Elsewhere

I think there’s a certain time in life when you start to realize that being a good person doesn’t necessarily mean good things will happen to you. Not that I ever believed the world owed me anything for being kind, but I suppose there was always this rather childish assumption that if you treated people well, loved them sincerely, and tried your best not to hurt anyone, things would somehow work out in your favor. Or at the very least, you’d be spared from some of life’s more unpleasant experiences. Well, as it turns out, that’s not how any of this works. And to be fair, I don’t think it should.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately. Which is rather embarrassing to admit, considering that I’m a grown man with a full-time job, bills to pay, and a rather concerning number of things I should probably be worrying about instead. Yet somehow, in between meetings, emails, and the occasional existential crisis, I still find myself thinking about something as ridiculously ordinary as falling in love. Or perhaps more accurately, what happens when you fall out of it. Or when you don’t, but the other person does. That’s probably the worst combination.

It’s funny how we tend to romanticize heartbreak. There are countless songs, films, books, and poems about it, and some of the greatest works of art were probably made by people who were absolutely miserable at the time. I suppose there’s something strangely appealing about the idea of suffering beautifully. You get your heart broken, spend a few nights staring at the ceiling, listen to some Frank Ocean, and suddenly you’re the protagonist of your own tragic little film. Except real heartbreak is considerably less cinematic. Most of the time, you’re just a guy sitting in traffic, thinking about someone who probably isn’t thinking about you. And then the light turns green, and you have to drive.

Life goes on. How incredibly rude of it.

For a while, I thought heartbreak was something you experienced once, learned from, and eventually became immune to. You’d come out of it a little wiser, a little more cautious, and hopefully better equipped to deal with whatever comes next. But I don’t think that’s entirely true. You can understand perfectly well why something didn’t work out, recognize all the things that were wrong with it, and still find yourself wishing it had turned out differently. Apparently, being rational and being human are two entirely separate occupations, and I seem to be particularly bad at doing both simultaneously.

Perhaps the strangest thing about getting older is realizing that people can be both wonderful and wrong for you. Someone can make you genuinely happy, give you some of the best memories of your life, and still not be the person you’re supposed to spend the rest of it with. There’s no villain in that story. No grand betrayal, no dramatic confrontation, no satisfying conclusion where somebody gets what they deserve. Sometimes two people simply want different things, or want the same things at different times, or discover that loving each other isn’t enough to make everything else work. And I think that’s much harder to accept than having someone to blame.

And I’m starting to wonder whether I have actually moved on at all. I spent months trying to get my life back together, meeting new people, going on dates, and convincing myself that there were plenty of other women out there. And there are. I’m sure of it. But somehow, none of that seemed particularly convincing when I came across her picture unexpectedly.

I still find her incredibly attractive. I still miss certain things about being with her. Sometimes I still catch myself imagining what it would be like if we tried again, even though I know there were plenty of reasons our relationship didn’t work out the first time.

But I don’t want this to be another sad piece about lost love. God knows I’ve spent enough time thinking about that already, and I’m beginning to suspect my heart is running out of polite ways to tell me to move on.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

Heartbreaker Season.

I like how it sounds. There’s something almost arrogant about it, isn’t there? Like the title of an album by a new indie artist who recently discovered leather jackets, expensive sunglasses, and the joys of being emotionally unavailable. It sounds like the beginning of a rather questionable era in someone’s life. The sort of thing a man announces after getting rejected, before proceeding to make a series of terrible decisions and calling it character development, which is actually a series of desperate attempts to restore bruised ego and fragile masculinity.

And perhaps that’s exactly why I find it amusing.

Because, contrary to what the title might suggest, I have absolutely no intention of going around breaking people’s hearts. I don’t think I’d be particularly good at it anyway. I’ve always been the sort of person who gets attached too easily, thinks too much, and occasionally mistakes a pleasant conversation for the beginning of something extraordinary. Not exactly the qualifications of a professional heartbreaker. If anything, I’m probably more qualified to be the customer than the service provider.

Still, there’s something about the idea of a heartbreaker season that I find strangely liberating. Not because I want to hurt anyone, but because I wonder what it would be like to stop approaching every romantic possibility as though it might be the beginning of the rest of my life.

I’ve always been a rather sentimental person. I remember dates, places, conversations, little details that probably meant nothing to anyone else. I attach songs to people and memories to ordinary streets. I imagine futures that haven’t happened and occasionally mourn them when they don’t. I romanticize some things of what they can become, rather than what actually happened already. It’s a terrible habit, really, especially when you’re trying to convince yourself that you’re a perfectly reasonable adult. And while I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with being sentimental, I’ve started to wonder whether I’ve spent too much time falling in love with possibilities rather than realities.

