difference between guys and girls. Guys use violence to solve their problems. Women use violence to get revenge.”

  I didn’t really understand the difference, so he explained, “You want to hurt him because you feel he has it coming, but you will never consider the hurt he’s done to you paid off. When Steve and I finally fight, it will be as two men dealing with the unspoken things between us. And regardless of who wins the fight, I will walk away with an apology and a hand shake. We will have to rebuild the friendship, but there will be no grudge or fear of retaliation after that fight.”

  “So if he beats you up?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He can break my nose, and I can come back to you, his ex-girlfriend, and have you take care of me. It’s not going to matter. Everything between us would be good.”

  “So what’s stopping you from just asking him to fight you now?”

  “You just don’t call somebody out to fight. We’re not in the old west or seventeenth century France. You have to let your anger flare, so you can let it all out during the actual fight. You can’t do that if you challenge the person to a duel. It has to be an expected random act of violence that just erupts naturally.”

  I laugh a lot with Jack, but I don’t know why. What he says is very serious in nature, but he is so honest and straight forward with it that it is kind of humorous. I think making me laugh makes him happy.

  He doesn’t make fun of me or anything that I tell him, though. He just listens to me and asks me questions that make me think about what I’m feeling and why. I don’t think he means to do this. I think he is curious why I think and do the things I do.

  Teddy Bears and Talking to the Moon

  By

  Jack Webber

  When I was a child, I would have a hard time going to sleep. I slept for a while with a teddy bear. I think it was supposed to give you comfort just holding it and knowing that you weren’t alone in the dark.

  I don’t think I ever felt alone, but then again, I shared a room with my brother. I used to try to talk to him. He then got mad at me because he was trying to sleep, so I ended up talking to the moon. My logic was that the moon wasn’t going to have to go to sleep. And because it’s not a person, I could talk to it while still having my brother hear everything that I wanted to say, even if he didn’t want to listen to me.

  Somehow growing up, I outgrew teddy bears and talking to the moon. I, however, have not outgrown holding something close to me at night and talking about my random thoughts that I consider somehow important as I am trying to sleep. It’s just that now instead of a teddy bear, I hold a beautiful woman in my arms. And instead of the moon, I talk to this same beautiful woman.

  Women are far superior to teddy bears and the moon. Women are warmer on cold winter nights. They are also more receptive to being held. A teddy bear can only receive the love that you give it. Women can give love back to you.

  Women are also greater conversationalists than the moon. You can actually talk to a woman and get her to respond to you. I know this fact might surprise some men out there, but it’s true. Try talking to that woman that is in your arms at night, and you’ll get some of the best conversation you have ever had.

  Here’s another little known fact. Do you know that we can see the moon because it is reflecting the sun’s light? I know this is pretty advanced science for some of you out there, but I think it important enough to point out. If you can find the right woman to hold in bed and talk to while you are trying to fall asleep, you can actually have her reflect part of what you are.

  When you consider that a woman in bed with you could just be orbiting you in the dark, I think her being able to reflect a part of you is essential. Nobody enjoys a night sky when all we see is the dark side of the moon. We like the full moons that fully reflect the sun’s light.

  Now, I know you think all of my glowing insights just now have a point. And you’re right about that. Never tell a girl that is in bed with you that you prefer her to that ratty teddy bear you had as a child. And be doubly sure that you never compare her to a giant orb in the sky.

  Sept. 15, 2010

  I’m starting to get a little horny. It’s not that I need a lot of sex, or am even looking for sex right now. I’ve been enjoying the cuddling with Jack these past few days. I just need a little more physical contact. And I think physical contact was one of the things he promised me when we said that we would be each other’s cocoon.

  I talked to Megan today about how the best way to approach this was. She thinks I’m falling in love with Jack and want to make a move on him when he is still in love with somebody else. I’m not, and I think that would be extremely insulting to Jack. I care too much about him as a friend to ever treat him like that.

  It’s just that I’ve been sleeping with him since last Friday. I can’t very well help him get over Brittany by kicking him out of my bed, so that I can pick up a random guy to satisfy certain physical needs I have. It would break his already fragile heart.

  Plus it isn’t going to help me any if I hook up with some random guy. The whole purpose of me entering this cocoon rehab is to stop a certain life pattern that I have found myself in lately.

  So now I have to find some way to get more physical with him. I’m not talking sex. I just want a little kissing. A make out session would be great.

