Never Say You'll Never Leave

When it comes to relationships I’m fantastically adroit at attempting to leave. Amazing. It’s a knack I’ve always had. Maybe it’s in my genes, deep down in some forgotten and otherwise dormant twist of my DNA. No one else in my family seems to have this strange, unwelcome trait. Talents aren’t always positive, I suppose.

Perhaps a little specificity is in order. I think it would be more precise to say that while I have been fantastic at not-quite-leaving what I’ve really perfected is the art of making other people leave. I don’t say this to elicit any sort of pity. None. I’m also not entirely proud of this, to be honest, but it’s the truth. And what’s arguably worse is this talent has been honed entirely on purpose. It’s been a labor of fucked up love for the better part of twenty five years.

Ah, but I owe you an answer already, don’t I, Dear Reader? You’ve already asked the question to yourself and I know it verbatim: why the hell would you devote so much time and effort to such a twisted endeavor? That’s just sick!

Simple really.

Self preservation.

Before you say it, yes, I’m aware I’m well into my forties already. Yes, I’m aware it’s one of the most unhealthy habits I can possibly conceive. Yes, I’m aware I’m probably too old to be acting this way. But to you I say: forty is young! Fifty is young! Especially when you’re single! I am not acting, I’m reacting. And I have been since my early twenties. And honestly if you think this is the least healthy habit I’ve had in my life, honey, you haven’t been paying attention.

If for some reason you find this an attractive character trait and you’d like to know my secret I’m happy to share. It’s actually not a secret. In fact, you could easily call it logical: if you tell the other person you’ll never leave from the get-go, the seed of them having to eventually be the heavy and do the leaving will have been planted. Sooner or later one of you will reap what was sowed. Underhanded and more than a little “icky”, yeah. But effective as hell…and risky. Let me explain.

The difficult part - the hardest by far - is to not get attached. We self-aware codependant folks struggle with this, hence the clinical label. Because of the warring factions of our brains we develop little ways (little = harder to detect) to keep our distance, because we know what we want to do versus what will end up happening, which is us huddled in the fetal position in our showers as our tears mingle with the water and flow down the drain with our other hopes and dreams. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s the usual quasi-sociopathic things like ignoring plans intentionally, but not entirely, so as to have the other person reach out and show some kind of emotional need for us. We always hint at the word love but never say it first. The end goal is to be able to weaponize the connection at will. And it works surprisingly well, not that I’m proud of this today.

The really fucked up part is that I’ve done this so much I can write all this down on autopilot. That said, there is one other thing tied with this for “Most Fucked Up”: a good amount of you are nodding along with my description in the previous paragraph. And most of that nodding is in agreement and recognition of the plan.

Sucks to be called out, doesn’t it?

But there’s another side to the coin. The other shoe is going to drop, if they haven’t thrown it at you already. Sooner or later you get exactly what you wished for. It’s only then you realize how stupid of a plan this all was. It barely made sense. You can’t protect yourself from something you not only orchestrated but welcomed from day one. But they leave. And it hurts. A lot.

But why?

Because, dumbass! - this plan is ridiculous, asinine, and has no end point that isn’t total devastation. You jackwagon!

But maybe taking relationship advice from a divorced guy whose two longest relationships in life turned out to be with lesbians is a bad idea.

Don’t wait to be left.

Don’t leave if you’ve got a good thing.

Don’t listen to me.

Except this smart stuff here at the end. This is the good stuff.