The Breakup

One of the most distinct memories I have from high school occurred on some random day as my friend and I were walking to her truck in the parking lot after school to go hang out at my house. As we climbed into the vehicle, I noticed something spectacular happening right before my very eyes. In the row of cars directly in front of my friend's truck we witnessed a real life, soap opera style collapse of a love triangle. There was the guy who was old news, the girl, and the new guy. The whole thing was like a solar eclipse and car wreck all rolled into one and I simply could not take my eyes off of it. My friend quickly noticed the spectacle as well and neither of us even budged a we stared at the trio for several minutes. As the old guy shamefully begged the girl to take him back, the new guy stepped in between them with the girl eventually walking away emotionlessly. The old guy did not let up, now shouting at both the new guy and the girl, and my friend and I found ourselves rooting for him to break down into tears. As the new guy and the girl got in the car and drove off together, leaving the old guy standing in an empty parking space, our wishes were granted as he began weeping like a small child. My friend and I both cheered before quickly deciding to leave in case he saw us.

I stopped by Jimmy John's today to enjoy a quick Gargantuan before work. I got my pop and sandwich and sat down in a booth by myself, directly behind a guy and a girl. Since I was alone, I ended up partaking in some people watching with the guy and girl in front of me being the easiest targets. At first I could not really tell if these two were just friends having lunch, whether they were on a lunch date, or what exactly was going on. Their calm and quiet discussion fooled me for quite some time. Finally as they continued talking, I realized what this was. They were having Breakup Lunch. I tried not to make it too obvious that I was monitoring their situation, but make no mistake, I was fully tuned in. The girl, who was wearing scrubs so I assume she was a nurse or something similar, very calmly explained that she was not going to support him or drag him around with her anymore. From what I heard, it seemed as though this guy was some kind of jobless, lazy tool and in the girl's defense, he was taking her on a date to Jimmy John's so she probably wasn't terribly far off the mark. I have to give the girl credit, she was unbelievably calm and resolved through the entire encounter, almost shockingly so. She challenged everything I ever thought I knew about girls and their crazed, irrational, and emotionally charged ways (kidding ladies . . . kind of). She seemed so detached from the whole thing that I briefly wondered if they were breaking up because the guy found out that his girlfriend used to be a dude. The guy on the other hand was extremely defensive and kept rambling on and on about how she didn't respect him and how she never gave him any credit for anything. He appeared to have some sort of sense of entitlement that left me with the impression that he had to be a trust fund baby. I could not help but wonder though if the guy knew he was going to get dumped and that is the reason why he chose to have the date at Jimmy John's. Every guy knows what I'm talking about. Your girlfriend says we need to talk, let's go get something to eat. That is basically code for, I'm going to squeeze one last free dinner out of you before I break your heart. So kudos to this guy for sticking it to her by taking the cheap way out.

As the situation wound down, the girl claimed she had to get back to work (probably lying) and coolly got up and left by herself. The guy stayed only for a moment longer before also departing. The whole thing absolutely made my day. At the risk of sounding like a terrible person (and by that I mean, with the absolute certainty of sounding like a terrible person), public breakups are probably one of my favorite things to watch from a distance. You just know that they decided to do it in public to avoid a scene and usually they fail miserably. The best part about this breakup though was the completely lack of an explosion that I felt was certain to come. This girl let the guy go as if she were firing a secretary. Cold, calculated, and distant. She was basically the breakup version of a sniper. It was breathtaking and fantastic. If anyone who is reading this is planning on ending it with their significant other sometime in the near future, please, do it in public, for the sake of everyone who might be there to enjoy it. If you are two are going to be miserable, at least make everyone else happy.