  It doesn’t have to be romantic or anything. He can just come to bed in his t-shirt and sleeper pants and start making out with me. He will have a little bit of five o’clock shadow, which is kind of sexy, especially when you couple it with the fact that he still smells of after shave.

  He can start with some soft, tender kisses. I may not be looking for anything romantic, but you don’t want to start a make out session with full on tongue action. Tongue is okay once you have gotten warmed up and actually know the guy and his kissing style a little bit better.

  I know that it would be easier to make out with him if there was alcohol involved, but that seems like it would make things more confusing for us. I mean, we are just using each other to get over a break up, even if I do enjoy spending time with him. I think alcohol would make us question why we made out. I don’t want to give him the impression that I am looking for a relationship or anything.

  I will have to think about how the best way to approach this is. I don’t want to come off desperate and lonely. And I don’t want to make him think that I am falling for him when I know that he isn’t over Brittany. I need him in my life right now, and I think I am good for him in some ways. I just don’t want to betray him as a friend.

  Heartbreak Hotel

  By

  Jack Webber

  I have heard about love hangovers, but I have never really understood what the
y were. If they are anything like a regular hangover, then I would assume that they happen when you ingest too much love. You feel fine as you are taking it all in. It’s fun and intoxicating. And then you wake up with a splitting headache, wondering what happened the night before.

  I’ve been a love alcoholic now for four years. I thought I was having a good time with the love of my life. I couldn’t have been happier. But looking back on it now, the time was a blur. I don’t remember a lot of it. I just remember that I was enjoying myself and felt good about life in general.

  If I had any problems, I would just go to her. I talked my problems over her like I would with a glass of beer and my best friend. And she made my problems manageable. She made my problems go away.

  If I had anything to celebrate, she was right there with me. I thought it was because I was celebrating with her, but I think it had more to do with the fact that I could find an overabundant supply of her always in my hand. She made the good times better. She made me forget what I was celebrating.

  If I didn’t see her for a day, I started to go through withdrawal. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t make it through the day.

  After a four year binge, I am starting to sober up. I actually entered rehab the night of the breakup. It seems that alcohol isn’t really the answer for a love hangover. I tried that first. It dulled the senses when I still wanted to know that the last four years were real. Altering the senses to try to cure your altered senses puts you in a state where you don’t know what is real anymore. There is also the problem with drunk dialing.

  To avoid this pitfall, I checked into a room at the Heartbreak Hotel. Some people might think this is sad and pathetic. The ones that think this are the ones that are still drunk on the elixir of love. They can’t see that they are the sad and lonely ones.

  Do you know most people in a couple are in a couple because they are afraid of being alone? A relationship is insurance against spending time alone with yourself. As much as you would like to think that you are a marvelous individual, a lot of people find out that they don’t enjoy actually spending time with themselves. But if we can get somebody to enter a relationship with us, we think that somebody else must like us other than our family. And let’s be honest. We all know that our family loves us because they have to. If we hadn’t been born into our families and had just met them in the normal course of life, we wouldn’t even be friends with them.

  So being in a relationship is a confidence builder that will eventually lead to inflicting a family upon some other person that is born to you. That is more sad and pathetic than me staying here at the Heartbreak Hotel.

  My eyes have been opened the past week as I have spent my nights with a girl that I hardly know. Before you judge me in your self-righteousness, way up high in the security of your relationship, please consider that I have experienced love from both sides now. I am a fairer judge of the merits of both.

  Although I was with a girl for four years and thought that she was the love of my life, I can’t tell you what I loved about her. I don’t know what attracted me to her. There were physical things, but I can only seem to think about her personality and all of the things that she did to annoy me.

  But now that I have been staying at the Heartbreak Hotel, I can tell you that meeting a girl that has also had her heartbroken is vastly more interesting than any girl I have ever met. And it has nothing to do with her physical beauty. It has to do with the fact that she has a personality that is fully formed and not part of some couple. She has her own thoughts and opinions. We can actually discuss things.

  Sure we are both recovering from a broken heart, but we are spending time together because we are complete individuals that enjoy each other’s company. We don’t need the insurance of a relationship to keep us from feeling alone. And while you might think that we are sad and pathetic, I feel sorry for you. You have never been free enough of a relationship to find the beauty within you and within another human being.

  You have sacrificed the freedom of your individuality for the security of a relationship. Ben Franklin was right when he said, “Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.”

