If you’ve followed along with me for any period of time, you might know the last episode that I’m going to touch on this week. I know, that seems pretty ambiguous, but it’s an important part of my story. It’s why I started this blog. To heal myself. From one of the most damaging and painful relationships and break-ups I’ve ever experienced in my life.
There is so much that happens in this episode but only one part that truly resonates with me. The episode is the seventh of Season 6 and it’s called “The Post-It Always Sticks Twice”. In this episode, amongst other insanity that transpires, Carrie’s beau at the time, Berger, breaks up with her on a post-it note.
Do you remember this episode? It’s pretty iconic. If you don’t or you’ve never watched the series before, I’d like to share this tidbit because it is meaningful to the big picture. Berger writes the following on a post-it: “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.”
The thing is, in the greater scheme of the show, this interaction is kind of lower on the intensity scale. But for me, it’s major. I’m not sure where to start, so I am just going to dive right in. To break up with someone over a post-it note (or in my case a text message) is ludicrous, immature, and unnecessary. Except that for many, it is the only option.
What do I mean by that? Well, there are so many people that have no fucking idea how to communicate with other humans. They flounder. They flip-flop. They fear. They fail. They have no idea how to be honest or real or tender. They lack compassion and certainly empathy. They have a goal in mind, which is to get the fuck out of something, and they take the path of least resistance.
I spent many a night wondering why my significant other of five years didn’t sit down with me and just tell me the truth. Why not tell me he had met someone else and had started dating her? Of course, I would have been sad, but I would have gotten over it.
Wait a second. I need to back track for just a second here. My post-it moment wasn’t quite so clear. I would have loved three sentences like Berger crafted. Actually, that would have felt incredibly shitty but at least I would have understood rather quickly what was happening. I got paragraphs of misleading, murky, statements. I got excuses and piles and piles of bullshit. The saddest part wasn’t that he felt our relationship only deserved that much, but that I knew what he was trying to say but gave myself permission to not see it.
It was easy to live in that head space, the one firmly entrenched in the land of make believe. He had written so much garbage that there was almost no possibility of clarity outside of the fact that I am an entirely sensible human. My brain quickly pieced together his treatment of me, our lack of physicality, and all the mumbled nonsense to understand that he was leaving. And yet, I used the many words and physical distance (text message versus an actual conversation) to justify an alternative narrative.
The fucked-up part is that he continued to feed my delusions with his cruel and insane behavior for months.
I can’t say that I would have done things radically differently this time around, but I’d like to think I would, and it’s maybe not why you think. Ready? I’ve decided that if someone has no basic concept how to communicate, I have no basic desire to share my life with them. Wow. Right?
I know this may sound harsh to you. I have a ton of friends who have explained to me that their significant others just need guidance and molding. Good for them. I commend that kind of faith and dedication. I’m not even being an asshole here. I mean it. I also think that if the parties are willing, there are beautiful relationships that can emerge on the other side of that exercise.
Where I’m concerned? I’m done. I’m over it. I don’t need perfect as perfect does not exist, but I need someone that has been around the block enough to grasp the basics of human decency and appropriate communication techniques.
If I don’t understand what someone is trying to say, I want to be able to ask them and in turn, I want them to explain in a way that doesn’t confuse me further. I don’t want someone who lies because they are uncomfortable. I don’t want someone who always takes the easy way out. Communication can be really fucking hard. Whether you are leaving or staying, this fact is a truth. It can be heart wrenching and trying. Sometimes it takes more than one attempt. All the good communicators know this and they keep at it.
Berger’s break up was as straight forward as they come but it was cowardly and for me, that’s poor communication. Real talk requires bravery and conviction. I was just telling my mother this the other day, in a different context. I don’t begrudge my ex tiring of me and wanting to move onto someone else. Sometimes that happens. It doesn’t feel good, but that is the way of the world. I loathe that he lied. I despite that he snuck right out the back door instead of holding my hands and saying, thank you for five years, but I’m ready to be done now. I could have collected my things like a normal person, and handed over the key to his apartment, and maybe even answered the questions that I tried in vain to answer myself for many months that followed.
I am not suggesting that you be like me. I am encouraging you to sort out the kind of communication that is tolerable for you and then apply it across the board. Work. Friendships. Family. Romantic entanglements. Once you figure that out, you’ll be amazed at how much better everything feels.
At the end of the episode, or nearly the end, Carrie gets arrested for smoking a joint and finds herself relieved that she has another story to characterize the day, instead of ‘the post-it’. I feel that so hard. When we allow ourselves to communicate in ways that don’t serve us, we lose something. We stay stuck. We forever circle communications looking for a key, a tip, a hint, the point.
Take a minute. Find your baseline. Grow from there.
Don’t break up with people on post-its or over text. It’s shitty.
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