I Couldn’t Keep My Hands to Myself

Technology has made broken hearts far more humiliating.

We used to break up with someone and walk away. It was awesome. You could try and call them, or they could try and call you. But you didn’t have to pick up.

You could have your mom say you weren’t home.

That is, if she would.

My mom made me get on the phone. But still you could get away with it if you had a parent who would let you. Or a college roommate, or anyone else you were living with.

Then technology ruined the heart.

Evil tech made breakups far more humiliating.

Because now we carried our phones with us.

Worse, we drank and carried.

I just wrote I Stopped My Friend From Drunk Texting, Guess who she had to stop the next night? You got it. Moi. Me, myself, and I. But that’s only part of the story.

It’s true. My friend did successfully stop my drunk text on that particular night. But I might’ve been technologically weaker on a few unsupervised evenings.

She might’ve been a little too late.

If you follow me you know my story. If you don’t, let me sum it up. I had an overly long and abusive five year divorce. I’m now five years out. I swore off men. Until a few months ago.

Am I a total stranger to the drunk text?

No, there’s been other times…

I couldn’t keep my fingers to myself.

But somehow if felt far more respectable. I wasn’t drunk texting anyone I hadn’t know for a long time. The kind of people who would drunk text me too. Not a whole a lot to be embarrassed by.

Sort of the Yin and yang of drunk texts.

There was a balance in the drunk text universe.

But then I had to go and ruin it.

As if evil technology hadn’t already done that. I had to meet a guy. I couldn’t make my first dating experience simple. I couldn’t turn down a guy who made it clear he was being transferred to a different coast in weeks.

A man who tried to warn me it probably wasn’t a good idea.

But who ultimately caved too.

No, I couldn’t simply meet a guy who lived locally.

This girl who now can’t keep her fingers to herself, had to say yes to dating him.

I wasn’t technologically telepathic.

I didn’t foresee one single drunk text. I thought I was the perfect woman to have a short romance. My ex-husband had successfully repelled me from any man who wanted to date me.

I thought I was dipping my foot or in this case fingers, back into the pool.

In a million years, I didn’t think I would again, care enough about any man…

To humiliate myself with a drunk text.

Okay, let me back up long enough to have my own proverbial back. The first four or five texts I sent were completely sober. We had a misunderstanding after he left and I blocked him.

I know, I’m not proud of that.

Let’s place it the category of evil tech humiliating the heart again.

It was a reaction, I regret it.

After I blocked him, I unblocked him long enough to send those four or five texts. As I said, they were sober but I still regret them. I’m not typically a reactionary person but my feelings for him were far stronger than I realized.

I honestly didn’t know how intense they were until after he left.

Who knew?!

Anyway, that’s about where this girl took a deep humiliating dive.

And could no longer control her fingers.

I unblocked him because I felt like I did the wrong thing. And back to the — I didn’t know how I really felt about him — until he left thing — it was poised to be a technological embarrassment — of the heart.

You got it.

I sent a few drunk texts.

The kind that make you cringe.

That type of drunk text. But is there really any other kind of drunk text? The two words make us squirm for a reason. There’s true logic behind why so many of us regret drunk texts.

I guess there might be a few good ones if they end well.

If they’re wanted and well-received.

But my drunk texts felt mortifying.

At least, to me. I mean to the point where you can’t go back and re-read them the next morning. Because you’re literally hoping it doesn’t say what you think it does.

You wish you had kept your fingers to yourself.

But I think I got lucky.

If you can call him blocking me getting lucky.

I should probably being using another word. But lucky is probably the perfect oxymoron in this case. And this writer can’t help herself.

When I did finally force myself to view my humiliation…

None of my texts said delivered.

I’m not sure why he blocked me. Maybe because I told him I blocked him. And then waited for him to respond, and blocked him again. And then sent another text.

I could have made him mad.

But he’s too good a guy for that.

My guess is that it’s what we always talked about before he left. It was never going to be easy to fight the attraction, or to give into it, and then to walk away from it.

We had never planned on continuing anything past him leaving.

For a very simple reason.

It made zero sense. I wasn’t going to leave the East Coast and he wasn’t going to leave the West Coast. We were never going to be in the same place again.

There was an end before our beginning.

And more heartache than either of us anticipated five weeks would bring. I think we both thought how attached can two people become in such a short time? But we did get too attached.

It’s smarter to close the door completely.

To be fair, you can’t necessarily determine if someone has blocked you.

Not every text will always say delivered. But many of them do. And the last ones that said delivered to him were the ones where I felt I reacted to a misunderstanding.

I’m grateful my drunk texts didn’t go through.

They weren’t long or bad.

They just spoke too much from the heart.

They are things I probably wouldn’t have said to him in person. The kind of emotion I don’t think a short romance permits. I write about those feelings. But pressuring another person with them? No, not for a five week long relationship.

It’s not fair.

I’m okay with sending him sober texts. I’m okay with apologizing for my reaction especially, since I feel bad about it. I’m okay with any type of clear-headed texts.

I’m okay with anything I text in the light of day or dark of night that isn’t…

Anywhere near a bottle of Budweiser.

Or a glass of grape…fermented that is.

We used to break up with someone and walk away. It was awesome. You could try and call them, or they could try and call you. But you didn’t have to pick up.

You could have your mom say you weren’t home.

That is, if she would.

I miss the days of less indignity.

But technology ruined the heart.

Evil tech made breakups more humiliating.

Because now we carry our phones with us.

Worse, we drink and carry.