Maybe someone is just someone. Maybe a nice dinner is just a nice dinner. Maybe two people can enjoy each other’s company without immediately wondering whether their children would inherit their curly hair. Maybe attraction doesn’t have to become affection, and affection doesn’t always have to become commitment. Perhaps there’s something to be said for allowing things to happen without constantly trying to figure out what they mean.

Of course, this is much easier to write than to practice. I know myself well enough to realize that one particularly good conversation with a pretty woman could turn this entire paragraph completely useless.

But I’m trying.

And I think that’s what this season is really about. Not becoming colder, more cynical, or deliberately careless with other people’s feelings. I don’t particularly admire men who treat emotional detachment as some sort of masculine achievement. Being incapable of caring isn’t a personality trait worth celebrating, as far as I’m concerned. Nor do I want to become one of those people who use their past disappointments as an excuse to behave terribly toward someone who had absolutely nothing to do with them.

I just want to be a little less afraid.

Afraid of meeting someone new. Afraid of being rejected. Afraid of getting attached. Afraid of discovering that I still have feelings for someone I thought I’d moved on from. Afraid that the next person won’t be as wonderful as the last, or that I’ll spend the rest of my life comparing everyone to a memory that has probably become considerably more beautiful in my head than it ever was in reality.

And perhaps, most embarrassingly, afraid that I won’t be loved the way I want to be loved.

It’s an uncomfortable thing to admit, especially as a man. We’re often expected to be confident, composed, and relatively nonchalant about these things. There’s this idea that a man should always be the one doing the pursuing, taking the risks, making the decisions, and accepting rejection with a shrug and a drink. And I suppose there’s some truth to the importance of being able to handle disappointment gracefully. But I also think there’s a difference between being strong enough to accept rejection and pretending that rejection doesn’t hurt.

It does. Sometimes quite badly. And then, eventually, it doesn’t hurt quite as much.

I don’t know whether there’s some grand lesson for me at the end of all this. I’m becoming more skeptical of the idea that every unpleasant experience must teach us something profound. Sometimes things happen, they suck, and we move on. Not everything needs to become a metaphor for personal growth. Sometimes you just need a good night’s sleep, a decent haircut, a workout session, and a reason to get out of the house.

Perhaps that’s enough.

So, for now, I think I’ll allow myself to enjoy being single. To meet people, go on dates, flirt a little, make mistakes, and collect stories that I might one day find interesting enough to write about. Besides, after spending the better part of the past year being miserable over a breakup, I think I’ve earned the right to be a little full of myself.

And I’ll try not to take every disappointment as a personal failure or every promising encounter as a sign from the universe. I’ll continue believing in love, because despite everything, I still think it’s one of the better things about being alive. But maybe I can believe in it without making it the center of every decision I make.

And if I happen to fall in love again, well, that would be lovely. I hope it happens naturally, with someone who makes me laugh, someone I genuinely admire, and someone who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with her. I’d like to think that isn’t too much to ask. Although, given my track record, perhaps I should refrain from making predictions.

In the meantime, there are other things to do. Places I haven’t been, films I haven’t seen, songs I haven’t written, and a version of myself I haven’t quite figured out yet. I have friends I should see more often, family I should spend more time with, and dreams that deserve at least as much attention as my romantic misfortunes. There’s an entire life happening outside of whoever happens to occupy my thoughts at ten in the evening, and it would be a shame to miss it.

I suppose the irony of calling this Heartbreaker Season is that I’m not entirely sure whose heart is supposed to be broken. Maybe nobody’s. Maybe the title is just a little inside joke with myself. Or maybe it’s my rather dramatic way of announcing that I’m finally ready to stop treating heartbreak as the defining event of my life.

I don’t want to become a heartbreaker. I just don’t want to keep breaking my own heart.

Anyway, so yeah, heartbreaker season.

So far, one woman has decided she doesn’t want to date me anymore after two dates because she read my blog—yes, this blog (you know who you are, and if you’re reading this, I’m sorry!). Another probably has no idea how much I still adore her, and I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about how stunning she looks that made me fall in love and feel that stupid, familiar excitement all over again like when we’d just started dating in 2021, because she dyed her hair pink with an ombré style which I mistaken for red.

Not exactly the beginning I had in mind.

But hey, the season’s only just started.