Narcissism 101

Nice guys finish last but no one likes an arsehole (the break up) part 1

If you are reading this then it’s already too late... wait no, this isn’t some bad Hollywood script and no one is certainly dying. I am just being slightly melodramatic. As always. The truth of the matter is it has just struck midnight and is now officially April fool’s day in the year of our lord 2009. Religious? Heck no. Temporarily insane and fatigued? Maybe! See I am choosing to write this blog ahead of time so that for once, the male gender might finally come out on top of a break up. In less than 10 hours time, I go to war. Confused? You will be.

Obviously before I continue with my story I need to give you all a little background information as to what led us to this situation today.

In the summer of 2008 I was dating a girl who I met whilst serving in the Royal Australian Army. (For the purpose of this blog I am going to call her “Blah”.)

Now Blah was an amazing girl, I felt as all young men feel the moment they meet their first love, that she was perfect. Now let's jump to the end and explain how she decided that I’d no longer need the organ in my chest that pumps blood around my body. This begins the autobiographical tale of loss and heart ache and sadly I had to be 21 when I first experienced it. Most people go through that at 14 and 15 years old and as you can imagine, it hurt. Although what really took the cake was how the break up played out.

Picture this, a nice Sunday afternoon, we've just been to WOW sight and sound and picked up her new TV and then we go back to her house and what do we decide to watch? The Notebook! (I am serious, this isn’t a bad Hollywood plot reject). So then halfway through the movie we stop it for a break and as we get talking, I realise something isn’t right. I ask her “Blah, are you happy?” and she simply replies “no!”

Oh crap, ok so yeah I just realised I suck at re-telling stories, let me just back track... um so when we first started seeing each other and I started to really fall for her, I explained to her how happy she made me, and all I could ever want to do, is make her feel the same. If I was ever to fail in doing this then I was failing her and I would pack my things and leave. Yep I was once a diehard romantic.

So anyway it then becomes apparent that Blah isn’t happy and at the same time, she literally and figuratively doesn’t have the male gonads to end the relationship herself. So I lose twice by not only having to walk away from a girl I love, but being the one to do the walking away! It can be easy when someone wrongs you in a relationship, anger can be a trusty tool when forgetting someone and moving on, but when you still care for them, it will suck...

Blah and I eventually got back together a little while later, only to fall down the path of destruction and unhappiness once again. This time we ended it with an argument and I don’t think anyone can come out a winner in that scenario. Blah and I did still keep minimal contact over this past year and I think if memory serves me right, she thought I was a nosey self centred child. I thought she was a... wait no, I will refrain from disclosing how I see her and be a gentleman instead.

There you have it, the one greatest fear mankind lives with everyday, the loss of love, the rejection and heart break... So when I say it’s a war zone can you really argue with me? I love quoting lines from televisions and movies all the time, ask my brother if you don’t believe me. My only problem is not only do I quote, but I often try and relate things to real life... He reminds me all the time how it’s not the same but that is besides the point. There was this one episode in season 3 of “How I Met Your Mother” when Ted explains how in a break up, once the dust has settled there is always the fight to see who has come out on top. I think there is another battle that is overlooked and that is who walks away with their head held high!

This now brings me now to the present day and the war I am about to fight. Call me childish (pattern forming) if you must about how comical I am making this, but to me this is a very important social experiment that only a few people in their life will ever have the opoortunity to undertake. An opportunity to have the power to control the moment and the breakup.

Once again I won’t be disclosing names so let’s pretend this girl is named Blah 2, I am sorry if it has ruined the story for you making two people share the same name (almost) but you will get over it, life will go on... or so I have been hearing a lot these last few days. I met Blah 2 in the early days of February this year. Now as corny as this story is about to get it’s all true. We shared our first kiss on Valentine’s Day of all days (everybody all at once say “aawww”). and without going into all the details, I t hought she was an amazing girl and I really did like her!

Now this is where I ask you not to judge me.

Blah 2 and I have only been officially seeing each other for a little over three weeks, and while I am a very affectionate person and I do take a shine to people very easily. I was on a high and driving Luke and Nicole crazy around the house. But what goes up, must come down.

It all started last week Monday the 23rd of March, the night before was her birthday party and I had just met some of her friends. Unfortunately because of the busy life she leads, together times were few and far between, however on an occasion like this, how could I miss it? So as I awoke on this Monday morning I was unaware that this would be our last moments of a communicating couple. As the week progressed I heard from her less and less. It felt weird that before we were a couple we’d always speak, but now... we were like strangers.

The weekend came closer and we had organised to go to her friend’s house for a party, I was excited after not seeing her all week. Meanwhile I was spending time with a friend who was sorely in need of good company, as they had just separated with their partner. It scared me when she responded to an inquiring message I sent about the party with "you don’t need to come if you don’t want, I was only going as a favour to a friend."

So call me old fashioned but if you’re going to go to a party with friends, you’d want your partner to go. More so since you might want to let your friends meet him. So I did the only manly thing I knew how to do. I cancelled! As I figured my friend needed me more, I thought it might have been a blessing in disguise. But then I miss seeing her that night, and of course she is working the next night, so on Sunday I ask if I can see her.

