Not to get personal on you or anything, but I am currently staring down the barrel of a break up, after three years of “see you when you get home”, “what shall we have for dinner?”, “move over, stop stealing the duvet” bliss. So it occurs to me…. Break ups are rubbish if you’re a normal, everyday person. Because no matter what kind of upheaval is about to occur in your life, all the rest of it – work, friends, the tube, getting stuck in the rain, same old, same old – goes on.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I had to keep going to work to earn money, my break up could almost be romantic. I could book a flight to the South of France, and go work in a cheese shop. I could rent a house on the beach, and stare wistfully off into the middle distance for hours at a time. I could buy a house in Tuscany, and renovate it with the help of some Polish builders, have an affair with a dashing Italian and in doing so, rebuild myself. Wait, did that last one happen in a movie? (see above)
But it seems to me that break ups (in the romantic sense) are only for rich people, authors and delinquent movie stars. People who can escape to their house in the country, drink copious amounts of wine, and have long pensive walks in the countryside before they:
a) get a call from Paolo saying they must absolutely get themselves to Monaco, Hector and Flavia are waiting on the Piazza with a bottle of Moet;
b) are suddenly inspired, while watching a rusty gate swinging in the breeze, to begin writing their novel, which they do in a matter of weeks, perfectly timing the last chapter with the first bloom of spring;
c) Go on a drug binge with Tobey Maguire and Scott Wolf before checking themselves into rehab.
They are not for people who are depressed about their menial existences already, and who – despite several well-intentioned resolutions to do so – have never managed to save any of that money for a rainy day, and so have no means of escaping the banality.
No, we mere mortals have two options when heartbreak strikes:
1. Fuck it all, go on a bender, and wake up in a lot of debt responsible for a trail of shame, including, but not exclusively, shagging your exes mate, borrowing £50 from a friend for the rent and spending it on coke, and possibly having a chick pash with the Spanish girl who works at your local pub because she said she had some weed.
2. Or stick it out, stay in your job, have a couple of meltdowns in the toilet, get moderately drunk with friends, and sensibly plan your next move – be it new job, holiday or moving some place.
And given the latter involves planning, being sensible and continuing your life essentially as before without any serious wallowing or dramatically running away… Well, it just doesn’t sound romantic at all.
Sigh…. Drink, anyone?