  Sept. 16. 2010

  Of all of the guys I have ever known, Jack is the most mysterious. I had planned on seducing him, or at least discussing the fact that I needed a little physical contact.

  When I entered the bedroom, he was already in bed. He smiled at me and watched me as I walked over to the bed and got in. He then started to play with my hair as he said, “You’re really beautiful, you know that?”

  I’ve had guys tell me this before, but it was a move that they were using on me to try to get something out of me. Jack was sincere. It was like he saw me enter the room and noticed something about me that he hadn’t seen before.

  I might have been wearing one of my sexier night gowns due to the fact that I was looking for some action last night, but...

  I’ve had guys hit on me because they thought I was hot. They’ve told me that I’m beautiful, but they always did so as they stared at my chest. I’ve never had a guy tell me that I’m beautiful while actually meaning something other than my physical appearance and while looking me in the eyes.

  Well, he didn’t maintain eye contact the entire time. In that extended moment of silence where I couldn’t think of anything to say, he spent some of it looking at my lips. And he got close to me like he wanted to kiss me, but then he didn’t.

  He just smiled, gracefully backed away to a socially acceptable distance for two people that have been sharing a bed while not dating, and said, “I just thought you would like to know that.”

  And all I could say was, “Thank you.”

  And then there was another silence as we were there together, not even looking at each other.

  Maybe I should have helped him to kiss me. I think that is what he wanted to do. And I know that he is having a hard time being intimate because of Brittany. He thinks of her all of the time. I know that he is thinking about her when he’s holding me and caressing me.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to help him kiss me right then. It was the first time that he was actually going to kiss me, the person he’s been getting to know the past week.

  Maybe my intentions for kissing him were more than just a physical need that I had. But as soon as I knew that he wanted to kiss me, I wanted him to take the lead and kiss me. No matter how badly I wanted him to kiss me at that moment. I wanted it to be special and not just a make out session with another guy.

  And in that awkward moment of silence as I was thinking about everything that I was feeling and not able to express, I started to cry. If there was anything that I did not want to do at that moment, it was cry, especially in front of him.

  And being the type of guy that he is, he noticed that I was crying and asked me what was wrong. Why couldn’t he have been like every other guy I have dated and just pretended to be asleep or ignore me completely when I cried? I cried after I lost my virginity, and James didn’t even try to console me. He seriously just rolled over and pretended to be asleep.

  But Jack.... Jack was genuinely concerned about why I was crying, which made me cry all the more. I was crying so much that I couldn’t tell him that nothing was wrong, which only fueled his concern, which fueled my crying. As he continued to find out what was wrong, I had to eventually roll away from him.

  I then felt his slight touch against my black satin night gown. As his gentle touch caressed me in a way to let me know that there was another human being there next to me that would listen to anything I had to say without judging me, he started to apologize for making me cry.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... When I said that you were beautiful, I just meant that... Having spent the past week with you, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot more to you than I ever saw when you were with Steve. I don’t think he quite knew what he had in you”

  And then I turned around to face him. I had to. If I
hadn’t, he would have just continued to say things that would make me love him more.

  “You’re fine. I’m not crying because you said I was beautiful. I mean, I am, but just because I was planning on telling you that I wanted you to make out with me. I felt anything but beautiful, even though you think otherwise.”

  And that was mostly the truth, at least at that moment when I was so confused on everything that I was feeling, thinking, and wanting. There were probably several conflicting truths with none being more true than the others.

  And before I could say anything else, he kissed me.

  Having had several first kisses in my lifetime, I have found that you can usually put them into two distinct categories. The first is the slow, natural kiss where both parties are thinking about kissing, so they just ease into it. It never feels forced, or like you are trying to get that first kiss out of the way, so that your next kiss will be more natural.

  The second kind of kiss is more passionate. A lot of times it is raw and animalistic. This second type of kiss is often associated with the guys that you have just met at a bar. This type of first kiss would often catch you off guard, but you’re usually just drunk enough that you don’t really think about what is happening at that moment.

  My first kiss with Jack was a combination of these two types of kisses. It seemed natural in that we had just had that moment where I thought he was going to kiss me. And I had even told him that I wanted him to kiss me. But it still caught me off guard, even though I slipped right into.

  It was probably the most perfect first kiss I have ever had, and yet I... I think he’s still in love with Britney. So I don’t know if he was kissing me to try to get over her, or if he was doing it because I mentioned that I had wanted him to. He could also have been doing it because he actually thought I was beautiful and felt like kissing me.