Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

But sometimes it’s damned funny when you’re not even dating

Years ago, I used to hang out with this dude. I’ll call him Fisher. We hung out and went drinking once or twice a week for several months.

It was a dark time in my life since my mom was very sick, and hanging out with Fisher was a good way to kill time — not to mention brain cells and my bank account — without having to think about her predicament.

Fisher was a good dude. He was fairly quiet. And not really happy with his lot in life, which we talked about a bit. But he kept a lot to himself, which was fine by me.

Sometimes we wouldn’t even talk, we’d just drink, kinda like two old men sitting at a bar with nothing left to say to one another, as if everything had already been said and wasn’t worth repeating.

And it just worked.

Solitude while sitting next to someone you know at a bar isn’t quite so solitary.

I found an odd comfort in the routine.

When I think about it now, it’s kind of depressing. But at the time, it was exactly what I needed. Companionship without expectation, commitment (emotional or otherwise), or even conversation.

Sometimes he’d pick up the check. Sometimes I would. There was no dickering about who paid. Just a lot of drinks.

We’d hug hello and goodbye, as I do with the majority of my friends. But there was nothing even remotely romantic between the two of us.

We were drinking buddies.

Or so I thought.

One day, Fisher called me up. He’d just returned from a vacation down south. I figured he wanted to go for drinks and tell me about his trip. Or not. I wasn’t picky as long as drinks were involved.

He knocked on my door. When I let him in, he asked if he could use my phone (this was before cell phones were the norm). I said sure.

He went over and called goodness knows who and had the most awkward conversation I’ve ever witnessed.

When he got off the phone, he went and stood next to the door. “Uh,” he said.

I looked at him, expecting him to tell me to grab my coat so we could go for drinks.

“We need to talk,” he said. And he actually shuffled his feet.

Immediately I thought, “Why does he look like he’s about to break up with me?”

I almost started to laugh. (This is the problem when you’re friends with someone with an overdeveloped sense of humor; even when in a depressive state, nearly everything is hilarious!)

Immediately I thought, “Why does he look like he’s about to break up with me?”

“Sure,” I said, trying not to make eye contact because I knew I’d start laughing any second.

“So, uh,” he said, unsure how to continue.

“Yes…” I said, hoping he’d get to the point. I wanted to go for drinks.

But this was obviously difficult for him, even though I had no idea what this was. So I waited him out, looking at his shuffling feet. Did he want to dance? That’d be…unusual…for him.

“So, uh…this isn’t working out,” he said.

Oh. My. God. He is breaking up with me!

“Um, all right,” I replied, looking at the door frame, tears from holding back the laughter starting to form in my eyes. “No more going out drinking then?”

“No, I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” he said.

I nodded, looking over at my CDs behind him, my guffaws barely concealed as I realized I’d never have to listen to his bad music in the car ever again. No more old man guitar rock.

The only thing we ever argued about was why he shouldn’t play Rush when I was around because goddamnit, I hate Geddy Lee’s voice. He eventually stopped putting that CD in whenever I was around.

“Well, then, I guess this is goodbye,” I replied.

“Yes, I guess so.” He just stood there, not moving. He was looking at me. I was looking anywhere but at him because I knew I’d laugh.

Just as I was thinking I’d have to push him out the door, he finally said, “Goodbye.”

He opened the door and walked out.

I don’t think the door had even clicked shut when I fell over on my bed, laughing my ass off for a good ten minutes.

I think he’d expected me to get upset. And cry. Scream. Yell. Something other than try not to laugh.

Over a breakup with someone I wasn’t dating.

The ridiculousness of it made me wish someone else had witnessed it. Maybe I’d missed something. But I doubted it. I was just dumped by a drinking buddy, and although I’d miss the drinks, I was giddy from it.

I called my best friend to tell her because it’s exactly the kind of thing you call your best friend about.

“He broke up with you?” she asked.

“Yup!” I said, still laughing.

“But…you’re not dating!” she said.

“Yup!” I said, laughing even harder as she joined me.

“I guess I’m single now!” I snorted. As if I hadn’t been for the past several months. As if I were in any sort of condition to handle a relationship and all that goes with it.

And now I had to deal with the fallout of a break up with a guy I wasn’t even dating. I guess I’d have to find a new drinking buddy.

The next day, I was still laughing about it. Because, really, someone breaking up with you when you’re not dating is classic and deserves to be shared.

I told a couple of my coworkers about it.

My one not-crispiest-chip-in-the-bag coworker didn’t get it. “But how can he break up with you if you’re not dating?” she asked for a third time.

“Exactly!” I said, laughing.

“But…you’re not dating. You can’t break up with someone if you’re not dating.”

I was starting to regret ever saying anything, but my other coworker came to my rescue.

“It’s like me breaking up with the filing cabinet!” she said. I nodded. “Or this cashew! ‘I’m sorry, Cashew, but this just isn’t working out between us.’”

The not-so-with-it coworker fake laughed, but I could tell she never really got it.

But now, every time I eat a cashew, I think about Fisher and his misguided attempt to break up with me. I wonder if he thinks of me as “the one who got away?”

Because I think of him as the one who broke up with me without ever knowing the copious amount of joy he brought me at one of the darkest times of my life. And for that, I’m strangely grateful.

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