Single State of Mind

by Andi Dorfman

  “Please pick up.”

  “I’m at dinner,” I lie. I’m really sitting at home without any makeup on. I know that no matter what I tell myself, I’m eventually going to answer him, but I sure as hell am not going to do it with no makeup on. “Can you give me an hour? ”

  “Of course.”

  Exactly one hour later, he calls again. This time, I can’t fight the urge, and I answer. He’s lying in bed despite it being daylight there. He looks like shit, with dark circles around his eyes. His hair is a mess. He looks like someone who has just had a major bender. The conversation starts with him asking what’s up and how I’m doing. I reply with one-word answers, which triggers him to get to the meat of exactly why he’s calling.

  “Well, I guess I’ll get to it. I didn’t want to end this over text.”

  “Well, it’s a little late for that.”

  He starts apologizing for texting. I tell him what a cowardly move it was. He agrees and says he did it because it was such a hard thing to say and he didn’t know how to say it.

  “I’m sure it was hard, but did you ever stop for a minute and think of how getting a text like that would make me feel? ”

  He apologizes a few more times, and I realize I can’t beat a dead horse.

  Then he starts in about how he just needs to be single right now. Blah, blah, blah.

  I interrupt him. “I know, you said that already.”

  He apologizes for repeating himself.

  I’m looking at him, and it’s as if I don’t even recognize him. I spent six weeks talking to him every day, followed by ten days frolicking around Seattle with him, and now it’s as if he’s a stranger. I don’t see the same sweet, smart guy I once saw. Instead, I see the face of a cowardly little boy. He has tears in his eyes, and so do I. He just keeps repeating that he needs to be single right now, and I just keep repeating that I understand. I’m being way nicer than I should be, considering he dumped me over a fucking text, on a Friday night, no less.

  The conversation has gone on for thirty minutes, and it’s as if we are talking in gut-wrenching, painful circles. Nothing is getting accomplished, because there is nothing to accomplish. The guy has made up his mind, and there is nothing I can do to change it.

  I’m to the point of annoyance when he says, “I’m just not where you are at right now.”

  And instead of agreeing, something inside me unleashes. “Do you even know where I’m at right now? ” I say in a bitchy tone.

  “What do you mean? ”

  “I mean, in all of this talk about you wanting and needing to be single, have you ever once stopped and actually asked me what I felt about all of this? ”

  “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Sorry. Please explain to me what you mean. I really want to know.”

  I take a moment to collect the scattered thoughts that have me on the verge of releasing all my pent-up anger and going psycho ex-girlfriend on him. Deep breath, Andi. Do not make a fool of yourself. “Well, since we are being honest. When I got home from Seattle, I had dinner with my girlfriends, and of course, they were asking me about the trip, which I told them was great. Then one of them asked me if I was ready to really date you. I told them the truth, which was that I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give up the single life, but luckily, neither of us had put any pressure on each other to label us as anything. So I was just going to see what this turned into.”

  He looks confused. “Okay . . .”

  “So you didn’t even stop to think maybe I want to be single, too. You’ve just assumed this entire thing was all about how you feel. I haven’t mentioned us being exclusive, because I’m not sure that’s what I want. But instead of seeing where it goes, you’ve made it clear that you see things as black-and-white. There is no gray with you. And there’s also a self-centered side to you that I’ve never seen until now. I don’t mean that to be harsh, but you never even thought that maybe I wanted to be single, too. You just assumed I was madly into you.”

  “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

  “Of course, you didn’t.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? ”

  “Nothing. I think we’ve both made our points. I don’t want to get angry, so let’s just be done with it.”

  Before he can even say goodbye, I hang up the phone. I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t take seeing his face. Not because he dumped me but because I wasn’t seeing his face. I was seeing the face of someone I didn’t know. Someone I never knew.

  karma has no deadline

  I should be in Atlanta at my friend’s wedding right now, but I’m not. Instead, I’m having a glass of wine on a terrace overlooking the Aegean Sea. I’m in Santorini, Greece.