It turns out her and her friends are heading to the coast for the V Festival. That's ok. I don’t mind waiting for the next time to see her. So in my infinite wisdom I decide to write her a nice letter, a letter Luke describes as overboard but Nicole considered sweet and well worded, sorry Luke, Nicole is a female. So I send this letter to her and without getting to much into it, it told her how much I missed spending time with her and seeing her, but I understood how busy she was so I just wanted to make sure that with everything happening around us, she was happy.

Two days later I get a message that she wants to meet up, immediately my heart sinks, she didn’t want to hang out, or come spend time with me, she wanted to “meet up”. Was I getting a glimpse at my untimely demise? Then again, ever since after her birthday I knew something wasn’t right.

We schedule for an afternoon coffee at a local shopping centre and I had said anytime after five would suit me so it was up to her. She had to be back for university at 4:30 so she asked if we could move it to the following morning. I told her how I once said, she came first in my life so I could re-arrange my schedule a little to see her, but she insisted the next morning before work. Fearing for the worst I messaged her “Blah 2, what is wrong?” to which she replied “no big deal. Just want to catch up. I will see you tomorrow.” Before I let the conversation end there I asked her if she received my letter to which she hastily said yes and that she had to go, and she’d see me tomorrow.

Oh my god I was going insane! It wasn’t just me right? Something was wrong! When I noticed that she’d been tagged from the V Festival I thought if I just flicked through the photos maybe it would clam me down seeing her happy... helping me imagine she is happy. There it was, something Luke described as amazing. The look in his eyes of just how vengeful we could be towards this image scared me. In the photo was a young man lying back on a grassy hill with my girlfriend leaning back towards him and his arm around her. That really didn't calm my nerves and the fact that he was flying the flag at half mast didn't help either!! I kid you not. I still refrain from being a complete arsehole so I won’t post the image as supporting media (sorry Luke) but before I ventured away from the page I did tag the young man’s face as “someone who appears to be hitting on my girlfriend :-)” Luke suggested I tag the erect penis in the photo as "someone's penis at the thought of sleeping with my girlfriend."

So now I am left with my decision, how do I face tomorrow knowing it could be the end? You may remember we haven’t been together long and it might be better now than in the future. Though I am sick of hearing those excuses, because that’s what they are and I am sick and tired of when things go wrong in relationships. My friends tell me it's because sometimes I can be too nice, that nice guys finish last. Yeah, but no one likes an arsehole, do they? That is what I intend to find out. These last few days I have been emotionally torturing myself. What did I do? What didn’t I do? I've also been trying to analyse if she is actually unhappy and going to call it quits. If she is, how can I manage this situation tomorrow to not only walk away with my head held high, but also win the war. This brings me to the greatest social experiment I will ever do. Knowing full well what is going to happen I have the upper hand and can control it and mould it to suit my purposes.

Several different schemes were thought out:

• Friends of mine who don’t really like her said I should play the relieved card, since I can prepare myself emotionally for the heart ache that will come when she breaks up with me, I can conceal the hurt replace facial expressions with looks and expressions of joy. This is called the "I was trying to figure out how to do it to you."
• Or I could be genuine and explain that I know, I understand, and I would never be so selfish as to expect her to make time for me whilst she is tackling such a large work load. This is called the “Overkilling them with kindness”. If she is expecting me to take it badly and I don’t, it may play with her head.
• There was always the option because it is April 1st to turn to her and comment “oh rats, you got me first, I was so going to pull the break up card too this morning being April fool’s and all”. This is called the "You picked the day sweetheart!"
• Or I could always not show up... when she calls confused I can retaliate the confusion with oh that was today?

No. That’s not the way. There is one way I like, I am going to rock up tomorrow with flowers, a compilation CD of all the music we have laid and cuddled too, I am going to tell her how amazing she is and then watch her squirm as she tries to break my heart. I am not trying to stop her from breaking up with me, instead just making it so much harder and painful to bare.

Then that’s when I find out if it’s true, that no one likes the arsehole. I don’t plan for one second to act surprised, once she finds the courage to do what many people can’t I will look her in the eyes and say “sure, ok”. I hope she looks stunned, lost or even worried.

Then I will go on to explain to her that for the past week I have known something wasn’t right, I knew she wasn't happy and I just wished she'd talked to me. That she couldn’t tell me something was wrong and she certainly couldn’t gather the strength to do this sooner made it worst. Instead she left me to sit there, waiting for the day she finally decided to end the torment. Meanwhile I am left wondering what I did wrong and why I couldn’t make her happy.

I will also tell her that this has been so worrying and so painful and I hope she realises that I knew she was planning this for today, that I knew but I'm being nice and giving her a few sweet simple things, flowers and maybe a CD to explain how much she did mean to me.

Hopefully the pain she felt (if any) knowing she had to hurt me when all along I already knew will show her how I feel.

Stay tuned for the conclusion.

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