Originally published December 11

I'd planned on turning this week's entries into a Dickenesque expose on one woman's misadventures, but I find myself losing interest in the subject and thus disinclined to write. Why am I losing interest, you ask? Because I've told the story too many goddamned times. That, too, is her fault. But why write something original when I can use the boilerplate from emails:

An important concession: the relationship really was all over but the discussion. This entire year, my friends have been saying, "Remind me again why you're still with her?" Closeness was intermittent, and the cracks were really starting to show. Why was I still in it? Call it shallow if you please—I won't disagree, and it's been said before—but crashing with her saved me some $24k in taxes and assorted fees. Would you rush a breakup if you knew haste would set you back 24 grand? Me neither. I was counting on her predilection for avoiding conflict at all costs. I knew we should break up, she knew it, but I just wasn't going to pull the trigger until tax year 2004. So she tried to finesse me away. She was rude, thoughtless, dismissive. She stopped cleaning her house, sending the allergen count to 3.5 times what's considered unhealthy. She had my shower "remodeled" from July until yesterday. Lately she recoiled from a touch on the sleeve or a compliment—a sure sign, of course, that there's someone else. I made a game out of it. I would deliberately antagonize her—by saying and doing romantic or thoughtful things! "Let's go away for New Year's," I'd offer. "My treat." And she would look off into space, her face disfigured from discomfort, her expression appropriate only if I'd said "I'd really, really like to anally rape your mother. Want to help?" And by thusly playing dumb guy, I stretched it into December.

So last week, I called her desk to tell her I was leaving for for the weekend. "Oh," she said, distressed. "Can you hang around tonight? I want to talk about our relationship." (cue the kettle drum: bum-bum-BUUUUM)

"I really want to get on the road," I tried.

She was having none of it. "I want marriage and kids," said the clinically barren 37 year old woman, "and I don't see myself getting there with you. I'm not happy with our relationship, and I want to talk."

All I knew is that I wasn't getting stuck in traffic for this. "What relationship? You gave up on our relationship a year ago."

"So are we just friends?"

"Huh?"

"Are we just friends?"

"Whatever," I said, suspicious about why she was suddenly speaking in italics. "Yes. No. Really, you haven't been a friend to me in quite some time."

And so we ended it. I thought the "friends" thing telling and wondered why she wanted our status so overtly defined before I left. And then I remembered the office Christmas party was in two days' time. "She's taking a guy to the party," I predicted to my co-workers and, I might add, to hers. "You watch." I expected reports of a reconciliation with her ex-husband, with whom she'd recently been seen sneaking around while I was out of town.

But I was wrong. It wasn't the ex. It was the guy who's been "just interested in friendship" for four years now. The reports of do-me eyes on the dance floor were filtering to me by Sunday. And I spent all day Monday fielding "When did you guys break up?" phone calls. It might have been a stupid relationship, but she managed to give it a classless, high school ending that no adult deserves. Now pardon me while I go gargle with battery acid in order to get this unpleasant taste out of my mouth.

And now the final word on the topic, an outpouring of bottled-up venting written during that whole gut-wrenching last year.

(Editor's note, July 2004: I originally posted this for just a day, then took it down because it seemed far more hostile than I really felt. Outcry from the readership ensured. I decided to reinstate this entry whenever I rolled the page over. Which I am. Right now.)

Top Ten Classless (or Just Plain Stupid)
Things She Ever Said
in reverse chronological order

10. (tie)	Context: ending relationship in 2002 "You really want kids, and I'm not going to be able to provide that for you." Context: ending relationship in 2003 "I want marriage and kids, and I'm not going to get there with you."
9.	Context: she's angry that I'd told someone we were dating "I've worked hard at forging a very close friendship with Joyce, and she'd be upset if she knew I was lying to her about everything all this time."
8.	Context: after she amassed a small fortune by marrying, cheating on, and divorcing two men in a community property state "I'm so proud of myself for having saved so much by this age."
7.	Context: after excitedly embracing, plunging oodles of money into, then immediately (and I mean immediately) abandoning artsy fad after artsy fad—including dance, Persian philosophy, piano, painting, poetry readings, interior decorating, landscaping, and magazine writing "Why don't you finish your script? I try to be an inspiration to you, to be a good example of someone who follows through on artistic dreams. But it's like I have no effect."
6.	In an upscale antique store, to a lowly and baffled cashier, when Sunset magazine has never heard of her and never would "Hi, I'm a writer for Sunset magazine, and I'm wondering if you'd give me permission to take photographs in your store for my article."
5.	Context: I had just paid a guy a $500 reward for finding my lost dog, who escaped through the gate she had left open all night "He's got a lot of nerve taking your money."
4.	Context: tearily refuting my observation that her mother was laying guilt-trips "I know I'm a doormat, but I won't stand up to her like you would have me do. I can't give up my sensitive side, because I won't give up my creativity for you or any man."
3.	Context: with considerable pride, discussing the character in "Clerks" who'd given 37 men blow-jobs "She's got nothing on me."
2.	Context: I'm doubting the relationship, and she's desperately trying to convince me of her sincerity "It's not like I'm wanting for attention from men."
1.	Context: post-coital embrace after our first time "You just lived the fantasy of every guy I work with."