Heartbreak

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What We Soy in Breakups, or Don't

man and woman are sitting in a cafe. The

woman is leaning forward with a solicitous look on her face. The man's back is jammed up against his chair. As she talks, his face pales. Her hand reaches out to him. His arms remain crossed against his chest. She shakes her head and begins to cry. One doesn't need to hear what these two miserable people are saying to know a breakup is in progress.

The breakup takes place in a sort of bubble, oblivious to the rest of the world. This little hell in which we find ourselves often occurs outside the home, apart from where we live—in the cafe, on park benches, in hotel rooms, in an unfamiliar neighborhood as we walk aim­lessly. Already the relationship is being nudged out of the normal frame of things. In the world of breakups the hours are long, pauses are vast, the pace is trying.

Breakups can be as devastating as death but with a mocking twist. A once beloved person is ripped out of our life and yet goes on to live somewhere else.

Without us. The person we were so close to is sud­denly zapped away, out of reach, lost to us, indiffer­ent. This sudden disappearance can be so painful it explains why lovers so often find themselves prolong­ing a breakup, putting off the inevitable.

The groundwork for the breakup is usually laid indi­rectly, with behavior indicating discontent—he'll work late, she'll sleep at the edge of the bed, they'll have a stupid spat about how to wash the frying pan. But the acknowledgment of misery will come, finally, through words. And there is one thing all breakups share, besides misery—a limited vocabulary.

You can be pretty sure the woman in the cafe has touched upon certain phrases such as "It's not you, it's me," or the reasonable but unconsoling "I just need to be on my own right now," or the female favorite, "This isn't going anywhere." Language in breakups seems particularly inadequate to express the complexity of one's feelings, the depth of one's anguish, the sorrow one feels. "I just need a change." "I don't think we're right for each other." "I can't

take this anymore." And these are the gentle phrases.

Then there are the sledgehammers: "I've met someone else." "I never really loved you." To explore this information further is to embark on a torturous journey. So of course we do it. For who has ever stood up from the breakup table with the dignity of acceptance? "Well, then, I guess that means we're finished." "So be it." "I wish you well." "Good-bye."

No, we crash on. Usually one person clings. The other tries to be patient as she extracts herself, longing to get away.

While the person instigating the break may not suffer from the blow of having to hear the words, that's not to say she may not end up being haunted by them. It is haunting to see the horror of disappointment on a once beloved face, haunt­ing to see someone weep inconsolably on a park bench with the background sounds of children playing, hard to endure a person pleading with you at the window table in a cafe.

Of course there is an alternative: simply not to speak. This is the silent breakup, usually occurring in the early stages of a love affair and favored by the young. Victims of the silent breakup know how traumatic it can be. Being dumped is bad enough without the added insult of not having your affair sufficiently acknowledged. Males (I hesitate to say men) seem to practice the silent breakup more frequently than females. Genetically disinclined to chatter, the man may sim­ply be following his nature, but in refusing to utter cliches, he instead becomes one—the callow man.

Is it lack of care, no longer needing to impress the other per­son, that allows us to sink lazily into the despair of worn-out phrases? No. More likely we are following the same impulse that finds us relying on cliches to express sympathy after a death. Great and complex emotion renders us stunned and

tongue-tied, and we flop back on familiar lines echoed so often over the years that they are there, available, enduring, waiting to express long-held emotions.

"This has nothing to do with you...," "I don't know how to say this...," the chilling "I really love you, but...," all may be overused, and yet being cliches, they do hit the nail on the head, so to speak. At least to a point.

The well-worn line is also a most effective armor to don for the difficult task of pulling the plug. What is said isn't the important thing, really; it is simply the means to an end. The lover who expects the dialogue of a breakup to illuminate the failings of a love affair is only setting himself up for fur­ther disappointment. The wise thing to do is to move on as quickly as possible and not look back.

For after all is said, and perhaps said again and a few times more, will the whole truth have really been revealed? If we are attempting to be kind, most likely there is an area of truth that will never be visited.

Will the woman at the cafe table really tell the man that she simply doesn't enjoy kissing him anymore? Will she say he doesn't earn enough money? Will she mention there's a man she met the other night who looked more interesting? Very likely, no. Breakups are usually filled with well-intentioned lies. Which is as it must be. There are some cliches we are better off not having to hear.

Having only cliches at our disposal as we wade through the mire of a breakup can be debilitating business. The particulars of our love affair may still be cherished despite its demise, and the lack of originality in its eulogy may feel like an affront to our individuality. But one may instead look at it as cause for com­fort: Others have felt this way before, down to the last word.