  I struggled over whether or not I should do the right thing and go to my friend’s wedding. I even made a list of reasons why I should and shouldn’t attend and then compared them. It didn’t take much for me to realize the cons won by a landslide. I hadn’t seen this friend of mine in years, hadn’t even met her fiancé, and ultimately I just couldn’t bear the thought of attending another wedding alone right now. Yes, this was one of those weddings with a “no ring, no bring” policy. And since I’ve just recently been dumped by a twenty-something-year-old baseball player and have exactly zero diamonds to my name, I would fall into the “No” category. So, I decided, fuck that. Here’s a new policy for you: “No plus-one, no come!”

  I’m sorry, but I’m so over all of this single shaming when it comes to weddings. I think once you reach a certain age, such as your midtwenties, if you are single and invited to a wedding, you should be allowed to bring a date. I understand if the bride is trying to cut costs; that’s fine, don’t invite me. I understand that the bride doesn’t want to look out into the audience and see an unfamiliar face, but who’s to say you’ll ever even see a familiar face again? I’ve brought plenty of legitimate boyfriends to weddings, and the bride has never seen them again. Brides just don’t seem to see it from the single woman’s perspective. Here we are shelling out a shitload of money to celebrate your overpriced love fest of a day, and while we are happy to do so, we do so alone. Alone at an event in which love is everywhere, which obviously will make us feel depressed and defeated by life. Every slow song that comes on will have us awkwardly hiding in the restroom, but we will show up, because we care about you. So if you care about us, throw us a fucking bone, and give us a plus-one. Not that I’d even have a plus-one anyway, of course. Fucking Mr. Seattle, I swear.

  So instead of going to the wedding, I sent a gift, scrounged up all of my SkyMiles, and booked a trip to Greece with Kelly. I’ve spent most of the trip trying desperately to leave my worries behind and not think about anything related to Seattle, with little success. I just can’t seem to get him off my mind. I think about him all hours of the day; hell, I even have dreams about him. Somewhere out there, he’s probably screwing chicks left and right, hamming it up with his guy friends and laughing about how he played me like a fool, while I’m still thinking that maybe he’ll come crawling back to me. They say if you let someone go and they come back, it’s meant to be. But no one tells you how crazy you look clinging on to something that is long gone.

  And cling I do. Like when he sent me my burner phone. Turns out, not only did I leave my pride in Seattle, I also accidentally left my burner phone at his place. I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he had snooped on it and found something on there and that’s why he dumped me out of the blue. Maybe he was turned off that the screen was cracked? Nothing says I’ve got my shit together and you should reconsider me like a left-behind cracked burner phone. Upon realizing that I left it, I decided to just call it a wash, considering I wasn’t about to text him asking him to send the thing back. I figured like him, it was long gone. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw a package from Seattle, Washington, in my mailbox.

  I ripped it open to find my phone. It looked different.
“Awww,” I sighed aloud. He got the screen fixed for me. Maybe he was a nice guy after all. I sent him a text.

  Me: “Got my phone. Did you fix the screen? ”

  I’m not sure why I asked that; it wasn’t as if the screen was going to magically get fixed while bubble-wrapped in a FedEx envelope sent from his address.

  Mr. Seattle: “Yeah, ha ha, I did.”

  Me: “Thank you! You did not have to do that.”

  Mr. Seattle: “I wanted to. It’s why it took me so long to send it, ha ha ha.”

  Me: “Ha ha. When did you do it? ”

  Mr. Seattle: “Found a guy out by me who dropped it off Sunday. I’m in Dallas playing golf, it’s smoldering hot, ha ha.”

  Me: “Ha ha. Well, thanks for doing that, very sweet of you.”

  Mr. Seattle: “Don’t mention it. Have a nice weekend!”

  Me: “You, too.”

  Ugh, just thinking about that makes me want to text him so badly. I want to be the confident girl who says “Fuck it” and puts her heart on the line. But deep down, I know that right now, even with the most killer proclamation of love, nothing will change. But what if he was the one to reach out? Oh, my God, did I just say that? What the fuck is wrong with me? Of all the guys I’ve dated in the past year, none of them has had this post-relationship effect on me. Why is this one different?

  I feel this odd sensation. It’s not pain, it’s more like an achy feeling. It’s as if my heart isn’t quite broken, it’s just sprained. Oh, fuck, my heart is going to really break when it hits me that this is over, isn’t it?

  It’s not until another ex resurfaces that my mind finally gets a much-needed rest from thinking about Mr. Seattle. It’s my ex-fiancé and based on my Twitter feed that is blowing up, he’s back!

  “Oh shit, looks like my exes are causing a shitstorm right now on Bachelor in Paradise,” I tell Kelly.

  “Oh that’s right, I forgot that’s been airing. You know he’s engaged again, right? ”

  “Is he? ”

  “Yeah.”

  “Gross. Like, really, dude, on a television show again? ”

  “Seriously. But do you expect anything more from him? ”

  She’s right. I was actually surprised when I heard he was even doing the show, considering all of the bitching and moaning he used to do about how much he hated everything about “what it stood for.” Then again, he’s the quintessential type to preach, not practice. And now he’s the kind who apparently is being ripped apart right now on the internet. Talk about karma being a bitch!

  Turns out he isn’t the only ex who went on a paradise vacation this summer. Only he wasn’t in Greece, he was in Mexico. And he wasn’t sipping wine in Santorini, he was eating pizza while cameras captured his every move.

  He was a contestant on yet another reality show, Bachelor in Paradise. They take all the craziest contestants from seasons past, send them to a tropical beach, and sit back and watch the ridiculousness unfold.

  Since I refuse to watch, I ask Kelly to give me a recap. Apparently, it all started with Number Twenty-Five, the runner-up for my affections back on my season of The Bachelorette, arriving on the show first. He took a girl out on a date, and everything looked to be on the up for him, finally. Until my ex-fiancé, Number Twenty-Six, arrived. With no love lost between the two of them, Number Twenty-Six promptly flashed his pearly whites and stole the girl from Number Twenty-Five. Sounds familiar. But that wasn’t going to be the end of it. He wasn’t going to go down so easily this time. With tensions soaring, the cast began to take sides. All of them chose Number Twenty-Five. They began questioning Number Twenty-Six’s intentions. Enter my book . . .

  Turns out It’s Not Okay must have been on everyone’s reading list, because they were all very well versed in the way I’d described the assholeness of my ex-fiancé. And now they were seeing it firsthand. Week after week on the show, the book kept coming up in conversations. Week after week, Number Twenty-Six would dismiss it as fictional and ludicrous or say that he had never even read it. (Which makes no sense, because if he hadn’t read it, how would he know if it was fictional or not?) Nonetheless, his controlling, condescending behavior toward his new girl and the other contestants spoke louder than his denials over my book did. And in the most ironic plot twist ever, it was none other than Number Twenty-Five who made the most compelling case for the veracity of my book. In a heated face-to-face encounter, he said something to the effect of “Well, everything she said about me was true, so I find it pretty hard to believe that everything she said about you wasn’t, and so does everyone else.” It was clear that no one was buying Twenty-Six’s facade, including the internet.

  Part of me feels bad for him. I know that sounds crazy. I never thought I’d feel bad for Number Twenty-Six, but I don’t take any pleasure in seeing him be the villain. Okay, maybe I take a little pleasure. Or maybe the right word is vindication. Yes, that’s it, I feel vindicated. He’s reaping what he sowed, and his true colors are finally showing. Did he really think he was going to waltz back onto the show a mere month after my book came out and nobody would say a word about it? But that’s the thing with Number Twenty-Six. He is far from normal. He can call my book fictitious all he wants, I honestly don’t give a shit, because I know what is true, and I think now the rest of the world does, too.

  Truth be told, the drama is doing wonders for my book sales. With press requests flooding in and a new run on the New York Times list, all this had become the greatest publicity platform my publisher could ask for. I’d practically gone on the show without ever having stepped foot on the Mexican sand. All because two of my exes were once again fighting for the same woman.

  What does bother me a little bit, however, is that I’m so out of the loop. Even though it’s been filmed and is now airing, I still have to hear about all of this through Kelly or Twitter, which just doesn’t sit right with me. You’d think that having been a lead and having developed close relationships with the producers, there would be some show of courtesy when your ex-fiancé goes on the spin-off of your own show. But no. Not a word. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The truth is, when it comes to everyone associated with the show, every contestant is disposable. The day your season is over, the producers are on to the next.

  I noticed this shortly after my season ended. Some of the producers had gone from texting me daily or weekly, to monthly, to eventually never at all. I watched as they slowly trickled out of my life. And it made me start to think about relationships in real life. The bottom line is, people come and go. Some relationships are just business, pure and simple. Did I think these producers were my friends at one point? Sure. But at the end of the day, they all had jobs to do and livings to earn. I was a project, and, like any worker, once you complete a project, you move on to the next. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sadden me a little to feel like I was nothing more than work to them.

  But maybe I should just start getting used to that. Being taken in only to be disposed of when I’m no longer needed. Then again, I am sitting here sipping wine watching the sun set in Greece, so I’d say the joke is kind of on everyone else right now, isn’t it? Cheers, from paradise!

  game, set, engaged

  I’m back in New York with a nice Grecian tan. Jess, Ava, and I are out to dinner when I find my phone blowing up. It’s Twitter again. Jess’s is blowing up, too, which means something big must be happening in the Bachelor world.

  “Holy fuck, did you see who they just announced as the next Bachelor? ” Jess looks up from her phone.

  “No, who? ”

  She hands her phone over to me.

  “No shit. Didn’t see that one coming.”

  It’s Number Twenty-Five. Somehow he’s gone from being the villain, not once but twice, to becoming the hero of the summer and crowned the fucking Bachelor. Though I’ve felt betrayed by him ever since he called me out on live television for having sex, I can’t help but laugh about the irony of it all. Plus, that was years ago a
nd since then he’s apologized, and though I’ll never truly forgive him, I don’t have the space in my heart to hate him. I hurt him, and in return, he hurt me back. Simple as that. Jess warns me to get ready to give a statement because every media outlet is going to want one. I can’t say “Cool” or “It is what it is.” But I also can’t be disingenuous and gush about how he’s my best friend and I’m just so over-the-moon with excitement for him and his new journey to find love. I mean, once upon a time, I compared this guy to herpes and said his sex was a ladyboner killer. I may be a psycho, but I’m not a fake psycho.

  I know I’ll have to craft a statement tomorrow, but tonight, I need to do what’s right. I take out my phone and send a text.

  Me: “Hey! Just want to say all bullshit aside, congrats. I think you’ll be great, and I hope you find a good woman and finally get your own love story. You deserve it, and you know I mean that.”

  Twenty-Five: “Thanks, Andi. I know you do, and I appreciate it. I’m glad we buried the hatchet.”

  I give myself a mental pat on the back for taking the high road and put my phone away.

  “Okay, enough Bachelor talk. How was Greece? ” Ava is much more a fan of vacations than she is of reality television. I start telling the girls about Greece, but somehow find myself talking about how Mr. Seattle had been viewing all of my snaps lately.

  “You still think about him? ” Jess asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow, I didn’t realize it was that deep.”

  “I know. I think I kind of downplayed it because I was afraid of getting hurt, but the truth is, I’ve thought about him every single day.”

  “What do you think about? ” Ava asks.